As a traveler and travel nerd who fully fesses up to spending hours at a time (and I really do mean hours) doing research for my trips, I am all about the travel resources. All 👏🏾 about 👏🏾 them 👏🏾 (had to emphasize that point).
In fact, I have an entire page dedicated to my travel resources. And even though that page is accessible to everyone all year-long, I wanted to share my all-time, absolute favorites. A number of these are my immediate go-tos for pretty much every single trip I take, and I don’t know where I’d be without them. Love you, travel resources, xoxo.
Okay, on to the list:
Google Flights
I can’t count the number of times I visit Google Flights a day. Sometimes I go there without even realizing it. It’s habit. I love how easy it is to search most airlines’ flights and, though I initially hated the new design and interface, I’ve grown to find it more helpful than the old classic design.
The Flight Deal
The Flight Deal provides (you guessed it) flight deals. I’ve been following this site for awhile and they’re helped me travel to several great destinations around the world. Tip: sign up for their newsletter and, better yet, follow their social media accounts so you can see the deals in real-time.
The Points Guy
I don’t think I’ve made it a secret that I place a lot of value on points and miles, and I owe that all to The Points Guy. It wasn’t until I started reading this site that I truly understood just how great points and miles can be. I use them for flights but you can also easily earn and redeem hotel points as well. It’s all well worth it.
TripAdvisor
I love TripAdvisor, though I always preface that love by saying I don’t take everything on there at face value. I mostly love it for the forums and for giving me a general sense of the things to do in a new place. It doesn’t mean I actually think the number one hotel or restaurant on there is actually the best, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t read the reviews to see what people generally think. It’s helped me find some great tours, restaurants and places to stay along the way.
Kayak Alerts
When I’m not using points or miles for flights and I need to track airfare for a specific time and place, I always set up alerts so that I can see when/if the price of a flight goes down or up. And instead of going to these sites and manually checking every day, I just have the latest airfare sent directly to my email every day, which saves me the hassle.
Booking.com
For hotels, particularly hotels that offer free cancelation, I always first go to Booking.com. For starters, I find their hotel pages to be mostly intuitive and nice to look at. Eveb if I’m not booking a hotel through the site, I like to see the hotel’s page on Booking.com to see what the overall rating is and what people are saying about it. Most importantly, when I am booking through this site, I like being able to book with free cancelation in case something else comes up.
Tricount
A friend shared this app with me a few years ago, and since then, I’ve used it for every single group trip. Tricount does all the work for you when you’re traveling with others and want to keep track of who’s paying for what and who owes who money. Simply input the information as you go along, and by the end of the trip, you’ll have the total amount spent and the most efficient way of determining who owes and is owed money.
What are your favorite travel resources?
