I’m excited to share some of the best travel tools I’ve discovered since I started traveling regularly a few years ago. These are my favorite sites and apps for everything from planning my trips to finding the best deals to making sure I’m not “getting what I paid for.” Please let me know in the comments below if there’s something I’ve missed or a lesser known tool you would recommend for frequent and/or budget travelers.

For Planning/Collaborating

Google Sheets – https://www.google.com/sheets/about/
Once I’ve decided on a destination, my first step in the travel process is developing a budget. Besides this being a FREE spreadsheet service, GS has a ton of features that make it super easy to plan financially for a new trip. I usually just drop in my usual expenses for a trip, estimate out cost based on currency conversion rates, and run a few formulas to add everything up to give me my big number. It’s also a great service if you’re planning a group trip because you can invite your other travel companions to come in and either work on their own budget or just check out a breakdown of your costs. It’s a really intuitive application and not hard to wrap your head around. You do need a google account in order to use the service, but honestly, who in this day and age doesn’t have one?

Travefy – https://travefy.com/
Travefy is a great service for even the most Type A traveler. With itinerary options ranging from autofilled flight details to lodging recording to activity planning, you really can’t go wrong. This service also allows you to collaborate with your fellow travelers and has cool features like cost-sharing and a polling feature. No more worrying about being paid back for shared expenses or one person hijacking your itinerary. This works best with either the iOS or desktop platforms, I’ve not had as much success with the android app on my tablet.

Pinterest – http://www.pinterest.com
Pinterest is an underrated travel planning resource. It’s much more targeted than your typical google search. Besides having thousands of travel bloggers’ experience at your fingertips, you can also find all kinds of resources that you might have had to sift through thousands of search engine pages to find. It’s a great starting point once you’ve figured out whereabouts you’re looking to travel next.

For Flights/Transport

Hitlist – Hitlist iOS App
This app is the both the spontaneous and rigorously planned travelers’ dream app. You start with your home airport(s) and add all of your dream destinations and Hitlist will notify you when the best deals to these destinations occur. Make sure you enable notifications and be prepared to make purchases on the fly.

Momondo – www.momondo.com
A Swedish friend of mine turned me onto Momondo and ever since it’s the only place I go to book my flights. They have a really neat feature that sorts flights into three ways before you even start filtering results. They sort by cheapest, shortest and “best.” Their algorithm for finding the “best” flight balances price and time differentials between flights. So for those of you who have a little wiggle room in your budgets (lucky you!), you can choose how much trade off you’re willing to do price-wise for a shorter/more direct flight.

Rome2Rio – www.rome2rio.com
So, in some parts of the world it can be super difficult to find out what different kinds of transport are available to get from point A to point B. Enter Rome2Rio, a great resource that scours the web for you to tell you how to get anywhere you want to go and offer estimates for the cost. This is an especially great tool when traveling within a country as you might not know about a local charter bus service or that renting a car will be considerably cheaper than any other option.

For Accommodations

HostelWorld – www.hostelworld.com
HostelWorld is great because it’s a one stop shop for finding hostels where you’re looking to travel and the integrated reviews. They offer great features like map views for your search so you can find a place close to where you want to be in town and you can filter by co-ed or single gender dorms and find a variety of locations including hostels, bed and breakfasts and hotels.

Airbnb – www.airbnb.com
For those of you looking for more of an authentic travel experience, I highly recommend using Airbnb. It’s great because you can either be hosted by a local or rent out a local flat in a more residential area. I’ve found that staying in these tends to land you closer to more moderately priced cafes, local grocers and gives you an oasis outside of the usual touristing districts. Oftentimes these’ll come with great amenities like a washer and/or dryer, fully stocked kitchens and the possibility of your own private local tour guide (depending on your host, of course). I had a great experience in Iceland and I’ll be giving you all the skinny on my stays in London, Edinburgh and Dublin next month.

Hotel Tonight – Hotel Tonight iOS App
For more spontaneous travelers, Hotel Tonight is a must. You will get the absolute best deals by using this app because hotels are trying to fill what will otherwise be empty rooms for the night. When my boyfriend and I went to Baltimore for MDW and ended up needing a place to crash on an unexpected extra night, it was nice to just pull up the app, pop in my location and have options without having to worry about where we were going to stay or trying to get back to DC when we were seriously plastered and in no condition to drive or navigate an Amtrak and metro back home.

TripAdvisor – www.tripadvisor.com
Last but certainly not least is this great travel standby. Honest reviews and great advice from people who have been where you’re going. I always check reviews of both hostels/hotels and my sight seeing locations to make sure I’m not going to be disappointed and know any tips or tricks for getting discounted tickets or free entry.

I’m sure there are plenty of other tools out there I’ve missed. Leave a few of your favorites in the comments or my ask box and they might end up on my next iteration of this list. More info on the LED trip coming soon!