Travel Resources

G Adventures runs small-group trips with local guides. Their thoughtfully planned trips include cultural experiences which would be hard to plan on your own, and their itineraries offer enough independent time so you won’t feel smothered.

Intrepid Travel offers small-group adventures built around local leaders, practical logistics, cultural connection, and responsible travel.

TourRadar is an aggregator (not a tour company).  It’s a marketplace where you can compare multi-day tours by destination, operator, itinerary, reviews, price, travel style, and departure date.

Urban Adventures offers locally led city tours focused on neighborhoods, food, culture, and stories you would likely miss on your own.  They are not available everywhere, but when they are, Urban Adventures is my go-to.

Get Your Guide helps you book tours, attraction tickets, day trips, food experiences, and local activities without digging through endless options.  It’s the first place I check if Urban Adventures doesn’t serve a location.

Viator offers a large marketplace of tours, day trips, tickets, transfers, and activities when you want plenty of choices in one place.  If I don’t find what I need at Get Your Guide, I’ll check Viator.

Context Travel offers expert-led walking tours for travelers who want deeper history, culture, architecture, and local insight.   If you search on “small group tours” you will find reasonably priced options in a wide variety of locations.  Private tours are also available, but those can be spendy unless you are splitting the cost with a larger group.

Eating Europe offers food-centered walking tours, cooking classes, and experiences that connect you with local flavors, neighborhood stories, and a better sense of place. A food tour is a good way to kick off any trip.

Google Flights is my first stop for comparing routes, dates, and fares before committing to a flight.  The calendar and price-tracking tools are especially useful when your timing is flexible, and I love that I can search by duration and exclude certain airlines or layover cities.

Skyscanner helps compare fares across airlines, dates, and destinations when your plans are still taking shape.  It can be helpful for surfacing local carriers and alternative routes when you are searching international flights.

Going sends flight deal alerts so you can spot unusually good fares and consider trips you might not have searched for on your own.  If you like a good deal and don’t know where you want to go next, sign up for Going!

SeatMaps shows you your airplane’s layout – including legroom, seat features, and potential drawbacks before choosing where to sit.  Ever have a window seat with no window?  Or an entertainment system box takes half your leg room? SeatMaps can help you identify and avoid that.

Booking.com remains one of the most useful general accommodation platforms because it covers hotels, apartments, guesthouses, and boutique properties all over the world.

VRBO (Vacation Rentals by Owner) works well for families, friend groups, and longer stays when a standard hotel room or suite won’t cut it.  I love VRBO because you can filter properties based on specific features.  Need a waterfront property with 3 bedrooms and at least 1 king bed?  VRBO filter for the win.

Plum Guide curates stylish vacation rentals for travelers who want beautiful places to stay without sorting through endless listings. They aren’t everywhere, but the cities they are in have beautiful properties, and if you need an extra-large, luxury house for your trip, this is a good place to check.

TrustedHousesitters connects animal lovers with house-sitting stays in exchange for caring for someone’s pets.  If I knew about this when I was 25, I might have just traveled forever.

Hostelworld might seem off-brand for me, but I like the vibe of a good hostel.  If you are an extrovert traveling alone, or if you are traveling with a big family or a group of friends and want to stay all together and a house rental isn’t practical,  the right hostel could be a good option.  Most hostels have ensuite rooms available if you book ahead.

World Nomads offers travel insurance for adventure-minded travelers who want coverage beyond the basics.  If you are hang gliding, bungee jumping, climbing glaciers, etc., this is the travel insurance policy you need.  Risky activities are excluded through most other policies.

Squaremouth Travel Insurance lets you compare travel insurance plans side by side by price, coverage, provider, and policy details before you buy.

Discover Cars helps compare rental car options and prices across companies and locations.  If you are booking a car internationally, Discover Cars is where you should look.

Rome2Rio helps map out how to get from one place to another by plane, train, bus, ferry, or car.  It is a planning tool, not a booking tool, but it is extremely useful for early route planning.

Trainline lets you compare train routes, schedules, and ticket prices across rail companies, especially useful for planning multi-city trips in Europe.

Wanderlog gives you one place to build itineraries, save reservations, map stops, track notes, and organize the moving parts of a trip.  Share and collaborate with others. The free version is robust enough for most. I genuinely love Wanderlog.

Splid helps travel groups track shared expenses, split costs fairly, and avoid awkward math at the end of a friend or family trip.

ExpressVPN gives travelers a more secure internet connection on public Wi-Fi and helps protect browsing, logins, and personal data abroad.  You can also specify your location, which can help get local pricing on regional airfares.

Holafly sells travel eSIMs so you can get mobile data in another country without swapping physical SIM cards or relying only on Wi-Fi. Download before you land, and connect right away. Holafly has unlimited data plans – best if you don’t want to worry about running out of data, if you are on a longer trip (7+ days), or if you plan to work remotely.

Airalo sells travel eSIMs so you can get mobile data in another country without swapping physical SIM cards or relying only on Wi-Fi.  Download before you land, and connect right away.  Airalo has multiple tier plans – pay only for what you need, and top it off if you need to.  Airalo is best if you primarily use Wi-Fi and only need mobile data for basic tasks like Google Maps and messaging.