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We have been using SafetyWing for all our health insurance (including COVID) and travel insurance needs! Check out our full breakdown on what to look for in travel insurance below!
After saving money to travel the world for over 2 years, we have a lot to share about travel finances. Check out all of our favorite saving tips, credit cards, budget resources, and more!
If you are planning on doing any sort of traveling, ensuring you make the most of the points you earn is important. We have all our favorite travel credit cards and travel hacking tips here for you!
Saving money before we started traveling has allowed us to travel for over 2 years without making any money! Read all about our saving tips and favorite travel savings accounts.
Budgeting before and during your travels is important. We have plenty of tips on how to stay organized and how to stick to your budget while traveling the world.
I am a huge organizational nerd so I have fine-tuned our travel templates a ton over the years. And now I want to give them to you! FOR FREE! Sign up for the weekly Travel Tip Tuesday Newsletter and get all our travel freebies!
Over the past 2 years, we have come to know and love certain sites while booking our travels. These are the same websites we use to book every trip we go on!
flights
We use Google Flights 90% of the time. They have a great aggregate of the top budget airlines around the world and offer easy ways to search for the best dates. We often use the Explore feature to find the best deals on flights around a certain date or time frame. Pro Tip: only use in Private Browser to keep prices low!
We started using FareDrop to help us find awesome deals on flights all around the world. This site is especially helpful if you have a lot of flexibility when you travel. They find crazy deals sometimes up to 80% off normal prices. We have the Business Plan so they search for great deals on Business Class flights too!
If you have miles or credit card points, you will want to check out AwardHacker to find the best value for your points. You simply enter the route you are looking at (and can include nearby airports) and it will list all the possible awards flights.
accommodations
We have been using Airbnb to book our “home” away from home. We have found great apartments, homes, and some really cool unique stays. Booking through Airbnb you know you are protected and have 24/7 customer support (which we have needed and used). Plus they have homes in 220+ countries and regions. And you are supporting the local homeowners!
When we are looking for hotels or have a short stay, we always look for our hotels on Booking.com. I personally love the filters available (private bathroom, 9 stars) and the map is always easy to use. Genius Level 2 has gotten us tons of discounts, free upgrades, and complimentary breakfast.
We are Hilton loyal, although we might be biased (we used to work for Hilton). Since we stay at a lot of Hiltons throughout the year, we use our points a lot. The best way to book Hilton hotels is always direct with their price match guarantee and you always get points to use on future free stays!
excursions
We don’t book a lot of excursions with guides or tours but when we do, we try to always go through Get Your Guide. They have a large selection of options and a great user interface to make it easy to find what you’re looking for. They also have a great refund policy and customer service!
When we can’t find what we are looking for on Get Your Guide, we turn to TripAdvisor to find more independent companies. This is a great place to go because you can see all their reviews and photos to ensure you are booking exactly what you want.
Over the years, my travel planning process has been refined and improved (a lot). These are now all the apps and websites I use on a weekly basis to plan all of our travels. They are all FREE and easy to use.
App in the Air is a great flight tracking app. I add all of our flights to the app and it keeps us updated on delays or changes in the gate. It also keeps a record of how many miles we’ve flown, which is a fun stat for us to see!
Once I start the planning process, I jump into Google Maps. I have a saved list for each destination and from there I will save all the locations for our trip. I save restaurants, tourist attractions, hotels, airports, parks, and more!
I have the Tripit calendar connected to Google Calendar so I can see all our calendars in one place. The iPhone widget is perfect for getting a quick overview of our day and week.
We have all of our loyalty programs connected to Award Wallet to make it easy to find when booking a flight or hotel. It also pulls your miles & points so you can access all that information in one place.
Notion is my go-to for all things travel, work, and personal. This free app makes it easy to organize your life in one place. Check out our free Notion travel templates to see how we use it for travel!
