There is no greater joy than sitting for hours on end plotting out what you are going to do on a trip. No? Just me? If you’re not a natural planner or don’t travel too often, and preparing yourself for a trip is proving to be more of a stress than a joy, here are ten of my favorite digital resources to get the best travel deals and plan the perfect trip.
Booking Your Trip
1. Google Flights (flights.google.com)
Google Flights is great for when you have a destination in mind and are flexible in your travel dates. It’s usually the first place I go to get an idea of flight prices. Their Date Grid feature makes it easy to compare prices by date and length of stay in one glance.
2. Hopper App
If you want to track flight prices over time, Hopper lets you put in specific dates or a date range and will alert you when prices are expected to rise. You can book flights right through the app, but I’ve never done this. I mainly use it as a tracking tool. Even if I don’t end up booking the exact flights it’s tracking for me, in my experience the app is quite accurate in providing general price trends.
3. Expedia
There are so many booking services out there – Kayak, TripAdvisor, Orbitz, Hotels.com and so on. I am very Expedia-loyal and have always felt that I’ve gotten the best deals through Expedia. You can save by bundling through the site, i.e. you can often get a way better deal booking both flight and hotel through the site than you can booking separately. Plus, Expedia has a point rewards system, so you’ll earn points for every dollar you spend that you can use towards your next trip.
4. Ebates (Soon to be Rakuten – www.ebates.com)
I use Ebates for all of my online shopping, not just travel booking. You can shop at all of your favorite stores as usual, but if you initiate your “shopping trip” through the Ebates website, you will get cash back for your purchase. There are tons of well-known travel brands that Ebates does cash-back for, from hotels to rental cars to flights and booking engines – Expedia is on there! It costs nothing to join Ebates and there’s no catch to it (other than the fact that it might fuel your online shopping addiction!). You can join by using my referral link: https://www.ebates.com/r/BOONEL38?eeid=28187. I’ll get cash and so will you – who doesn’t love free money?
Planning Logistics & Activities
5. Atlas Obscura (www.atlasobscura.com)
I’m a firm believer that some of the best and most authentic attractions are the weird, off-the-beaten-path ones. And luckily there’s an entire atlas dedicated to the world’s most unusual places. From hidden ruins to unique museums, Atlas Obscura helps you search for the must-see oddities in your destination.
6. Lonely Planet (www.lonelyplanet.com)
Lonely Planet is the ultimate destination guide. You can search your destination and find all of the information you need in one place, including the best hotels, key attractions, language, currency, tipping customs, and much more. And it’s all assembled by destination experts.
7. Pinterest (www.pinterest.com)
Pinterest is not just for recipes and DIY! It’s a social platform that allows bloggers such as myself to share their posts, so you’ll come across a ton of great travel content on there. And be able to save it all in one place so that you can refer back to it later.
8. Rome2Rio (www.rome2rio.com)
If you know there are multiple cities that you want to hit in one trip, but you’re not really sure of the best way to get from city to city, Rome2Rio lets you compare modes of transportation along with costs.
Staying Organized
9. TripIt App
TripIt is an app that will automatically pull your travel details from your emails into one place. It has tons of great information at quick access, such as airport maps and transportation options from your current location to the airport. Frequent travelers can upgrade to the Pro version for even more great features and flight alerts.
10. PackPoint App
Nervous you’ll forget to pack something? Going to a new part of the world and not sure how to pack for the weather? PackPoint has you covered. Enter your destination and it will generate a packing list based on the weather in the time of year that you are going, and you can add or subtract what you know you’ll need to make the perfect packing list.
Bonus for my PHL peeps!
11. Philly Flight List (www.phillyflightlist.com)
This is an email alert list that you can sign up for. Philly Flight List has humans constantly monitoring prices on round-trip flights from Philadelphia International Airport to let you know when amazing flight deals are available. So it’s great if you are flexible on your dates and destination!
These websites and apps have made my travel planning process a breeze and I hope that they help you in the same way! Are there any others I should check out? Let me know in the comments below!
C to Shining C 
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