Travel Tools I Use to Plan, Book and Get Around

Everything below is what I actually open while a trip is being built: a rail pass in one window, a fare history in another, and a paper notebook where confirmed bookings get written down. These are the platforms that survived a decade of planning around timetables, and the rest have been closed after one use. No endless lists and no random recommendations: whether the trip runs on a budget, solo, or gets figured out as it goes, each tool here has to save money, time or stress to stay.

1. Flights: search wide, then book direct

I compare on one screen and then check the airline's own site before paying, because the cheapest result on an aggregator is not always the cheapest ticket once baggage is added. Airline sites are also where seat rules and baggage allowances are written in plain text, which an aggregator tends to summarise.

1. Skyscanner - the broadest search, used first to see which nearby airports are worth the train to.
2. Google Flights - price tracking over time, with alerts that tell me whether today's fare is genuinely low or just normal.
3. Trip.com - mixing and matching airlines inside a single itinerary when no one carrier does the route.
4. SeatGuru - seat maps checked before check-in opens, which is how I stopped landing under the galley.

The trade-off is time against certainty. I spend about twenty minutes comparing, then book the option that survives the baggage calculation rather than the one that looked cheapest in the first list.

2. Ground transport: connections beat price

Overland legs decide whether a trip runs smoothly, and one missed connection costs more than the fare I saved by choosing it. Route first, timetable second, payment last. Some legs are a flight across a continent, some a scenic train, and some a bus booked the night before, but the order of the checks does not change.

1. Rome2Rio - the first look at what is physically possible between two towns, including the ferry I would never have found.
2. FlixBus - long-distance coaches across Europe at fares that beat most rail prices booked late.
3. BusBud - bus bookings in regions where the local operators do not sell online in English.
4. Trainline - rail tickets and advance fares, which is where the cheap seats actually live.
5. Moovit - real-time public transport in a city I have never seen before.
6. CityMapper - step-by-step navigation through metro systems with more than five lines.
7. Uber and Grab - ride-hailing, with Grab being the one that works across Asia.

One habit worth copying: I set the alarm for the departure twenty minutes before the app says, because platforms close early and station layouts lie. Arrival time also gets checked against the last metro or the walk from the station, not only against the fare.

3. Maps that keep working without a signal

Offline maps have saved me more evenings than any booking platform. The rule is simple: pin the accommodation, the station and the nearest pharmacy before leaving the hotel wifi. On a hiking day the trail gets saved as well, because a route that lives only on a server is not a route.

1. Google Maps - navigation, opening hours, and the saved lists I build one per city.
2. Maps.me - offline maps that still show footpaths when the data connection is gone.
3. AllTrails - hiking routes with maps and reviews, checked the night before rather than on the trailhead.
4. iOverlander - campsites and stopovers for road trips, with notes on water and security.

Walk distances are worth reading properly. A kilometre on a map can be twenty minutes uphill with a bag, so I add half again to anything the app estimates in a hilly old town.

4. Beds: match the stay to the length of the trip

The place I sleep should suit how long I am staying, not just the nightly price. Three nights in a dorm and three weeks in a flat are different decisions. Where I stay and what I do in a place shape the trip more than the flight does, and the longer stay is what gets me past the obvious first afternoon.

1. Hostelworld - budget hostels, read for mentions of noise and late check-in rather than for the score.
2. Couchsurfing - local exchange, most useful in a city where I know nobody at all.
3. Booking.com - hotels and guesthouses on free-cancellation rates, held until the route settles.
4. Airbnb - apartments from four nights up, where a kitchen starts paying for itself.
5. Workaway - work exchange for longer stays where a few hours a day buys a bed and a local routine.

5. Days out, and people to spend them with

Activities are the part of a trip I book least, because the best afternoons here tend to be unplanned. What I do book is transport-heavy or timed, and what I look for when travelling alone is company for a day rather than a tour.

1. GetYourGuide - activities and timed entries, useful when a slot sells out in advance.
2. Viator - tours and day trips, checked for the cancellation window before paying.
3. Geocaching - a worldwide treasure hunt that turns an ordinary afternoon into a reason to walk.
4. Bumble BFF - making local friends in a city where the trip is long enough to be lonely.
5. Too Good To Go - discounted surplus food from bakeries and restaurants near wherever I am staying.

6. Planning, tracking, and the hours in between

A little organisation prevents the small failures that eat travel days. I keep one itinerary that everything forwards into, and I check it on the morning of each move. Travel details beyond tickets go in there too: platform numbers, the guesthouse name spelled the way a driver will recognise it, and the taxi fare agreed at the station.

1. SleepingInAirports - honest guides to long layovers and where to actually spend the night, plus how to plan an extended airport stay.
2. TripIt - confirmations pulled into a single itinerary I can open offline, with the flight tracked from check-in to landing.
3. ChatGPT - quick answers on visas, opening hours and how a local rule works.
4. Roadtrippers - route planning with stops added between the obvious points.

For the hours in between: Spotify for music and podcasts on long legs, Netflix with downloads made before the airport, and Lightroom for editing photos on the tablet instead of the laptop. Editing is also how the journey gets documented, because a folder of raw shots never opened at home is a trip I already forgot.

7. Money: know the number before you spend it

The easiest way to lose a budget is to never look at it. Two minutes each evening, entering what the day actually cost, has kept more trips on track than any spreadsheet I abandoned in week two.

1. Revolut - a multi-currency card, used for the exchange rate and the instant freeze if a wallet goes missing.
2. Xe - a real-time converter used before agreeing to any price quoted in a currency I do not know.
3. TravelSpend - the daily expense log, entered on the walk back to the room.
4. AirHelp - compensation claims for cancelled or badly delayed flights.
5. Honey - cash-back and coupon codes tried automatically at checkout before I pay full price.

8. Staying online, understood and covered

Connection and paperwork are the least interesting part of planning and the most expensive to get wrong. Everything in this group is set up the day before departure and then left alone. Well-being belongs to the same rule: set it up once before departure, then ignore it until the day it is needed.

1. Airalo - eSIMs for affordable data on arrival, bought before the flight rather than at the airport kiosk.
2. WhatsApp - the message everyone actually answers, from hostel desks to bus companies.
3. Surfshark - a VPN for banking, booking sites and hotel wifi.
4. SafetyWing - flexible travel medical insurance that can start while I am already abroad.
5. Google Translate - offline language packs downloaded for each country on the route.
6. Oura - sleep and recovery numbers, which is how I stop booking 06:00 starts after a night bus.

If two things had to survive a phone reset, I would keep the offline maps and the multi-currency card. One keeps me moving, the other keeps the trip inside its budget.