49 Must Have Travel Gift Ideas & Stocking Stuffers for Travelers
holiday gift ideas for solo travelers Tired of same-old travel gifts? Looking for that last-minute stocking stuffer? This year,…
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Booking & Logistics
Kayak Explore My all-time fave go to. Helps me visualize the best season, month, destination to book at trip, based on price. Especially good for flights based in the U.S.
Google Flights The new favorite in flight booking aggregators. Love it gives you price estimates on a calendar when deciding on booking dates.
SkyScanner aggregates budget carrier airlines, domestic airports as well as standard flights. Great for booking domestic flights. They have an Everywhere section like Kayak, which allows you to find the cheapest flight anywhere on the globe.
Booking.com Lets you book hotels without putting money down. Cancel bookings without a charge (an asset when you need proof of address for visas). Read my Guide to Staying at Hotels
12go.Asia Easiest way to plan and book your Southeast/Asia and beyond transportation in advance. Trains, buses, vans, ferries.
Travel Insurance
Travel Insurance Master Find trip insurance that matches your budget and trip needs. Read more
World Nomads travel insurance Affordable adventure travel insurance. Great for U.S. travelers. Covers adventure activities others don’t. Get a quote
SafetyWing Cheap travel insurance for digital nomads and travelers on international travel. Domestic travel coverage not included. Read more
Internet, Communication & Currency
Airalo E-SIM. Inexpensive, convenient. Install and activate your eSIM from home and have internet when you arrive.
NORDVPN is one of the best and most affordable VPN solutions for travelers. Use my referral code: grrrltraveler to get 70% off 3-year plan + 1 month free
Read Reasons you need a VPN.
Remitly
Remitly Excellent exchange rates, low fees, and no hidden fees. Get $20 off on your first transfer of $100 or more, using my referral link. The best reputable money transfer service I found on the internet.
Transferwise I love Paypal but the transfer fees and currency exchange rates never make me smile. Transferwise is a money transfer service with lower rates on everything. It allows you to open a borderless bank account too.
Designing your Itinerary
Blog Posts Booking Tour Companies:
8 Reasons you SHOULD take a Tour
How to Find Budget Tours without Getting Ripped off in Vietnam
How to Choose a School for Yoga Teacher Certification in India. (Part II)
GetyourGuide has a variety of day excursions and they’ve got interesting ones in almost every destination. Very similar to Viator but sometimes it has better deals and larger library.
Klook specializes in tour activities in Asia, but it also carries travel essentials, such as Tokyo and Korean SIM cards, Japan Rail passes, transportation cards. I’ve used them a lot for my Japan trips. Buy my Tokyo travel secrets eguide.
Check out Pasta Cooking with Nonna Nerina. Learn pasta making from a Italian grandma! They offer classes via livestream and in Rome. Watch my experiential video.
Cookly is a site which lets you search cooking classes for the destinations you’re traveling.
Booking Yoga Retreats Want your yoga asanas to give your travels purpose? This site is a huge aggregator for both yoga retreats and teacher trainings across the globe!
Intrepid Travel Responsible tour operator focused. Travel style comfortable to travelers 20s-40s
G Adventures is a trusted and reputable global tour operator, which is similar to Intrepid Travel.
Working, Teaching & Volunteering Abroad
Blog Posts on Working, Teaching & Volunteering Abroad
Do you wanna Teach English in Korea
How to Make Money Traveling: Top Travel Jobs
How to get Paid to Travel: Location Independence to Volunteering
Just Show me Pictures: Dealing with Language Barriers in Korea
Help X Exchange room and board for work/volunteer abroad.
Dave’s ESL Cafe Best site for finding teaching jobs in Asia, Southeast Asia and abroad. I’ve used it for finding summer camp and university listings. Recommended for expats seeking ESL work in Asia
Go to : So you Wanna Teach in Korea?
Nomadlist shows costs of cities. For the location independent or expat researching which cities/countries to live in.
Business Travel Tools
World Time Buddy helps me schedule meetings in different time zones. There’s a downloadable mobile app to take it on the go!
FaxZero.com sends free faxes in the U.S. There’s a limit as to how many fax pages you can send. A useful tool.
Google Drive. Stores all your information online in one place from Excel sheets, Word itineraries and your email. Note: Google may retain some of your information, so that’s the tradeoff.
Hey Google or Hey Alexa, whomever you call, your virtual travel expert is a voice-activated step away. I use this to occasionally to my trip research. It saves me from finger cramps.
Open Office is a free Microsoft Office software clone. Perfect for expats/travelers who need to get an English version of Microsoft Office on their office computer abroad. I used this living and working in Korea.
Join as a Creator on Patreon A great way for artists and creators to get support and sustainable income for their creations.
Want to start your own Patreon campaign but don’t know how to begin? I walk you through my Patreon Secrets ebundle steps from essential information to launch.
Travel Gear Reviews
12 Best Waist Packs for Solo Travelers | The Ultimate Guide to Choosing a Perfect Fanny Pack
large travel bum bag or fanny pack In this post, I’m sharing how to choose the perfect fanny…
Amazon Prime Day 2024: 80 Prime Day Travel Deals + What You Need to Know
Calling all travel shoppers! Get ready to pack your virtual bags because Amazon Prime Day is just around the corner!…
5 Top Blackout Sleep Masks for Travel (2025 Review)
Red-eye, long flights, changing time zones and strange new environments can wreak havoc on your sleep schedule. It can leave…
Hynes Eagle 42L Rolling Backpack Review: Best Rolling Backpack under $100
What my video review that I made for YouTube of the Hynes Eagle 42L . Embarking on new adventures in…
3 Top Portable Air Purifiers for Travel to Love
3 Top Portable Air Purifiers for Travel to Love top personal portable air filters This post may contain affiliate…
My Blogging Tools (see here)>>
Travel Survival E-Guides
Tokyo Secrets: Tokyo Travel Survival Guide
Ubud & Bali HIghlights Travel Survival e-book by GRRRL TRAVELER
13 Comments. Leave new
Interesting you have Chris Guillebeau’s book about travel hacking…I go to a conference he puts on in Portland, Oregon. This will be my second year. It is called the World Domination Summit, or WDS for short, and is an awesome conference filled with amazing speakers and people that do blogs, write books, artists, etc. It is happening in two weeks and I can’t wait to get together with my little crew of writers and bloggers I met last year! I loved all your travel resources and gear advice you offered us, Christine, and as always it is spot on! I am going to bookmark this page as it will be very helpful to me for some things I haven’t been carrying around with me, and the other things that I don’t want to forget! Great job as always in helping us fellow travelers!
Jay awesome! Enjoy it. I forgot about WDS. I’ll have to make to more conferences. Meeting like minded people is key to refining your business and passion. What speakers are you hoping to see? Also, what are some Fave gear you’d recommend?
Ps you just reminded me I have to update Chris ‘ book Pursuit of Happiness.
I had a busy weekend, Christine, I wanted to think about some of my fave things I travel with, and then get back to you on this! I do use http://www.hostelworld.com for choosing my hostels. And I have just changed to Schwab as my bank of choice for traveling as they reimburse all foreign fees for any ATM transactions. I am told they have one of the best exchange rates, too, when doing an ATM transaction. Oh one other thing I had been doing my last couple trips is just going directly to EVA Airlines website for my airfare from the US (specifically Seattle) to Asia, but I did just discover the app Hopper for airfare prices. It looks pretty promising, but I am going to have to check out Kayak. I saw they had an app, too!
I figure you already use HostelWorld, though, but they do seem to have a lot of good customer reviews on there, and every hostel I have stayed based on the recommendations has been good.
Great list with a nice breakdown and everything and the reason you use it!
@Cest La Vibe: Glad you found it helpful.
This is a great write up post of helpful things for travelers like us! Thanks for sharing.
You’re welcome, Anne!
I think you are so awesome. Please do keep up with your blog and youtube. I am desperate to travel and will as soon as I can afford it but I’ll be taking my little boy so it will be a little while yet. Your articles and videos make me so much more determined to go. Thanks a mill….
@Imaginethat: Comments like yours really inspire me on! Really and truly.=D Affording travel never feels easy. But with the right destination and frame of mind, you can find ways to flip financial limitation into creative resourcefulness and an even more exciting adventure than you might have planned on a normal budget. A lot of people think they need to need to have a lot of money to start anything- a YouTube channel, a dream, a trip. The truth is, you just need to start, somewhere, anywhere and with what you have. ;D Baby steps!
You are super, incredibly amazing!!! You inspire me to travel 🙂 Thankyou
Thanks @Skydreamer! You inspire me back with your compliment! =)