Our Favourite Travel Resources
After extensive travel around the world over the years, we have tried and tested many different travel planning resources, products and services. We have spent countless hours trying to find ways to not only save money on our travels but ways of doing it smarter. This is a collection of our favourite travel planning resources for booking accommodation, flights, transportation, tours, travel insurance, and more.
All items listed here are travel planning resources that we have personally used and highly recommend to others (otherwise, they wouldn’t be on the list). These are always the starting point in our search for travel deals.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.
Peta and Jonas
DISCLAIMER: Some of the links within this blog post are affiliate links and Exit45 Travels are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. This means that we may earn a small commission when you use these links and make a purchase without incurring an additional fee yourself. Many thanks for supporting this website! Please see our disclosure policy for more information.
GENERAL TRAVEL
WayAway
WayAway is a travel aggregator that offers up to 10% cashback on flight, hotels, and car rental bookings. We love it because we are earning money back on things we are already spending money on. In addition, WayAway makes it easy to compare prices and find the best deals to ensure you are getting the best bang for your buck.
ACCOMMODATION
Booking.com
Booking.com is our preferred accommodation booking platform. They offer an array of discounted hotels worldwide, an easy filter and booking system, and a flexible cancellation policy.
Agoda
When we are travelling in Asia, we check Agoda for hotels and guesthouses as they have the biggest range of options and offer the best rates.
Airbnb
Airbnb connects you with homeowners for room / apartments / homes rentals around the world. We use Airbnb for longer stays when we are looking for the comforts of a home with discounts of up to 40% for month long stays. However, recently we have noticed the prices have increased so it is not always the best value option.
Hostelworld
This is the best site for budget low-cost accommodation including hostels, guesthouses and B&B’s. It has the largest inventory, best search interface, and highest availability.
Trusted Housesitters
House sitting is a great way to save money when travelling and is an amazing resource for long-term travellers looking to slow travel. You receive free accommodation in exchange for taking care of people’s homes and pets while they are away. The Trusted Housesitters platform has the largest selection of house sitting opportunities, and they vet all users carefully for safety.
FLIGHTS
SkyScanner
This is our starting point when researching and booking all our flights. Skyscanner compares prices on flights for all booking sites and always seem to find the best deals. Our favourite features are you can choose and entire country as a destination or ‘everywhere’ which shows the best options for a cheap flight. Also, their calendar view lets you see which days of the week / dates are cheapest to fly.
Kiwi.com
Kiwi always shows the lowest airfares of any website. They also offers a free flight guarantee (and a hotel night if required) for connecting flights. Booking a cheap flight on Kiwi is best if you don’t have a lot of luggage and if you don’t mind layovers.
Google Flights
Google Flights is a great search engine and planning tool to get a sense of routes, connections, and prices. Enter your departure airport and expand the map to see flights all over the world and their costs. We predominantly use Google Flights for searching flights and then book direct through the airline’s website, or through a reputable third-party site such as SkyScanner or TripAdvisor.
Seat Guru
Seat Guru has everything you want to know about your upcoming flight such as seating layout, plane amenities, baggage allowances and excess baggage costs, as well as check-in times and facilities.
AirHelp
Has your flight been delayed, or worse, cancelled? Are you entitled to some form of compensation? Check the ‘AirHelp‘ website as they know the rules and regulations! They will take a 35% commission of any compensation you receive, but if you end up getting nothing, you owe them nothing.
TRANSPORTATION
Rome2Rio
If you are looking at how to get from point A to Point B, you will love the Rome2Rio website as much as we do. Enter your departure and arrival destinations and it will show you all the bus, train, plane, car, or boat routes that will get you there as well as approximate costs
12Go.asia
12Go.asia offers transportation booking services within Asia. It offers solutions to get from point A to point B and combines various types of transport options and booking tickets on the same website. It is a huge time and money saver when planning your trip.
RentalCars.com
This website is great for finding and comparing prices on car rentals at locations around the world. We love the fact that we can easily compare prices of the various car hire companies so we get the cheapest price every time.
BikesBooking.com
In some locations, it is more practical to rent a scooter or bicycle, and BikesBooking.com provides an alternative to car rentals. They compare the prices of rental companies for motorcycles, scooters, quads, and bicycles all over the world.
Flixbus
Flixbus is the cheapest way to travel around Europe. The buses have comfy reclining seats and include Wi-Fi, electrical outlets, and free luggage.
Eurail
If you are travelling in Europe and plan on taking lots of long-distance trains, it is best to get a rail pass. It is the most cost effective way to travel and we recommend booking directly with Eurail.
The Man in Seat 61
The Man in Seat 61 has the most comprehensive information on train travel everywhere in the world. You will find information on routes, times, prices, and train conditions. This is our ‘go to’ site for planning our rail journeys.
Vacations To Go
Are you looking for a discounted cruise? When we are looking for cheap cruises, we check out Vacations To Go to find out which cruise lines are offering discounts and added inclusions. You can easily search and filter according to regions, cruise lines, ports of call, and even price by night. Be aware the prices do not include tips and port fees, but it is a great starting point. We then contact our cruise agent directly for total costings and bookings.
TOUR COMPANIES
GetYourGuide
We love GetYourGuide when travel planning to find the best things to do in our destination. There are so many tours on offer but we especially love their skip-the-line tickets, walking tours and food tours. We have also found their tours to be cheaper than some of the other sites.
Viator
Viator is a great site for finding tours or experiences wherever you are in the world. They also have exceptional support if you need to reschedule or cancel.
Big Bus Tours
This is not our first choice for tours, but we have done a number of these when we have only had 1 or 2 days in a city i.e. cruise port, layover. These open-top hop-on, hop-off bus sightseeing tours are a great way to be introduced to a city, see the top attractions, and all for an affordable price.
TRAVEL INSURANCE
We never travel without travel insurance and have been thankful to have it on a number of occasions. It really is the most important and first part of travel planning!
1Cover Travel Insurance
In recent years, we have been using 1Cover for our travel insurance and they have been exceptional to deal with for claims and travel changes due to Covid. N.B. You must be an Australian citizen to purchase their insurance. If you are not Australia, we highly recommend SafetyWing (see details below).
SafetyWing
SafetyWing Travel Insurance offers a broad range of plans for short and longer term travel for all types of travellers. They have great coverage, competitive rates, great customer service, and your policy can easily be extended as many times as you’d like, even from overseas. In addition, making claims is simple and the site is easy to navigate.
OTHER TRAVEL PRODUCTS / SERVICES
Trip Advisor
The use of the Trip Advisor website is a major part of our travel planning for any destination. We search for tours and attractions and compare prices on hotels to find the best deals. We also love reading the restaurant reviews to ensure we are getting the best possible food experience.
iVisa
This is a great site to find out what visa is required for the countries you’re visiting and if you choose, apply online for your visa. iVisa does charge an admin fee, but they do all the work for you!
TripIt
TripIt is great for organising your travel. It keeps all of your travel bookings in one place – accommodation, transportation, activities, etc.
Lonely Planet Travel Guides
When travel planning, we use Lonely Planet guides along with reading other travel blogs. We download the Lonely Planet guides in PDF and save it on our phone so we can easily access it wherever we are. No internet required!
Priority Pass
Priority Pass offers more airport lounges, in more cities, in more countries than any other programme on the market. It is the perfect way to spend your airport waiting time. Lounges are quiet, connected spaces to relax or work in, with food, drinks and other added perks such as showers and day spas to help you refresh and revive.
NordVPN
VPN or “virtual private network” is a service that protects your internet connection and privacy online, allowing you to use public Wi-Fi hotspots safely. It is also a great way to find cheaper deals when booking flights and accommodation. NordVPN is known for being one of the best VPN services on the market due to their superior encryption.
TRAVEL PLANNING APPS
We also use a number of other tools for travel planning, and these are our favourite apps for travel planning.
DISCLAIMER: Some of the links within this blog post are affiliate links and Exit45 Travels are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. This means that we may earn a small commission when you use these links and make a purchase without incurring an additional fee yourself. Many thanks for supporting this website! Please see our disclosure policy for more information.