Booking.com allows a customer to book stays, flights, car rentals, and more. It has a really good reward program called “Genius,” where frequent users can unlock additional discounts and perks. I would frequently receive freebies that included breakfast and exclusive discounts for continued loyalty. Plus, they offer a variety of accommodation options from hotels, apartments, hostels, to vacation rentals. Their cancellation policy allows users flexibility in their travel plans, which is always a good perk as with travel the unexpected can happen a lot.

The best resource to find, but not necessarily book hostels. Hostelworld is known for having high fees so it’s good to copare pricing beforehand with Booking.com. It does have it’s perks though. The newest feature added allows you to communicate with fellow travelers through a chat before you even get to the property. You get to enter a hostel chat as well as the town’s chatroom. This can be super helpful for any kinds of questions. A lot of groups form here to go to common tourist attractions together and you don’t even have to be staying at the same hostel.

Trusted Housesitters requires a yearly subscription in order to use the app. This is an opportunity for you to get a local’s perspective of day to day life in any country through pet sitting their pets while they are on vacation. You may encounter additional chores in the exchange like water plants, getting their mail, and so on. The downside of this is that you do need to be flexible since the dates revolve around the house owner’s vacation time frame. Remember that once you make a commit you can’t just abandon the pet that your house sitting.

I don’t know about you, but I get lost easily. Google Maps is the most comprehensive step by step navigation system with customer reviews on establishments. My favorite feature is the favorites folder. Typically before a vacation I create a list of things to do. As I am wandering around a city if I notice that I’m close to one of the bookmarked favorites, I make a detour. Don’t forget to download offline maps in case you have no signal.

I always made sure to have TWO navigation apps downloaded. In the case scenario one didn’t work for whatever reason, the other app would save me. Also, allows offline map downloads. In some scenarios this app was more accurate than Google maps.

I refer to this when trying to get from Point A to Point B and I don’t know what modes of transportation are available for me. This app breaks it down by the most recommended, cheapest, and other options like taxi or self driving.

Specifically related to hiking, AllTrails helps with navigation when you are quite literally are off the grid. It can be very helpful especially when the trail markers aren’t clearly marked. You can keep track of your progress and see how long it took you to complete the trail or amount of elevation gain. My favorite part is finding new hiking spots by the GPS near me option. You can search through hundreds of hikes that are rated from easy to hard. Take a look through the reviews of fellow hikers as those can be helpful too.

Skyscanner allows you to search flights to anywhere and you don’t have to set a certain date of the flight or final destination. This way if you have the flexibility then you can research to see if leaving one day earlier or later saves you potentially a lot of money.

Polar Steps is an app that helps you document your journey digitally. You can turn on the GPS to track your every move and then you can add snippets and write about your adventure. In the end, you can turn your digital work into a physical book.

This is more so for statistics, but Been lets you keep track of how many countries you have been to.

Get Your Guide allows you to search for activities, classes, guided tours, entrance tickets and more that available for you anywhere in the world. You can compare what you find here by previous customer reviews. The booking process is typically done online, allowing users to secure their reservations through the platform.

Viator is also a platform that allows you to find new attractions around the world. I would say that they have more options available than Get Your Guide. They do have a feature called Reserve Now & Pay Later to secure the activities you don’t want to miss without being locked in.

Airbnb is a platform that is probably best known for booking accommodations. However, they have recently added an Airbnb Experiences option. Personally, in the most recent years I have utilized this much more and I have found hands on experiences that aren’t listed on other larger platforms.