When traveling, it’s important to plan ahead and prepare. This is a recommendation for the best websites and apps to use when looking forward to your spring/summer vacation.
Getting There
The first thing you’ll want to do is book your flight and hotel. Many sites offer flight and hotel packages, and at the very least compare various prices depending on your destination to make it easy to find the lowest rate.
For Flights:
- Google’s flight finder offers some of the cleanest and easiest user interfaces for quick booking.
- Skyscanner is a user friendly app/website for flights, hotels, and car rental comparisons. When you decide on a deal, it takes you directly to the company website and doesn’t charge any commission fees. The price you see will be the price you get (subject to airline fees).
- For Hotels:
- Google’s hotel finder is great for a quick search and quick booking.
- Alltherooms.com is a new website that allows you to search by location for places to stay, whether it be a hotel, hostel, apartment vacation rental, or Airbnb. When you decide where you’d like to stay the deal will take you to the company/location website to book. Another fun feature is that you can search for a place located near a specific area/site.
- Skyscanner ‘s a great site to search hotels and hostels for the perfect place for your stay. Choosing your deal will take you directly to the locations website to book with the price you see.
- For Packages:
- For Organization:
- Trip it is an app has partnered with Apple and Google in order to sync your mail and calendar to the app, which means it pulls from your itinerary directly and keeps everything organized in one place.
- Google Now cards are also a recent favorite as everything is fully automated and will notify you if your flight is delayed or canceled.
(*note) Before takeoff, review safety guidelines and travel advisories, and be sure to check your passport expiration dates.
- Center for Disease Control – (The recently posted ebola fact sheet is interesting).
Making The Most Of Your Stay:
- Know the economic currency system:
- If you’re looking to do a little site seeing:
- Now, do you think you can you live without WiFi? No? Me neither.
- Download Wi-Fi Finder to find the nearest hotspot, available in over 144 countries worldwide.
- If you start to get a little homesick:
- Download Vonage for free calls and free video chat across 3G/4G and wifi networks. If you’re traveling internationally, you can also make low-cost international calls to all mobile numbers and landlines.
- WhatsApp is a messenger that allows you to text without using your SMS and can send images, text, and video. It uses wifi or data to send messages.
- Viber is a great application for free texts, calls, photo messages, and location sharing that uses 3G or wifi for connection.
So don’t forget to learn the language, schedule everything, and use a map. Hope you find some great deals out there and happy travels!
XO Julia
HAPPY SHOPPING!
[If you are looking for your next vacation spot and don’t have any ideas, check out “Milliken Creek Inn Bed & Breakfast Review, Napa“. Or if you always don’t know what to pack in your carry on, see Ashley’s “Airport Carry-On Packing Guide“.]