Planning and packing are part of the whole travel experience. Some see it as pre-holiday fun while others start packing a night before departure.
Whichever one you are, we created a list of all the things that will help prepare for your travels. This can range from where to book your plane tickets and hotels, what to pack, and how to enjoy waiting without grabbing your phone!
Packing
When we soon realized that at the end of every trip, we packed much more than necessary, we started focusing on packing as little as possible. Luckily over the years, our travel bags have become smaller and lighter.
For our travels, we always include:
30L Backpack – so far this size of backpack is widely accepted as a carrier bag on flights. Additionally, it is compact, making it perfect to carry without being overly heavy. Make sure you go for a hiking backpack as there are additional features to make carrying more comfortable. These types of backpacks are great for hiking, weekend trips, beach holidays, and road trips.
Travel Packing Organizers – If you are using a backpack then it is a pain to unpack it every time you need something. So once you have arrived at your accommodation, all you need to do is empty your backpack and pile the packing organizers. You won’t have clothing scattered all over the place.
Turkish Towel – These thin towels are ideal if you are going for a beach trip. They are thin, light, 100% cotton, and small to pack. Also ideal as a blanket in the summer or at a tropical destination.
Foldable water bottles – empty bottles are bulky and take up unnecessary space. You can easily roll up these bottles making them very compact to pop them in your bag.
Foldable food storage container – we always make sure we have some food with us just in case we end up someplace remote. Therefore these foldable containers are one of our favorite items when traveling. Once they are empty or you are not using them, they don’t take up any space at all in your bag.
Woolen underclothing – Wool has this unique feature that it keeps you cool in warm weather, and snuggly warm when it’s freezing. And the best part is, it ‘cleans itself’. After wearing it for a day all you need to do is freshen it up in fresh air or let it steam in the bathroom when you take a shower. Perfect for spring, autumn, and winter trips.
Flight Search Engines
Google Flights – seems the most obvious right? What we particularly like about Google Flights is that it is easy to scroll through several dates to see if it would be cheaper to go a day or week earlier. Plus they use all sorts of travel booking platforms to find the cheapest (not always convenient 🙃) options
Skyscanner – this search engine browses through all airlines. You can easily give your preferences through the many filters, avoiding getting suggestions like 3 stops 55h for a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. Also, they show all types of connections which can include different airlines creating combinations you wouldn’t have thought of.
Momondo – we just recently found this website and love the search by the map function. It is perfect if you are not sure where to go yet and ticket price is one of the key factors in making a choice.
Low-Cost Airlines
Budget airlines do not always have the best service and often leave at odd hours, but if it can save you lots of money which you can use for other travel purposes….then why not?
Europe – the biggest low-cost airlines in Europe are Easyjet and Ryanair. However, they are not always the cheapest. Make sure you check regional carriers as well such as the Dutch Transavia and the Hungarian WizzAir too.
Tip: check flying to and from smaller airports to get cheaper ticket options. For example: instead of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport check if flights to Rotterdam/The Hague or Eindhoven Airport.
Asia – AirAsia is the biggest and most convenient airline to travel across Asia. We have used Lion Air many times too when it comes to traveling to and from Indonesia.
Accommodation
Booking.com – this is a huge platform that has included ‘private owners’ as well, giving you enough options to choose from. We find the cancellation policy easy when planning a road trip. If a certain place doesn’t have any nice accommodation available on a certain date, we can easily change our whole itinerary again to make it work.
Airbnb – we love the whole concept of staying at local homes and discovering the less busy neighborhoods. Plus having a kitchen and living area is sometimes ideal. However, we discovered that many accommodations are run by agencies and investors instead of private owners. So to have the best Airbnb experience, try to book the little unique places run by private owners.
TrutedHouseSitters – If you love animals then you can find free accommodation in exchange for taking care of a pet whose owner is away for a holiday. We used this platform to find somebody to take care of our cat. We haven’t been sitters yet but to hope to do so soon. The Pet Sitter Membership is from €179
Transportation
We will share detailed tips and prices in our articles on specific destinations. But in general, these are our tips when it comes to arranging transportation/rental.
Uber and/or other local ride-hailing apps – It is convenient to always have the option to arrange a driver to take you where you need to go. Ideal when arriving at a train station and you need to get to your accommodation.
Rentalcars.com – to be very honest we don’t have loads of experience renting a car. But we did once on our Puglia trip and discovered much later that through rentalcars.com we would have gotten a better deal. So highly recommend checking this website out.
Scooter/Motorbike Rental – you don’t need to book ahead when traveling in Asia. A rental company or accommodation always has a scooter for rent.
As for Europe, we usually contact the rental company beforehand. In most cases, we can get a discount when renting a bike for more than a week. So email them directly to see what the possibilities are.
Killing Time When Waiting
These no-phone suggestions are not only to keep little kids entertained, but we occasionally did some of these games when we were queuing for hours. Don’t worry, the ‘I spy with my little eye….’ is not included.
Uno and other variations – We never met anybody who doesn’t like the card game UNO. We also discovered the UNO FLIP version which is lots of fun. It’s small and ideal to pop into your carry-on bag.
Wipe drawing board – this is great with kids. A wiping board saves you bringing paper with you.
Starts and ends with the letter – this might sound like a silly game but we had many laughs when waiting in line. Name words that start and end with a letter such as: starting with a B and ending with an S 😊
Question cards – go for the family-friendly version if you don’t want eavesdroppers to enjoy the game too 😉.
Kindle or Audio – OK this isn’t a game, but don’t you agree that reading/listening a good book is the best way to spend your time waiting? E-books or Audiobooks are the best way to take an unlimited number of books without weighing a thing.
We will keep updating our travel resources page. So make sure you stop every now and then to see the latest recommendations.
Cheers! Matt and Monico