Trip Planning Resources
Planning a trip? I’ve gathered some of my favorite travel resources, tools, and tips to help you plan your adventures, save money, and discover more along the way. From booking accommodations and finding travel deals to museum memberships, historic site passes, and useful travel tools, these are resources I’ve found helpful in my own travels. Take a look and see what might make your next journey a little easier!
Booking Platforms
I use Expedia for research as well as booking stays and car rentals.
With car rentals, I found their car insurance upgrade had the best value, compared to getting the car insurance at the car rental place.
With stays, I’ve found some pretty cool independent hotels and VRBOs.
If I’m staying with family or friends somewhere more than one night, I’ll book an AirBnb. I have had great success staying with Super Hosts, especially if they manage the property themselves. Usually they are committed to making sure everything is great.
Savings
I have a Capital One Venture credit card and keep it so I can use it when I’m overseas. (There isn’t a separate transaction fee, when purchasing things out of the US.)
If you travel overseas or plan to, check it out. If you apply using my referral link and are approved, I’ll get a referral bonus.
I’m not much of a shopper, except for Holidays, so I always ignored sites like Rakuten. But…. I discovered you can stack savings on trips too! Yay. If you aren’t on Rakuten, sign-up when you plan to spend money on buying things online or booking trips online. For instance, if you login to Expedia to book your next trip and you have Rakuten enabled you can get 3% cash back.
You’ll get a reward and I do too if you use the link below to sign-up.
If you enjoy visiting museums, a NARM membership is a great way to discover more of them. Start by joining your favorite participating NARM institution. Just be sure to ask for a membership level that includes NARM benefits.
Once you’re a member, you’ll receive a membership card that you can present when visiting other participating museums. I usually ask at the admissions desk whether they honor NARM membership, since it isn’t always easy to tell. If they do participate, you’ll receive reciprocal free (or discounted) entry to that museum.
There are hundreds of museums and cultural institutions to explore across the United States, Bermuda, Canada, the Cayman Islands, and Puerto Rico. So, one membership can go a long way toward saving you money.
If you’re planning a trip to the United Kingdom, particularly England, an English Heritage membership or pass can go a long way. There are several options, ranging from an Overseas Visitor Pass to full individual, joint, and family memberships.
You can sign up for a membership at the first site you visit and receive a temporary membership card. If you choose the Overseas Visitor Pass, you’ll need to purchase it online ahead of time and pick up your pass at the first site you visit.
There are more than 400 historic places to explore, including Stonehenge and Tintagel Castle!
And if your travels take you into Wales or Scotland, be sure to show your English Heritage pass. You may receive a 50% discount at participating sites there, too!
Another membership that can help you save when visiting sites in the United Kingdom is National Trust membership. Just like English Heritage, there are several options, ranging from an Explorer Pass to full individual, joint, and family memberships.
Membership includes free parking at most National Trust car parks and free entry to more than 500 places in their care, including Corfe Castle.
You can sign up for a membership at the first site you visit and receive a temporary membership card. If you choose the Explorer Pass, you’ll need to purchase it online ahead of time.
Keep in mind that some places aren’t included with free admission, so I’d recommend checking the list of exclusions before deciding between an Explorer Pass and a regular membership.
Newsletters and eBooks
The Daily Drop has a lot of useful tips without trying to constantly sell you something. You can explore their blog without signing up, or you can sign-up for their daily email which is very informative and also fun to read.
They have a Daily Drop Pro app for frequent travelers who want to maximize travel deals too.
“The JGOOT Way of Travel” is a very simple travel strategy. It was written by a guy who loved to travel and wanted to keep traveling after getting divorced but had taken a financial hit. It has some neat tips and concepts in it, as well as a unique viewpoint on how to find deals so you can travel for less money.
The only downside is they have a rather aggressive marketing workflow. But once you ignore enough messages they start to go away. Even with this, I think the insights are worth it.
Software I use
My Weekly Journeys newsletter is created on Beehiiv. The software makes it easy to start your own newsletter very easily. You can start for free, and then once you get 2,500 or more subscribers you’ll then have to pay for it. What I like is that you can get yourself started and figure out your brand before committing to a fee. And then once you are ready, you can scale up and really have it take off.
I’m working on my first book, and chose Kotobee as my software of choice to create it. It’s easy to use, and offers several types of documents you can publish to. I opted for the paid version, so I get automatic updates to the software. And it’s updated quite often, so its worth that upgrade.
Being retired and not making money from my blog, I’ve found free software to replace the paid software I’m used to using. Photoshop was a mainstay of mine, and Photopea is a pretty good free option. You can upgrade to remove the ads if you’d like. If you are used to the newest version of Photoshop you may be a bit disappointed, but this has most of the features.
Note: Some of these links are affiliate links, meaning that if you book a trip or sign-up for a software through these links, we may receive a small commission or bonus points at no additional cost to you.