RESOURCES

Ultimate Travel Resources

On this page you will find an overview of the best travel resources which will help you for your next adventure to book flights, hotels, transportation, insurance or organize stuff.

If you go on your first trip, it can be overwhelming where to start, where to book, where to do researches or what to pack. My resources will help and guide you with all the needed information.

Accommodation

On “The ultimate accommodation list” blog post you will find all the hostels, hotels or guesthouses I have stayed and can recommend.

Booking.com

Booking.com is one of my favorite websites to book accommodations all around the world. You will find a lot of good deals and get some “genius” discounts after you used booking.com a few times.
You can also use my referral link to Booking.com, book your Hotel and get $15 Booking.com reward after your stay.

Hotels.com

Hotels.com is the other great hotel or hostel booking website. I use it especially in Europe and Asia. The amazing things about hotels.com is their reward program. Just sign up for free with hotels.com and after every 10th night, you will get one night for free! With that I could save sometimes up to $40!
hotels.com

Agoda

In Southeast Asia and South Korea Agoda.com is very popular and I used it often to find the cheapest places to stay.

Hostelworld

Hostelworld is the number one website for finding Hostels all over the world. It has the highest amount of hostels and there are millions of genuine reviews from other travellers.
They only drawback for me, sometimes it’s not clear if taxes or additional fees are included or not.

Couchsurfing

Couchsurfing is my favorite travel community and is one of the best ways to get in touch with locals. You can use it for finding a host and staying for free or just to meet up with other people. They can show you around and guide you to hidden places, tell you where to eat (good and cheap) or they join you and you can try some dishes which you would never order by yourself. And last but not least, you can stay for free.

Airbnb

Whenever I want to have a comfy private room or apartment to recharge my batteries, I choose Airbnb. Most of the time you can get the best deals for a fully furnished apartment with kitchen with it. Nowadays even Hostels offer dorm beds on Airbnb.
Claim your $40 credit for your first booking if you register and book on Airbnb through my link.

Flights

On my “How to find cheap flights” page you will find more detailed information on how to search and find cheap flights.
Bellow are the flight search engines I use the most.

Kayak

In general with Kayak I have personally found the cheapest flights most of the time and it is my favorite flight search engine.
But to be sure, you should always check a second search engine. And after I have found the cheapest flight/airline via the search engine I always go to the airline webpage to see if it is the same price there.

Skyscanner

Skyscanner is a great flight search engine if you are looking for the cheapest flight from your departure city, on a particular date but to anywhere in the world. Then you can choose your vacation destination based on the flight prices.

Momondo

Other travellers claim that Momondo is the best websites to find cheap flights, but I can’t confirm that as I haven’t used them too often so far. I will use them in the future as well to compare the different prices.

Traveloka

Traveloka is one of the leading flight and hotel booking platforms in Southeast Asia. I have found many cheap flights for that region. Furthermore they help you now as well to find the cheapest flights all around the world. It’s well worth checking out Traveloka for flights within Southeast Asia.

Flights, Hotels & Travel Packages

Expedia

If you are looking for flights, hotels or complete travel packages, Expedia has good offers. I think especially for North America, South America and Germany.

eDreams

The eDreams search engine offers good flight deals. I used it many times already. Sometimes you can even get a discount from them. Additionally, you can combine a flight and hotel search, which can save you money.

Loveholidays

Need a break from planing your vacation all by yourself? Looking for amazing vacation packages? Then loveholidays.com is your choice! If it is All Inclusive in the sun, a romantic couple getaway or a weekend city trip, they have the perfect options ready for you. Loveholidays has revolutionized the way of offering holidays. And they provide four flexible payment options to choose from, in a bid to make holidays more affordable for everyone.

Transportation

Rome2Rio

Rome2Rio is a very useful website for all over the world if you have no idea on how to get from A to B. They will show you what’s the fastest or cheapest option. It will show you many different options as flights, boats, locals buses, bus companies, shuttles or taxis. It’s very helpful to get a first overview on how to get from one place to the other

12GO.asia

12GO.asia is one of the best travel transportation planning website I have used for Southeast Asia. You can book Buses, Trains, Ferries, Transfers and Flights for Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Philippines. They are very reliable and have comparative prices. If you need a transfer to the airport, an overnight train ticket to save a night in the hostel or to book a bus ticket without going to the bus station or to an agency you don’t know you can easily use 12go.asia.

Seat 61

You like riding and exploring a country by train? Then “The Man in Seat Sixty-One” from www.seat61.com is the one and only resource on train travel. All kind of information, schedules, ticket prices or hints for a particular country are shown on this website.

Travel Apps

Visit my post about the 21 Best Travel Apps

Travel Information

Travel Blogs

My main source of information while travelling is from other travel blogs, as you can get insider information, budget advice, destination inspirations or how to get from A to B in a remote location.
When I started travelling I often used Nomadic Matt’s Budget Travel Blog for example. He has great an long budget travel experience and a ton of amazing travel advices and destination information. The Expert Vagabond is another good resource.

Happy Face Traveller

Of course my own blog is now an amazing source of travel advice as well. On my Where I’ve been page you will find all the countries and major places I have visited and on my Destinations section you will find useful information, tips and posts about Destinations and you can ask me for advice whenever you want.

Facebook Travel Groups

The Facebook backpacker and travel groups are a perfect way to get up to date information from other travellers about any topics like: Current weather, safety situation in a certain place, which hostel to stay, where is a party tonight, who wants to meet up, search for a travel buddy, the list goes on and on.
Here are some of the groups I use often:

Backpacking South America, Philippines Backpacker, Backpacking Nicaragua, Backpacking Central America, Central America Backpacking, Thailand Cambodia Laos Vietnam Backpacker, Malaysia Singapore Backpacker, Couchsurfer and Backpacker Philippines, Japan travel group, Backpacking Thailand, Backpacking Colombia.

TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor is the all in one travel page for general information. It can be used for reviews of hotels or tours. You can used it to find the most popular sightseeing spots in a city or specific region and to see hotel rankings and even compare hotel prices through TripAdvisor. Especially, I like the TripAdvisor forum, where you can ask for advice and communicate with other travellers. Use this personal TripAdvisor link for possible discounts, but it works only if you are in the US!

Lonely Planet

Personally I am not a big fan of carrying around kilograms of books with me, but I met a lot of traveller who are using the Lonely Planet travel guide books. It’s a good choice when you have long bus rides or flights to read them (while having no internet connection). Every time I read one (when they had it in a hostel or from another traveller) I’ve found accurate and up to date information.

Blogging Resources

SiteGround Webhosting

Having a good, reliable and fast web hosting provider is essential for building and running your blog. It is important that it can handle all the pageviews and request. SiteGround has an easy-one click WordPress installation and in case you need any help they have an excellent customer support.
SiteGround is the perfect hosting company for web sites and especially blogs.
Prices starting as low as $3.95 per months if you use my SiteGround discount link.

WordPress

Wordpress.org is the most used website creation tool for Bloggers. I think it’s the easiest and most powerful blogging, website and CMS (content management system) creation tool and it’s all online. I highly recommend to use www.wordpress.org and definitely not wordpress.com, as wordpress.org is self-hosted which is needed if you want to monetize your blog someday.

Themify Theme

I can highly recommend to use Themify as a WordPress theme. Themify is a powerfull theme for building wordpress websites. Its drag & drop builder helps you a lot to simplify creating your website without almost any coding.

Superstar Blogging

Unfortunately nobody is born with all the knowledge which is needed for running a successful blog and business. Therefore, are you ready to take your blog to the next level and make money?
Get insights from the experts. Famous Nomadic Matt’s Superstar Blogging courses are excellent, all-in-one courses which also offers ongoing support via his closed Facebook group. Nomadic Matt and his fantastic team offers Superstar Blogging courses for: The business of travel blogging, How to become a travel writing, How to become a travel photographer or How to become a travel filmmaker.

SEO Course

Improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to generate more organic traffic to your website. SEO and keyword research is important in order to rank on the first page of Google and to gain organic (unpaid) traffic to your website or blog. Read more on my Brief SEO Overview post and why you should participate in the Pajama Affiliates “Keyword Research and SEO Training” course.

Miscellaneous

Visa Information

Depending on the country you are going, knowing the Visa rules and requirements can be essential to avoid being rejected at the immigration or to get a penalty when you are leaving the country. For some Countries you need to apply for a Visa before you travel there (e.g. China or Russia), some have visa-on-arrival services or for others you don’t need a visa at all. Visas are in general valid for 30, 90 or 180 days. Therefore always check the stamp in your passport (before leaving the immigration desk) to figure out how long you can stay.

The Visa requirements depend on the Nationality, respectively the passport you are travelling with!
On the Visa Requirements Wikipedia Page you can select the country you are from to see on example the “Visa requirements for Swiss citizens” for all the other countries in the world.

Or go to VisaHQ, enter “citizens of” and “traveling to” and it will show you the exact visa requirements for your destination country. Easily order the visa from their page if you need one.

Travel Insurance World Nomads

You might think saving money on travel and health insurance is a good option, but it can be the worst decision! You really NEVER KNOW when you get sick, when you will have an accident (even it might not be your fault), problems with your teeth or some of your expensive valuables will be stolen (especially electronic gear).
Therefore I suggest to travel always with an health/travel insurance. It can safe you 10’000 of dollars at the end. Travel Insurance from World Nomdas will get you covered.

Hola!VPN Plugin

Install the hola!VPN Chrome Browser extension (plugin) on your Tablet or Notebook to surf public Wi-Fi with more security. The VPN can get you around firewalls and most important it will let you view Facebook, use Google services, watch Netflix or any other local TV channel in ways you normally can’t. It can be used to overcome regional restrictions for all kind of purposes. In China on example you are able to use your loved apps which are normally blocked. In other countries you can watch TV channels from your home country.

Best time to visit a country

Don’t know when it is the best time to visit your vacation destination(s) regarding the weather? Check out the Weltreise-Info.de page for a good and quick overview per country per month. You can easily add your desired countries all over the world and it will show you per months the best time to visit, good time to visit, not so good time and worst time to visit. The listing is only regarding the weather, “worst time” means it is rainy season, hurricane season or extreme heat or cold.

Ultimate Packing List

It can always be a big hassle to think what you should back for your vacation, especially for backpacking and long-term travelling.
In my Ultimate Travel Packing List you will find all the necessary travel gear you need. Or do you want to print the packing list to tick off your stuff? Sign up here to receive the packing list in a printable format and to get from time to time new posts about travel tropics as inspiration for you next vacation by email.

Best travel backpack

Don’t know which backpack is the best for travelling? Check out my personal backpack review of the convertible wheeled Osprey Sojourn 60L backpack, which is my one and only favorite backpack for travelling.

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