There are so many different online resources we use to plan and book our travel to ensure we stay on budget and have the best experience. Scroll down to see some of the websites we use to book our trips. Check out our favourite travel gear too.
FLIGHTS
More often than not you will find a cheaper flight online than when booking through a travel agent and best of all, there are flight search engines that allow you to compare prices between different websites so you are getting the best price.
ACCOMMODATION
Just like flight search engines, hotel comparison services are a great way to find the best deal for accommodation for your destination. You will be surprised how different the price can appear on different booking sites.
TOURS & ATTRACTIONS
TRAVEL BLOGGING RESOURCES
If you are wanting to start your own travel blog… or any blog for that matter, there are plenty of resources to kick off with a bang and even potentially earn cash for your next travel adventure.
After all, there are plenty of digital nomads out there funding their travel adventures completely from the online presence they maintain through blogging or other online services.
Check out our complete guide on how to start a travel blog.
Below are some of the essential resources we currently use or have used in the past that we still recommend.
SETTING UP YOUR BLOG
- WORDPRESS.ORG – Get yourself a self-hosted WordPress site. Unlike wordpress.com which will limit what you can do, or Blogspot sites, which you do not actually own the content yourself, wordpress.org will allow you to create a fully customisable blog or website, and add advertising streams.
- BIGSCOOTS – This is one of the best options for premium hosting, while still being affordable. Bigscoots service goes above and beyond the budget hosting services I have previously used and my websites are faster since switching. They also have a shared plan if you are just starting out and want to keep your costs low.
BLOGGING TOOLS
- TAILWIND – Pinterest is our largest referral source of social traffic to each of my websites and Tailwind is a huge help with automating Pinterest scheduling. The tool allows you to schedule your Pinterest shares at optimal times and post them for you. They also offer other social media scheduling for Instagram and Facebook too. This saves us hours each month!
- FLODESK– This is by far the easiest email management system we have tried, with current pricing of only $19 for unlimited subscribers. This is a massive saving compared to other email marketing providers and their email templates are absolutely stunning!
- MAILERLITE – If you aren’t ready to spend on email marketing, Mailerlite is free for up to 1000 subscribers and its features are comparable with leading email marketing software!
- SHAREASALE – This is an affiliate marketplace that has loads of relevant affiliate networks you can join and promote within your articles to earn affiliate commissions.
- TUBE BUDDY – For keyword research and topic ideas, we use Tube Buddy for youTube. They have a free plan that gives you some of the basic features but if you get in early before you get 1000 subscribers, you can get their pro plan for 50% off which gives some fantastic extra tools! It also means you get to use their App which is great for keeping track on the go.
- LATER APP– For Instagram scheduling, we have two preferred services (we used one for each of our different blogs). Later has a free plan that allows up to 10 posts per month. It was 30 so it’s a big decrease, however, the paid starter plan is affordable and you get 30 posts per month and can also schedule Instagram stories to save you a load of time and space them out to give you a longer presence online throughout the day.
- PLANNTHAT – For this blog, we used PlannThat which does give you 30 free posts a month although their paid plans have some really cool features including the ability to schedule posts with location tagging, stories, extra social profiles, video uploads and hashtag tools.
- SOCIAL BEE – For automating Facebook and Twitter scheduling, we use Social Bee which saves us so many hours. You set up different content categories, a schedule and then Social Bee does the rest! This helps us stay present on Facebook and Twitter, even if we are travelling and don’t have time to pop in.
- LEADPAGES – We used LeadPages to create sale pages for our digital products. They are so easy to create and look great, with high conversions.
- RANKIQ – This is one of our favourite tools for optimising and updating existing articles. It is an incredible tool that assesses existing content on your chosen keyword to let you know what your article is missing.
Hopefully, all this information helps you on your way to a life of travel adventures worth remembering and possibly even a blogging life you love… just like ours!
Let us know if there is anything else you want information on and we can add it in.
Holly & Simon