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Transportation
These hand selected articles are the basic core that I feel are essential for a solo traveler’s foundation in getting around and staying on budget.
Kayak Explore – My all-time fave go to. Helps me visualize the best season, month, destination to book a trip, based on price. Especially good for flights based in the U.S. → Explore flights
Google Flights – Solid flight booking aggregator if you don’t mind that Google is monopolizing the internet and surveillances us all . Gives price estimates on a calendar when deciding on booking dates and then you can go direct to the airlines to book it. → Search flights
Momondo – My favorite pocketbook flight search engine. It’s a godsend to the traveler who is indecisive about flying into this or that port but and trying to find the cheapest way to route their trip. It’s a powerhouse of a search engine – read more – and will let you know what seasons to book for the best prices. → Search best price routes
SkyScanner -Aggregates budget carrier airlines, domestic airports as well as standard flights. Great for booking domestic flights. Their “Everywhere” section finds the cheapest flight anywhere. → Find cheap flights
Expedia – if you want to find the best trip packages. Usually best for weekender and short trip packages. For the traveler that is certain they won’t want to change anything (read more details). Search inexpensive trip packages
12go.Asia – Easiest way to plan and book your Southeast/Asia and beyond transportation in advance. Trains, buses, vans, ferries. → Book transport
Trip Expense Tracker Spreadsheet – Stay on track with your budget and keep your spending within your limits. Reusable temple, currency conversion, and more→ Buy it Now
Travel Insurance
Trip insurance gives peace of mind and helps with compensation after trip emergencies, hospitalization, illness, trip delays, luggage loss, and more…
Here’s hand-selected articles on insurance and recommended providers below.
Travel Insurance Master – Find trip insurance that matches your budget and trip needs. Especially good for travelers with special conditions – destination coverage, age or physical limitations, etc.. Helps you find the coverage you need. Read more. → Compare plans
World Nomads – Mid-range affordable adventure travel insurance. Great for U.S. travelers. Covers adventure activities others don’t. Get a quote. → Get a quote
SafetyWing – Very affordable travel insurance for digital nomads and travelers on international travel. Domestic travel coverage not included. Start and end anytime or even in the middle of your trip! Read more. → Learn more
Communication & Currency
I always recommend solo travelers to have a data plan for internet access and safety. Also, ATM fees and dealing with different currencies can often make travelers feel overwhelmed. Here’s some resources:
Skyroam – Take 10% off when you use my referral code GRRRLTRAVELER. → Get 10% off
Airalo E-SIM – Inexpensive, convenient. Install and activate your eSIM from home and have internet when you arrive. There’s many eSim dealers, but only a couple I notice lasting over the years. Airalo is solid, good, easy-to-use and reputable.. → Get eSIM
NordVPN – One of the best and most affordable VPN solutions for travelers. A lot of travelers swear by them. Use my referral code: grrrltraveler to get 70% off 3-year plan + 1 month free. Read Reasons you need a VPN. → Get VPN deal
Remitly – For making foreign payment or transfers. Excellent exchange rates, low fees, and no hidden fees. I used this when I ran my first group tour and had to exact pay my tour operator (better exchange rates and lower fees make it easier to send the correct amount without feeling like somewhere you’ll get short changed). Get $20 off on your first transfer of $100 or more using my referral link. → Send money
Wise (formerly Transferwise) – I love Paypal but the transfer fees and currency exchange rates never make me smile. Wise is a money transfer service with lower rates on everything. It allows you to open a borderless bank account too. → Transfer money
Trip Planning & Itinerary Curation
Travel with me or take my past tour with a private guide! Join my GRRRLTRAVELER Adventure Group Tours →
Starter Posts:
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). It has a points value system for each stay and when you accrue points, you can use it for deals like free breakfast at participating hotels! Read my Guide to Staying at Hotels. → Book now
Agoda.com – Good hotel booking site for Asia travel. It’s expanded its destination coverage over the years, but I used them a lot for my Asia trips.
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. → Book a tour
Klook – Specializes in tour activities in Asia, but also carries travel essentials, such as SIM cards, Japan Rail passes, transportation cards. I’ve used them a lot for my Japan trips. Buy my Tokyo travel secrets eguide. → Explore activities
Pasta Cooking with Nonna Nerina – Learn pasta making from an Italian grandma! They offer classes via livestream and in Rome. Watch my experiential video. → Book a class
Cookly – A site which lets you search cooking classes for the destinations you’re traveling. → Find a cooking class
BookYogaRetreats – Want your yoga asana to give your travels purpose? This site is a huge aggregator for both yoga retreats and teacher trainings across the globe! → Find a retreat
Intrepid Travel – Responsible tour operator focused. Travel style comfortable to travelers 20s-40s. → View tours
G Adventures – A trusted and reputable global tour operator, similar to Intrepid Travel. → Explore G Adventures
Customizable Trip Packing Checklist Tool – Set your style of travel, destination type and duration and this tool will create a packing checklist for you to print out. Use it for every trip!
Working, Teaching & Volunteering Abroad
Wondering how to make travel your daily lifestyle? These posts below will give you a sample of insights through my experiences of living, teaching and volunteering abroad and resources I recommend. A legal, of course!
Starter Posts on Working, Teaching & Volunteering Abroad
Living and Working Abroad in Korea
Digital Nomad & Location Independent
Legal & Border Safety Concerns
Help X – Exchange room and board for work/volunteer abroad. → Find a host
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? → Find ESL jobs
Nomadlist – Shows costs of cities. For the location independent or expat researching which cities/countries to live in. → Explore cities
Essential Business Travel Tools
As a travel blogger, I do a lot of work in airports and planes and I’m meeting people online in different time zones.
World Time Buddy – Helps me schedule meetings in different time zones. There’s a downloadable mobile app to take it on the go! → Try it
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. → Send a free fax
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. See how I use mine in solo travel safety. → Access Drive
Google Mini or Echo Dot – Hey Google or Hey Alexa, whomever you call, your virtual travel expert is a voice-activated step away. I use this occasionally for my trip research. It saves me from finger cramps. → Check price
Open Office – 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. → Download for free
Bitwarden – Open source password manager to store all your passwords and unlock them when you need.
Be 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. → Start your Patreon
Travel Gear Reviews
See my Blogging & Vlogging Gear →
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! =)