Travel Tools I couldn't live without
My favorite travel resources for planning my next adventure
This post is part of my monthly travel tips series for paid subscribers. As it is the first post of the series, I am making it available to free subscribers as well so you have a taste of what paid subscribers get. All subscribers get my biweekly travel itineraries, and my deeply heartfelt thanks. I hope you find this post useful!
On any average day in my childhood, you would find my little sister and I in our bright living room in the Swedish countryside, spinning a large plastic globe. Our games of dress-up always started like this. She would look on wide-eyed as I spun it as fast as my little hands could, and lifted one finger to stop it abruptly on a random point. Where my finger landed is the destination we pretended to be exploring that day.
Now I have different methods, a bit more technological, for deciding where to go, and what to do, when I travel. But the excitement, openness, and opportunity of it still excites me just as that game did when I was a child. I obsessively plan and research my travel destinations, and carefully craft itineraries, because it’s my way of bottling that excitement and building it up as the countdown begins to my next departure.
I now want to introduce you, as one of the first paid subscribers to this newsletter, to the tools and resources on the web that help me the most in my entire process of planning for a trip. I’ll cover what resources I use to answer the following questions:
Where should I travel to?
How do I get there?
Where should I stay?
What should I do (and eat!)?
How do I keep track of it all?
I have actively been putting all these tools to test through years of travel to 60 countries, and will share anecdotes of how I used them throughout. I also have to add that I am not sponsored by any of these companies—I’m simply sharing them so it may make it easier for you to plan your next trip. I hope you enjoy the journey!
Top Tools for: Where should I travel to?
Skyscanner
Skyscanner is my go-to platform for finding affordable flight combinations, and one of the major reasons is because it has directed me before to places I never thought to visit. When I completed my Masters in London, I wanted to celebrate with a little solo trip. I didn’t know where to go, though, and as a graduating student I had a limited budget. So I opened Skyscanner and put my point of departure London (all airports) and destination “Everywhere”. It pulled up a list of all possible destinations for my selected dates in the order of the cheapest to most expensive.
That is how I ended up getting a round trip flight for $50 to a part of Spain I’d never heard of, Asturias, and it ended up being one of my favorite solo trips ever. I walked part of the Camino Primitivo on the Asturian coast, hiked through flowering fields in the Cantabrian mountains, and got a tour of Oviedo by three Polish exchange students. Imagine a week before, I’d never even heard of this region!
Instagram
Social media can actually be a great tool to discover hidden (and not-so-hidden) gems and expose yourself to destinations you hadn’t previously considered. You can simply search “travel to Albania” or “hidden gems Italy” in Instagram and get inspiration with the various posts and reels.
Sometimes when I come across a cool place while scrolling, I save it, or share it with my partner, and sooner or later we plan a vacation there (it was one of the main reasons I spent three incredible weeks in Albania when I went backpacking around the world). Is it still doom scrolling if it inspires a beautiful real-life travel experience?
Top Tools for: How do I get there?
🛫 By air
While I usually use the above-mentioned Skyscanner as a starting point, I then move on to different airline websites to select. Skyscanner will show you a range of options for purchasing a flight route, many of them third-party websites that won’t be much help to you if your flight is delayed or cancelled, or your baggage is lost. For extra security, I always try to book directly with the airline. You can get the cheapest fares by also being flexible with your departure date. For example I saved $200 recently by choosing to fly on a Wednesday instead of a Sunday.
Here are some airlines that often have low fares on long-haul flights (especially between the Americas and Europe):
Norse (usually flies via Oslo)
Level (good for flights into/out of Spain)
TAP Air (great for an extended layover in Portugal)
Air Europa (good for flights into/out of Madrid)
Frenchbee (good for flights to/from Paris)
🚆 By train
If you want to choose a more environmentally friendly option, I would recommend Omio. It is actually a tool that helps you find both train, bus, and flight fares and compare them at the same time, but I use it mainly for train fares. The platform is intuitive, comprehensive, and comes with minimal fees.
🚍 By bus
Busbud was amazing for booking bus tickets all over South America, as well as looking for options in Europe. It’s a great option with a comprehensive view of bus routes throughout the world.
🤷♀️ Not sure
If I want to explore all the ways I could get to a place, especially a more remote destination, and compare both the time they would take and their relative cost, there is only one tool that will do that magic for me: Rome2Rio. As it hints in the name, this tool will find all possible combinations of transport options to get you from A to B anywhere in the world, for example from Rome, Italy, to Rio (de Janeiro), Brazil.
I’ve found this tool especially useful for figuring out how to get to ski resorts or hiking trails via public transportation. Most ski destinations and trail starts are more accessible by car, but since I still don’t have a driver’s license and yet I love both skiing and hiking, I need to rely on a series of connections to indulge in those hobbies. Rome2Rio always finds a way!
Top Tools for: Where should I stay?
Booking.com
Most of the time I book accommodation on Booking.com. I like the platform’s easy search functionality and plentiful reviews for each option. Through my “Genius” level I usually get small perks, like breakfast included or a cheaper deal. I booked most of our accommodation on the Camino de Santiago through Booking.com actually (more details on that here).
Airbnb
When I am going to more remote places, or need a place that fits a bigger group, I tend to go to airbnb. My dad runs an airbnb out of the lower floor of his house on the Gulf of Mexico coast of Florida and has had great experiences sharing his little slice of paradise with people from all over the world. While people shouldn’t treat an airbnb as a hotel stay, because it is usually someone’s home and doesn’t have a full staff to handle amenities, you can often find the most incredible properties through here.
I like their new search functionality that directs you to more unique locations. My boyfriend used that to search for “beautiful views” to find the stunning little cabin in the village of Laguna Verde on the coast of Chile for a romantic getaway for us, and we had the most magnificent view towards a dramatic cove facing the Pacific.
Host a Sister
Back in 2011 I joined couchsurfing, and had many incredible experiences hosting, being hosted, and joining a vibrant community of like-minded travelers. However, about 5 years into using that platform, it took a nosedive, with an interface difficult to navigate and increasing prices for membership on what used to be a free platform. That was when I fortuitously discovered “Host a Sister”, a facebook group connecting women to host each other in safe, welcoming places around the world. It captured the trusting and open-minded spirit of Couchsurfing, while cultivating a worldwide sisterhood.
I hosted several times through this group in my Paris apartment, when I lived there 2019-2021, and made incredible friends with the women I hosted, from places as distant as Sri Lanka and Mexico. Later, when I visited Mexico, I met up with the girl I hosted in Paris, and she showed me where the locals go in Tulum, and even invited me to her wedding. So next time you solo travel, consider joining the facebook group (if you’re a woman) and looking for a host, or even a simple meet-up, to connect with locals in your destination.
Workaway
If you are really low on funds, and willing to work a few days and hours on your vacation with something a bit different from your day job, consider volunteering.
I have used the platform Workaway to find volunteer opportunities traveling, and through it had the most incredible stay on a farm in Montenegro for two weeks in September 2023. We stayed in a renovated donkey barn and spent a few hours each day harvesting sweet potatoes (that we got to have a taste of later in the week), building stone walls according to ancient local practices, and doing yard work around clucking chickens and adorable cat, all with views towards surrounding mountains and Skadar Lake.
In return we got free accommodation and free food (full of fresh greens harvested on the premises) and drink (they made their own gin on the premises and had beer on tap) as well as new friends, in the French-Australian couple that ran the farm. We spent nearly nothing those two weeks and had such a memorable time. The next month my boyfriend spent a few weeks in a Turkish beach town harvesting olives and learning how to make olive oil, while getting to know the lovely Belgian-Turkish family that owned the small olive farm. It was such a great way to extend our travels when money was tight.
Top Tools for: What should I do (and eat!)?
Google Maps
I am such a nerd for maps. I could spend hours scouring little corners of the globe, either digitally or in a physical Atlas. I have so many different lists and starred locations across the world on my Google Maps it looks like a constellation at this point. When I have a destination in mind, I zoom into that place on google maps and start virtually exploring, for interesting parks, museums, restaurants, cafés, etc. Reading reviews and openly exploring this often helps me stumble upon hidden gems and unique locations.
To keep it organized, I usually save items for a particular location to a list with the name of the destination (the city or country). That way, if someone asks me later for advice on traveling there, I can easily just send them the link to my google maps list, and even leave comments on things like what to order and what it cost me.
Travel Blogs (and Vlogs)
While resources like TripAdvisor and organized tour sites like Viator and Get Your Guide are great for the top sights, I prefer to rely on travel blogs for ideas on how I can tailor my trip, learn ahead what the reality on the ground is really like, and discover hidden gems to check out. I usually just do a simple Google search with key words like “3-day itinerary for Cuzco” or “what to do in Porto in September” or “blog hidden gems Yucatan”.
I also do the same keyword search in Youtube, to find helpful vlogs. For some cool vlogs on destinations like Turkey, Mexico, and Morocco, check out my friend Vanessa’s excellent travel videos on her youtube channel Wander Onwards (she also has great resources for moving abroad).
Top Tools for: How do I keep track of it all?
For a single trip, I might book flights, trains, bus fares, and different accommodation options, all from different websites. The one tool that keeps it all in one place is TripIt. I’ve used it as my travel planning tool for years. Whenever you make a trip booking, you just forward it to plans@tripit.com and they automatically load the details into an easy-to-follow itinerary. If the email isn’t easily ready by the tool, you can also add it manually.
It was amazing for when we walked the Camino de Santiago and booked all our accommodation in advance, on a range of platforms such as Booking.com, Airbnb, and directly on the accommodation website (more on planning that trip here).
Those are all my top tips for you. I hope you found this useful. Thank you so much for being a paid subscriber and continuing to support my passion for travel and making adventures possible for others.
Please share in the comments: Is there a website or an app that you’ve found indispensable when traveling that I didn’t mention above?
While I appreciate every one of these tips, I am especially delighted with the opening of this edition of The Adventure Agenda because it features my two favorite little girls in the whole wide world and I love being reminded of your fascination with the globe from a young age and the game that you and Sara would play, to go on imaginary trips. Those photos, too! As your mother who has traveled to many destinations with you, and who always has her hand up to travel with you on a future adventure, I know I can count on everything not only going smoothly but delivering so many wonderful experiences because you have done the research and planning ahead of time. Now others can benefit from your talent for travel planning and discovery!