WE RECOMMEND
OUR FAVOURITE TRAVEL SERVICE PROVIDERS
Every trip will require booking different elements and trying to find the best prices and service. All the services below are personally recommended by us and we have used all of them at one time or another on various trips around the world.
BOOK A FLIGHT
FIND THE BEST DEALS ON AIRFARE
Flights can be the most expensive part of any trip and it’s not always the case that the further you travel the more you pay. In fact, the dark arts of airline ticketing can bamboozle anyone and make getting a great price difficult.
Patience and flexibility are the keys to a great deal in our view; don’t buy the ticket the minute you decide where you want to go and wherever possible be flexible on both destination and dates. If you must fly to a specific place within a tight window and you book your ticket today, you may end up paying top whack.
Websites and a few tricks of the trade can help you save hundreds on your next flight.
If you like to use an online travel agent, then we’ve used Orbitz to book flights and more. The fact you can earn Orbitz Rewards to use against future hotel stays is a nice feature and if you stay more than four nights a year you can earn additional benefits.
Google Flights is a great tool for finding airfares, especially if you can be a little flexible. Choose where you want to go and when, and not only will it find the best prices direct, indirect etc. but will also tell you if you can save by flying a few days either side of your chosen dates. You could end up with an extra day of holiday for free.
If you know when you want to travel,
CAR RENTAL
HIT THE OPEN ROAD
There are so many car rental horror stories, that our only advice
Avis is our go-to car rental company; we’ve always had great service and we’ve never had any issues with them. We are members of the Avis Preferred scheme which we recommend as it makes picking up your car so much quicker after your first rental.
To find the best price for a rental car, a search on Rentalcars.com covers all the main companies around the world and will show you all your options.
BOOK A HOTEL
FIND A GREAT PLACE TO STAY
Hotels will probably be the second (or first if you aren’t flying) most expensive thing on many people’s trips. Whether you love hotels or Airbnb, we think it’s always worth checking out the options in the places you will be visiting.
When we need a hotel, Hotels.com is our first stop. We find their prices to be competitive and their service has been great. We love that you get a free night for every ten nights you stay.
If you want the best price it’s always worth checking on an aggregator site like Booking.com to see if your chosen hotel is cheaper elsewhere, but do consider the benefits of other sites, like hotels.com having the free night for every ten scheme.
TOURS AND EXCURSIONS
DISCOVER FUN THINGS TO SEE AND DO
Wherever you are heading, you’ll want to enjoy your time there, so always look for interesting things to do. We’ve done fun activities from all three of these sites and they often offer fast-track entry and discounted prices, plus it can be good to have all your activities booked together.
Get Your Guide is a more recent addition to the market, but we love their website and the excellent information they give about the tours they offer.
Viator is probably the best-known tour and excursions company and the list of available options is pretty much unsurpassed.
We’ve booked great tours through Expedia, but they also offer a full range of other service and could be a one-stop-shop for almost everything you need for your trip.
APPS
APPS TO MAKE TRAVEL EASIER
The apps below are always installed on our phone or tablet for any trip we take as they make travelling easier.
The last thing you need on a road trip is to get lost, waste time and possibly miss out on some of your activities for the day. We use Here WeGo to get us from place to place both in the car and on foot around cities because it works offline and you can build your itinerary in advance.
HELPFUL LINK: Guide to Using Here WeGo
Tripit takes all your booking confirmation emails and puts them together into a trip plan for you. We find it invaluable for ensuring everything ties together, i.e. we haven’t got a night without a hotel, or a car hire that is picked up the day before our flight arrives.
Google Translate is a godsend if you are travelling to a country where you don’t speak the language. It works offline if you download the language packs you need and you can even use your camera to translate menus and signs in real-time.
WEBSITES
REVIEWS AND THINGS TO DO
There are plenty of travel websites around, but these are the ones we always visit when we are planning any trip.
If you like things a bit more quirky, then check out Atlas Obscura for the area you are travelling too. We invariably visit a few of the things on their site now on our road trips as they offer something that will probably interest everyone.
Trip Advisor is the daddy of travel sites with pretty much everything you can visit in the world logged and rated by its users. It’s always worth checking their lists of the top places where you are going to see what is available to see.
No matter where you are headed, there will probably be a tourist information website for the town or area. These can provide lists of things to do, maps and plenty of information on the area. Just Google “Placename Tourist Information”.
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