How do we travel so much without being rich? Yes, we often get asked that question. We don’t really have any secrets, except we have learned to use some travel resources very effectively. Our plans are usually not fixed and it is easy to find good prices when we’re flexible.
Traveling doesn’t always have to be expensive and we want to help you make your dreams possible without burning a hole in your pocket. Here are the things that we use to maximize our value for the amount of money that we spend.
Finding Cheap Hotel Rooms
The best thing about Booking.com is that there is free cancellation for MOST of the properties that are listed with them. We somehow end up finding the best prices and deals on Bookings.com and over the years, we have stopped using all other hotel websites except this.
It is our FAVORITE travel website because we can read reviews about everything. TripAdvisor is particularly useful when I’m traveling without San because I like doing thorough research before going solo.
I feel safer after I read so many reviews from other travelers all over the world. People share feedback about many useful things – whether it was difficult to reach the hotel, safety tips, what can go wrong, etc. There is so much information on TripAdvisor and I highly recommend this website to everyone.
Airbnb makes a lot of sense if you’re looking for a place to stay that has the comforts of your home – like a kitchen and maybe even a washing machine. Whenever we travel in a group, we find AirBnB to be the most economical option.
Where to Find Cheap Flights
Literally, all of our flights are booked using Skyscanner. Why? Because it has an “everywhere” feature. If you have a general idea that you’d like to travel in June because that’s your vacation month, then simply select your location in “From” and leave the “to” field blank – the system will put “everywhere” there.
In dates, you can select an entire month or simply tell the system to find you the cheapest month. This way, you will know where exactly you can fly THE CHEAPEST from your current country. Sounds RAD, no? Believe it or not, we often book international tickets for as low as 30 – 50 euros using this feature.
Based on your current location, here are the Skyscanner websites for you:
Ever wondered how people seem to be booking super cheap flights but you can’t find them? Go check out CheapAir – it lives up to its name and you can find really good deals.
Our Favorite Airline
Flying Economy on Emirates feels like Business Class because they treat their customers like royalty. The food on Emirates is always good and I love their entertainment system.
Finding Affordable Rental Cars
We always end up finding the most affordable car rental deals on Discover Car. It works like a search engine for rental cars in literally every country by every single provider. Check it out!
There is nothing better than AutoEurope because it is like a search engine for rental cars. It tells you exactly which rental company is offering the cheapest car, the car model, insurance details and where to pick it up from.
Finding Good Tours + Attraction Tickets
Get Your Guide is very useful when you want to visit an attraction that’s very popular and queues tend to get very long outside. You can find a “skip the lines” ticket for literally every attraction around the world, which is sometimes the same cost as the normal entry ticket!
Moreover, Get Your Guide works well for tours too. There are never any surprises when you book a tour with them. I love how you can reach other travelers’ reviews before selecting a tour.
Travel Blogging Resources
GoDaddy for buying a Domain Name (website name)
If you want to start a travel blog, then the first thing that you need to do is to get a domain name. GoDaddy is where I bought one and I recommend this website to you as well. But hey, only get a domain name from here, but no other service. For hosting, look at the next option.
Siteground for faster Web Hosting
My website is hosted with SiteGround and I love how awesome and instant their “chat support” is. My website was so slow with another host but has become very fast with Siteground.
Elegant Themes – to make our website look pretty
We have never felt the need to hire a web designer. The entire website is designed by me (Sonal). No, I don’t have web designing experience but I have a premium theme – Divi by Elegant Themes, which is super simple to work on. It is intuitive, fast, and mobile responsive and you will have so much fun using it.
GetResponse for sending emails to my subscribers
I have been using GetResponse to send out my monthly email newsletter to my website subscribers and I love it. No other email marketing service has the “perfect timing” option, that delivers the email at the time when a person is most likely to open it. Because of this feature, my email open rate is pretty high. 😉
PS: Drifter Planet contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, we will earn a little commission at no extra cost to you. These commissions help us reduce the costs of keeping this site active. Thanks for reading!