RESOURCES
Here are list of my tried and true travel tools for before, during, and after a trip!
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For flights:
- Kayak - useful app and website for researching flights
- Skyscanner - great for exploring flights and inspiration on where to go
- Google Flights - to see what fares there are for certain flights
- Hopper app on mobile devices - for watching fares and getting notifications for when to wait for lower fares or when it is time to purchase tickets
For lodging:
- Hotels.com - website and app for booking hotel rooms. After you stay for 10 nights (at a Reward designated hotel) you get a free night (the rate will be an average of your stays)
- Hilton Hotels - With an American Express Hilton Honors Surpass card, I usually book directly when staying at a Hilton to take advantage of points accrual
- VRBO - short term rentals for places to stay
- Airbnb - short term rentals for places to stay, can also book activities like tours or cooking classes at certain destinations
Bungalows at Moorea Hilton, French Polynesia
For Transportation:
- Avis - car rental agency, using Avis is especially useful if you're a Preferred member. Sign up ahead of time and make your reservations in advance, once you arrive at the rental car lot, your car will be waiting for you - no waiting in a line at the counter.
- Roam2Rio -great way to find train routes in Europe
- Uber - car hire service
- Lyft - car hire service
Tech/Equipment:
Nikon Zfc Mirrorless camera with 28mm f2.8 (SE) Lens
- Camera: Nikon Zfc Mirrorless with 16-50mm Lens - my new camera as of 2022, with the dials on top, it reminds me of using my old film camera, and it takes great pictures
- Lens: Nikkor 28mm f2.8 (SE) Lens
- Peak Design Lite Camera Strap - this strap is comfortable around the neck, has some textured grip on part of it so that it doesn't slide off your shoulder and because it uses the Peak Design anchors, you can easily take the straps off when you're using the camera with the Joby Gorillapod or a tripod and don't want the straps getting in the way
- Domke 19x19" Protective Wrap - this padded wrap with velcro in the corners is useful to wrap my camera in so that I can put in a backpack or purse, anything that doesn't look like a camera bag, and keeps the camera protected
- GoPro Hero Black 7 - for underwater images or when in the water
- DJI Osmo Mobile 4 gimbal
- Joby Gorillapod
- Manfrotto Light Tripod
- Apple iPhone 14 Pro 256GB Gold
- Bose Quiet Comfort Noise-cancelling Headphones for Apple
- NordVPN - for keeping data and digital communications safe, especially when connecting to free WiFi. Using NordVPN also gives you the opportunity, while traveling in other countries to log on to a server in your home country so that you can watch things on Netflix and other streaming platforms that have different content depending on the country
Favorite suitcase and bags:
- Away - I have The Carry On with a power charger and The Medium check-in suitcase. I love how easily these cases roll on 4 wheels and that I can rest my heavy backpack on top of them. For storage when not traveling, The Carry On fits inside The Medium, so they take up less space.
- Packing Cubes - from Away, designed to be the right height to fit in their suitcases. Great for keeping your clothes organized.
- Timbuk2 - great backpacks that are very durable. I have a couple of them in fact, for different kinds of travel.
- Camera Backpack - Nomatic Peter McKinnon Cube Pack
Other Apps/Websites:
- Travel Guidebooks
- Travel Journals - for writing about your travels
- Lonely Planet app for mobile devices - good reference for destination ideas and activities
- XE Currency app for smartphones - easily look up currency conversions
- Google Maps - use for trip planning to flag places to go to, can download cities to your phone so have access when not connected to the internet
- Google Translate - useful in countries where you're not familiar with the language, can download specific languages to use when not connected to the internet
- Google Travel - if you use gmail, all of your travel reservations are automatically created into an itinerary on this website, along with some other helpful info, such as travel time between reservations and average weather
- Sun Surveyor app on mobile device - for looking up sunrise, sunset, moon rise and moon setting times, including golden and blue hours.
Useful Posts for travel Planning
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