Travel booking services. Why are they important?
At the heart of carefree travel is organisation and great travel booking services. Organisation helps you spend more time focusing on the experiences. Great services reduce the amount of admin, save you time and money and eliminate risk when it comes to the fundamental parts of every trip eg booking accomodation, booking flights, insuring your belongings, protecting yourself for uncertainties and booking the best travel experiences your destination has to offer.
We use a range of travel booking services that we genuinely could not live without when it comes to our travels. They allow us to get the best deals, keep all our travel bookings in one place, clearly read legitimate reviews and make our travels extremely easy. They save us time and money and eliminate the risk of costly mistakes/ bad choices.
We are always transparent, we do earn commission from some of these partners, it is called Affiliate Marketing and used across all travel (and most content sites/ blogs) but we also promise that we only choose to work with partners that we use regularly and that we genuinely could not travel without. By using our links, you help fund this website and keep our recommendations coming.
1) Hotels and accomodation
Using a third party travel booking platform for your accomodation allows you to save time and money by seeing everything that is on offer based on your specific preferences/ requirements.
We use booking.com for the vast majority of our travels. Bookings.com is the biggest travel site in the world and we could not recommend it more. We definitely consider it the best hotel booking site. Select from their detailed filter options and explore your accomodation options. Pros: One-stop-shop, great deals, user friendly, good loyalty programme
Hostelworld.com is also another website we browse for our longer trips when stretching our budgets. Although bookings.com does offer a range of hostels in specific areas, hostelworld is a one-stop-shop specifically for budget conscious backpackers.
2) Flight bookings
We use skyscanner.com for every trip to compare all flight prices and variables. The platform compares different airlines and routes and provides you with all possible option.
Pros: Easy to use, one-stop-shop, lots of filters, easiest way to find the best deal
3) Tours and activities
Using tour and attraction services to book your activities can save a lot of time and money. You have access to a broad range of activities, in one place with legitimate reviews and access to personal support if you need it. So much easier than trawling through search engines.
We use two sites usually for tours and activities depending on the destination we are travelling to.
Getyourguide.com. Easy to explore, book and store your tickets for any activities, attractions, excursions and tours available at your destination. They offer 60,000 offers across 150 countries so you are sure to find something amazing. Getyourguide.com has a clear focus on sustainable travel experiences. They have strong cancellation policies and reserve now pay later options available for tours making your booking experience carefree. Pros: Great choices, focus on conscious tourism, flexibility, slightly cheaper in some cases
Viator.com. Very similar offering to getyourguide.com. From our experience, sometimes Viator can have slightly higher prices but this is because they have a much larger network than Getyourguide.com with approximately 300,000 experiences. They also have some more perks eg a shorter cancellation policy for most tours (24 hours) and more flexible reserve now and pay later options.
Pros: Largest choice of activities, great flexibility
4) Car rental
rentalcars.com is part of Bookings Holding (bookings,com) and the world’s largest online car rental service. They operate in over 60,000 locations across 160 countries. A huge benefit is that they offer 24/7 customer service and their website is available in 43 languages.
5) Insurance
Insurance is a personal thing and everyone will have different needs so research the different providers and see what is right for you. one thing is certain, take out travel insurance. It is a fundamental for carefree travel, it is piece of mind for everything you do.
Some insurance providers worth checking out
Klook : 24/7 support, cover for all over the world, no hidden clauses, no hidden restrictions
Ekta: 24/7 support, no hidden clauses, global insurance, no hidden medical restrictions
If you do one thing, make sure you choose the right partners and services. Cheaper is not always the best route. Make sure to look at the fine print, compare options and choose what is right for you. At the end of the day, you want to travel with ease. These travel booking services are the foundations for that.
Related Posts
