The Goal I Never Knew I Had & Other Travel Tips!

I am a big fan of Trip Advisor.  I use the site constantly in planning hotels, restaurants, and sites to see for all of our trips.  I use it so frequently myself, that several years ago I made a commitment to be a contributor.  I review all of the places we go - both domestically and internationally - to be part of the community and help others in the same way they've helped me.

This week - after posting my Lisbon reviews - I got the Trip Advisor "Level 6" badge.  This is the highest badge for reviews and represents 10,000 points (you get reviews for reviews, ratings, photos, and helpful votes!).  More importantly... my reviews have been read by 70,000 people!  WOW!  That's a crazy number of decisions to influence.  

So below are other travel sites that we use often in trip planning - in case you're not using them! 

Trip Advisor: We always look up the top hotels in the cities as well as restaurants.  What I've found recently are the Travel Guides.  These are written by both commission writers and random fans who write itineraries for the cities (e.g., Shopping in Granada, Three Day Tour in Lisbon).  They have been helpful for planning 

SkyScanner: This is a crazy amazing flights site that allows you to plug-in a city you live in and a month and it'll show you the cheapest flights to anywhere in the world.  So far, this is how we've picked some our trips...the cheapest flights for that month.  The algorithms are amazing. 

Hotels.com: P was previously a big Hilton points person.  Now that we have diversity of small boutique hotels in these cities (and frankly during our Thailand trip), we try to use hotels.com when we can to book.  This means that for every 10 hotel nights, we get a free hotel night at the average cost of the room.  So, for example, we recently spent an average of $250 on rooms (this included Thailand...which is why it's so high!!!) so we get a free $250 dollar room to use at some point soon (London here we come!). 

New York Times - 36 Hours: The New York Times 36 Hours in X City have been great sources of the highlights of various spots as well as great restaurants.  We always consult these articles before we decide on an itinerary 

Instagram: If you're not an Instagram user, you should get an account!  You don't have to post photos, but you can use it to search for great photos of the city you're visiting.  This has helped lead us to some beautiful spots for P to take photos!

Happy traveling!