To Find a Place to Stay for Less
Agoda: we’ve found great deals in apartments, guesthouses, and boutique hotels through this site. They have a convenient Monthly Stay search for your long-term stays.
Airbnb: homeowners list their apartments, houses, cottages, cabins, boats, or private rooms on the platform. We’ve stayed in apartments and private rooms using this site. It includes a separate segment for upscale and luxury properties.
Booking.com: you’ll find any type of property you can think of in their massive listing, with one of the most comprehensive search filters. We’ve found great deals on boutique hotels, apartments, houses, and private rooms in hostels (yes, sometimes we stay in hostels -private room with private bathroom-, and it’s fun!).
Hotwire: I check this site to save anything from 20% to 60% whenever we stay in a hotel for a few nights. How does it work?
You first apply the common search filters (city/town, hotel class, price range, guest ratings, amenities, location, type of room, etc.).
Under the “Hot Rate” tab you’ll find the search results including the prices, but not the name of the properties.
Click on any result and you’ll see the name of three hotels (or hotel chains) that meet your criteria. You can’t pick and choose, but at least you know you’ll stay at one of those three.
“After” you book your stay you’ll know where you’re going.
If you can handle a little bit of uncertainty you can score big savings.
House Sitting: you take care of people’s pets and homes for free while staying at their place for free. This exchange is the closest thing to experiencing a place “like a local” while saving tons of money. But it comes with responsibilities. If you’re an animal lover, learn more about house sitting.
To Book a Flight Without Losing Your Shirt
Google Flights: this site is great to start your search and get a general idea of routes and costs. It has a clean and simple interface, perfect for that “Where could I go from here?” phase. Customizing your preference and signing up for price alerts it’s a breeze. They display the best routes on top, followed by extra options.
Great Escape: one of the most powerful search engines I’ve found so far. It goes through Expedia, Kiwi, and Kayak to bring you the most comprehensive results. You can track a specific search when you sign up for deal alerts.
Not sure where to go? Enter your departure point and leave your destination blank. Dots on a world map will show your options (like Kayak Explore and Google Flights, but on steroids and sexier). As you hover over the dots you’ll see fares, stops, popularity, and weather. Sign up for the Premium service to search three months ahead, add results from Skyscanner, and other perks.
Momondo: their exhaustive search listings will deliver some of the best deals and prices. I like that their price trends graph is conveniently displayed at the top of the results to help you narrow down the best time to book your flight.
Skiplagged: worth checking as they find you good prices, even if it’s a layover city. No one else shows you that.
To Get Travel Insurance: Because You Never Know…
SafetyWing: our travel insurance of choice. Their plan offers affordable plans for nomads who spend a long time outside their home countries. No need to update your destination -coverage includes 175 + countries-, and the plan renews automatically every 28 days.
They also have a global health insurance plan with more comprehensive coverage.
To Find Out How to Get Where You Want to Go
Maps.me: I love this app. It works offline when you download the map to your phone making navigation a breeze. It has saved our behinds on more than one occasion in overgrown trails when we couldn’t see a freakin’ mark.
Transportation (man in seat 61, rentalcars.com)
Connectivity (VPN, portable wi-fi, Backblaze, Dropbox)
Tour companies
Packing guides