The Best Travel Tools
Hey, friend! I've pulled together my favorite tools and apps to help make your adventures smoother and more fun. Whether you're booking an upcoming flight, finding the best places to stay, or just trying to edit the perfect holiday photo, it's all here.
Flights
I use this the most as it always finds the cheapest flight prices. I'd recommend using this to find where the cheap flight is and then book it directly through the airline. You can choose to watch a flight and Google will notify you when the price fluctuates.
You can choose to book a flight through a 3rd party booking like Agoda or Kiwi if the flights show up cheaper on your Google Flights search instead of booking direct. I've done this many times and haven't had issues. However I have heard people having nightmares going this route, as the airline can't help you if things go wrong, so only do it if you don't care if things go wrong or if you have travel protection. I find it's a great way to save some cash by getting cheap flights.
This is a great platform to use for booking flights that you need to have free cancellation. There's a feature where you can search flights with free cancellation in the event you need flexibility on your flight, or want to secure a flight now but may need to cancel it within 24 hours for whatever reason.
The next best for finding flights, especially with its "everywhere" feature, which lets you search flights from your location to anywhere in the world and filters by cheapest. Really handy for picking your next destination if you don't know where to go.
This app lets you search flights and tells you if the current prices are good or not based on past data, and it'll notify you when the price drops.
Make sure you don't buy flights too early or too late, flights are cheapest about 6-8 weeks out. Flights flown on Tuesdays and Wednesdays are usually the cheapest, and never buy on Fri-Sun. Prices usually spike over the weekend, so search again during the week.
Tours & Group Travel
Useful for booking organized group or private tours and walking tours. Love using these platforms.
Popular companies to book group travel with if solo travel isn't your thing.
Accommodation
This platform everyone knows. Very popular and useful for just about anything: finding the perfect accommodation, tours, things to do, places to eat, and reviews.
Great for booking cheap accommodation if you're either on a budget or looking for a social atmosphere because you're traveling solo. You can book shared dorm rooms or private rooms if you want the social aspect but prefer to sleep alone. They usually provide organized activities, happy hours and scheduled tours. There's also party hostels or more chill laidback ones, read the reviews. Good for all ages but typically on the younger side.
My absolute favorite platform to use. Here you can find everything, shared hostels, cheap hotels, homestays, fancy hotels, unique stays, apartments, and more. The more you book, you advance to what's called Genius levels that offer different levels of discounts.
A similar platform to Booking. Oftentimes they'll have the same properties but with different pricing. They also offer some properties that won't be shown on Booking, so I use both.
Everyone knows this one. Great for private stays, unique stays, large groups, or having the ability to have a kitchen for longer stays.
Great if you're all about fancy hotels, which I'm not. I only ever use Expedia for booking free cancellation flights when I need to provide an exit flight upon entering a new country.
A platform for travelers to crash at another traveler's home for free. The host provides their couch or a spare room for a cultural exchange, great for meeting locals, getting local recommendations, and saving money. Costs $2.99 per month to use.
A private Facebook Group for women only. Hosts from around the world participate in house swapping or hosting another traveler free of charge. If you'd like to use this, consider joining the group on Facebook, it's linked to their public page.
I always check between the Hostelworld, Agoda and Booking apps to see which ones have the best places and prices. Pricing can vary across apps depending on your discount status. And as always, please read the reviews carefully and stay safe.
Communication
Before you travel to any country, you should secure your data before you even land. This prevents any headaches trying to organize transport, maps, and getting to your destination. Not all airports have reliable wifi, and once you leave the doors of the airport you're on your own. The desks at the airport who sell sim cards overcharge, and if you're like me with a newer iPhone, there isn't even a slot for a physical sim. Your best bet is to just get an eSIM.
If you aren't already using this, download it immediately. The rest of the world, aside from the USA and Australia it seems, uses this for communication over SMS text. It works the same, you can send texts, make phone calls, and do video calls, except it's done over the internet instead of through a phone plan, so you can use your data or wifi. There's no fees for crossing international borders and a lot of overseas businesses use it too, so it's brilliant. I only use WhatsApp, don't even bother sending me an SMS.
You can use these to make phone calls and video calls nowadays as well. My dad doesn't use WhatsApp or know how to download it, so we always communicate via FB Messenger for texting and video calls.
These are great if you're traveling and need to do business meetings. There are free versions so long as the meeting stays under a certain time.
If you're traveling abroad and need to make a phone call from within your country to your country, for example a bank, you just pay to top up your account and you can make phone calls.
If you're traveling, do not ever use your home plan abroad. Don't even pay for an international plan, it's just not worth the cost. It's so much cheaper to get a local sim card or an eSIM. The great thing about an eSIM is you can have multiple phone numbers on at the same time.
Maps
My favorite map for offline maps. You can download a country and have access to it when you don't have data. You can save spots you want to go so you can visually plan your trip. It's also cool because other travelers have added viewpoints, trails, waterfalls, and more, and sometimes rate whether it's worth visiting.
Also really great for driving to destinations and choosing toll routes or not. It lets you download offline maps too, for when you don't have data, and you can save places you want to go by city, by category, and more. People actually sell their saved locations for places if you want a list of spots to check out before you arrive somewhere, which can be especially cool for off the beaten path finds.
We use satellite view in Google Maps when we need to find a secluded, wooded area to camp in sometimes.
Budgeting
A budget app that lets you track your spending. You can set up a trip, add multiple currencies, and see a pie chart of how you've spent your money. You can set a daily or trip budget and it'll show you how much you've spent each day and in total, and how much you have left to spend. I use this every time I'm somewhere new to monitor my spending. If you're traveling long term it's so important to be mindful of where your money is going so you don't run out.
This app actually isn't in use anymore. I still use it because I already have it downloaded, but many recommend TravelSpend instead.
Incredible for traveling with other people. You can easily set up a group and each person can add what they've spent and who it should be divided between, the whole group or just a few individuals. At the end of the trip it easily shows who owes who what. It makes tracking group spending so easy.
Language
This app is awesome because you can download a language and use it offline to translate. Perfect for being in remote areas of a country where no one might speak your language or English. You can even use the camera function to scan the words on a menu or sign and it translates right on the screen for you.
Great for learning a new language, or at the very least the basics for traveling to a new country. There's a free or paid version. I chose this one when learning German because it offered more explanation on grammar in my opinion. I renewed my paid membership to learn Spanish, but so far I haven't gotten very far.
Probably the most popular app for learning a new language or the basics. There's also a free or paid version.
I'd always learn the basics before going somewhere new. It's polite and can be very helpful: hello, bye, thank you, please, where's the bathroom, how much is this, may I pay.
Transport
The go-to for comparing car rentals for your trip. Easily compare suppliers, car types, features, ratings, prices and more.
The go-to for most countries. If there isn't Uber, they most likely have the equivalent. Research that country and download the app.
A service similar to Uber.
Another service similar to Uber, usually their competitor.
The Uber of Southeast Asia. I love them because you can take a motorbike instead of a car if you want, and they deliver everything under the sun.
The way to travel around Europe if you're on a budget. These buses practically go everywhere and are at a great price, perfect for backpackers.
The best platform for organizing buses, trains, and ferries in Asia. Highly recommend organizing everything through here, you can compare prices from different operators, times, and pickup/drop off points.
A service similar to Uber in use in Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Omio is my favorite platform for booking trains, buses, or ferries in Europe. Super simple to do via an app and you get the ticket right to your phone. You can also search Rome2Rio for additional routes, but they were acquired by Omio.
If there's multiple options, check a few to compare prices, there's a lot more than this list, so look at what's local to where you're going. And if you're using trains, trams, buses, or ferries, look for the local app if Omio, Rome2Rio or 12Go doesn't work.
Photo/Video Editing
The best app to edit photos. The mobile version is free. You can play around on your own and create your own presets, or buy them from other photographers. These can make your photos pop and give you a cohesive look.
A free tool used to create videos, reels or TikToks. A popular one amongst creators.
Another free tool used to create videos, reels or TikToks. Probably the most popular.
A tool to create beautiful, cohesive stories.
The best app for so many uses: creating reels, reel covers, stories, and more.
The app for flying your drone that you can also use to edit and create videos within the app.
A serious platform for editing videos if you want to get into making professional looking ones with color grading. Free compared to Adobe Premiere Pro.
There are several tools out there, these are just some really popular ones.
Others
If you're working remotely or need to access anything that requires you to be "in your country" when logging in, this is useful. It changes your IP address so it appears you're there. You can even use this to book flights from a place like India so your prices are cheaper.
If you want to work and travel with like minded people, this is a great way to travel as a digital nomad if you don't like solo travel.
Useful for finding free or paid campsites, water sources, and more. Search for your destination and their local app.
Useful for hiking, finding trails, and more.
I hope you found these tools valuable. For more travel tips, head on over to my Travel Tips page to read more!
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