Websites I Use to Research & Plan my Trips

Researching and planning trips can be a long (but fun!) task before leaving on your next trip. I have been on quite a few trips and I have planned them all myself, with not a lot of help! Whether you’re planning a huge backpacking trip across Asia or a week-long road trip through Europe’s Christmas Markets, these are the websites and resources I use to research and plan my trips and will be perfect to help you plan yours.

In this article, I will share all of the websites and resources that I use to plan my trips abroad! This includes how I find inspiration and where I actually want to travel to, what I use to plan out my itinerary, as well as where I book my flights, accommodation, and tours.

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Resources for Planning a Trip

In a super quick, condensed list, these are the steps I take to research and plan all of my trips:

• Gather general inspiration and things to do
• Plan out a rough itinerary
• Find and book flights and other transportation
• Find and book accommodation
• Find and book tours

If you are interested in how to actually plan a trip (and not just the resources I use!) check out my blog post on steps to plan a trip. The specific post uses planning a trip to Europe as an example, but the relative steps are the same for any multi-city or multi-country trip!

General Inspiration & Things to Do

When it’s time to start the initial stages of planning a trip, I will start to gather inspiration for where I actually want to go! I also tend to do this if I’m bored or if I feel like researching travel (which is my main hobby 🙂 ), and will gather and save inspiration for future trips I may have on my wishlist.

The main travel websites and resources I use to do this are Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, blogs, and youtube. I will also ask the people I meet when I arrive for any recommendations as well (people like hotel/hostel reception, free walking tour guides, other travellers I may meet, etc.).

1. Pinterest

Pinterest is the PERFECT tool to use to help you plan and research your trip. This is where I find my general inspiration and the places I want to go, and it’s great because you can save it all on one board that is dedicated to the trip you’re planning.

You can also make the board “collaborative” and invite other people who are travelling with you to see and add to the board for brainstorming.

You can use Pinterest to determine where you want to travel to (if you don’t know already).

For example, you can search things like:

• “best place to travel to in your twenties“
• “best place to travel with kids”
• “trips to take before you turn forty“
• “places to travel for adventure”
• “places to travel to see wildlife“
• “affordable beaches to travel to”
• “places I can’t miss in Europe“

There are so many things you can search! And once Pinterest learns what you like to search for, you can scroll your homefeed for inspiration as well.

I also love to use Pinterest to gather inspiration and find specific things to do in each city I want to visit.

Common things I search on Pinterest for cities or specific places I might want to visit:

• “place you’re going bucket list”
• “best things to do in city you’re going to“
• “place you’re going to hidden gems”.
• “photo locations in place“
• “best views in place“
• “how long should I spend in place“

2. Instagram

Browsing Instagram is one of my favourite ways to gather inspiration before my next trip. It is such a visual app that you can actually see these amazing places through photos, and add them to your bucket list right then and there.

On Instagram, I love to “save” any inspiration I see and organize them into folders. Two types of folders I have are “Hidden gems – Europe” and “Europe Photo Inspiration” (but I have these for each continent/place (Asia, Canada, USA…).

• Explore Page – Perfect just to gain general inspiration with no place in mind.

• World of Wanderlust – I LOVE Brooke’s photos on World of Wanderlust. She is a solo travel blogger, although she hasn’t been travelling much anymore as she has opened up a hugely successful bakery in Australia. But, I still love to look back through her photos to gather inspiration (she’s been all over the world).

• Salt in Our Hair – This travel couple has some of the best travel photography and I love looking at their photos. Hannah & Nick give me SO MUCH inspiration and their photos are perfect for gathering inspiration from all over the globe.

3. TikTok

In the recent years TikTok has emerged as an amazing resource for gathering trip inspiration!

When you first start liking or researching travel on the app, the algorithm will start to learn what you want to see and will just start feeding you inspiration!

You can also search and save things similar to Pinterest, but TikTok is mainly short form videos, which can be a great way to actually see what a place is like, as well as awesome tours, viewpoint, restaurants, and tips and tricks for visiting specific places.

4. Travel Blogs/Vlogs

Travel blogs are another amazing source for inspiration, as well as vlogs on youtube! This is another primary source of inspiration and a staple tool in researching my trips. Some of my favorites are:

• World of Wanderlust – As well as instagram, Brooke has an amazing travel blog I love.

• Kara & Nate – They are a super fun travel couple who travel the globe and go on super fun adventures along the way! Kara and Nate are primarily on Youtube with incredible travel vlogs, and I love to follow their journey to find adventures for my bucket list and future trips.

• Flying the Nest – A traveling family, Stephen, Jess, Hunter, and Koa are another fun group to follow on Youtube and gather inspiration for future trips! This is also a great way to find inspiration if you are travelling with kids.

• Backpacking Bananas – Christianne is a solo female traveller on Youtube who has a lot of adventure content in places like South America, Asia, and Central America. She also has group trips to Pakistan which is so cool to see. If you’re heading to these areas of the globe, I highly recommend her videos! She vlogs her incredible adventures and gives her best tips for these places as well.

5. Ask the Locals & Other Travellers

Once at my destination, I ask the people working in the hostel or hotel for their recommendations on what to do, and any other travelers I meet as well. I also like to take free walking tours when I first arrive in a city, and I always ask my guide for any recommendations as well!

I usually have a couple of things in mind for what I want to do, but also try to be pretty flexible when it comes to daily plans so that I leave room for potential recommendations.

Planning a Rough Itinerary

This stage can kind of be combined with the inspiration gathering stage.

As I gather inspiration, I’ll create a Google Doc (or write in a notebook) everything I come across, and/or I’ll save it in folders on each app.

If you lay everything out in a Google Doc with ideas of everything you want to do, you can start to see roughly how many days you’ll need in each place.

Once I have everything compiled of where I hope to go and what to see, I’ll start to make a rough itinerary.

When it comes to solidifying details, planning the itinerary, and keeping your trip organized, I love to use the following travel resources:

• Google Docs
• Google Maps
• TimeandDate.com
• Canva

1. Google Docs

Google Docs is an incredible online travel resource to use when planning your trips. I use Google Docs for a couple of purposes: brainstorming potential trips, listing things to do in each city or laying out all of the information I need for each place I’m planning to visit.

As I’m gathering my inspiration and researching, I’ll put potential things to do in each place (sometimes with links to tour companies), places to stay, potential day trips, and any food or restaurants I want to try.

This website is perfect because it saves everything to the cloud, meaning you can access and add to it from your phone, laptop, iPad, or even a public computer. You can also include links to things as well!

It is also really easy to share documents through Google Docs. This is perfect because if you are planning with someone else, they can also edit the document and add their own research to the list, creating a big dump list/brainstorming list.

If you wanted to then print and go through the list, highlighting and crossing things off, you can do that after!

2. Google Maps

Another website I use to compile and visually lay out everywhere I want to go, is Google Maps.

As I’m researching, or if I randomly come across something while on Instagram or wherever, I’ll pop over to Google Maps and “star” it in on the map.

Then, when I go to plan my actual itinerary, I can see what things are close by to each other, and what things are super far away that I’ll either need extra time to get to, or things that may be cut from the list.

4. TimeandDate.com

When planning a trip that has multiple destinations, I always build out my plan on a printed calendar. It helps me visualize my route, see how many days I have in which destination, which days are travel days, and so on.

Then, once everything is set in stone I make a copy for my family to ensure they always have an idea of where I am.

This website is where I print all of my calendars from is TimeandDate.com! It’s super easy to use and has a couple of formatting options!

5. Canva

Another website I use to plan and keep everything organized is Canva.

Sometimes I use Canva calendar templates if I want a cuter calendar, or if I want a custom calendar.

For example, when I was planning my trip to Belgium, Amsterdam, and Paris over Christmas break one year, I was going to be spending about a week and a half at the end of December and a week and a half at the beginning of January travelling. Instead of printing a December calendar and a January calendar, I created a custom calendar that had the weeks I needed so that everything was on one page!

I also use Canva now to create a PDF itinerary with all of my trip details that I can shared with my family, as well as keep with me on my trip (once everything is finalized and booked).

Finding and Booking Flights 

Planning and researching flights is a crucial part of preparing for your next trip. I typically only use two resources for my flights and both serve a different purpose.

I usually plan and research flights before outlining my itinerary, because flights heavily impact where I go! But I still wanted to dedicate a whole section to resources for finding and booking flights.

1. Google Flights

I use Google Flights to plan my route and to check out the prices for flying to each destination. My favourite feature of Google Flights is the explore map, as it shows the price to fly to any destination around the globe.

If I’m looking to fly into Europe, first I’ll type in my departure city and set the dates I want to travel. I don’t type in a destination, and instead, hit “search”. Then I drag the map around to the area I want to go (in this example I’ll move over to Europe).

I’ll look at the different prices to fly into each city, determine which city is the cheapest, and from there I’ll start to plan a route around Europe to try to hit all of the places on my wish list.

I will add different flight options to my Google Doc mentioned above!

2. Airline Websites

I never book my flights through Google Flights.

Instead, I use it to find the cheapest city to fly into, and it will tell you what airline offers that price and on what dates. If it is saying the price is only through a third-party website, I most likely won’t be booking that particular flight, unless I can find the same price on the actual airlines website.

When I am ready to book, I’ll head to the airline and book directly with them. It’s always easier to change things around, get a refund, or a travel credit (depending on the airline’s policy and which ticket you book) if you book directly through the airline instead of a through a third party.

Wondering how to even plan a trip? Check out this guide on How to Plan a Trip to Europe for the First Time.

Booking Accommodation

Researching accommodation is so important when planning a trip because it is a huge part of your budget, and it can contribute added stress to your trip if you choose the wrong accommodation.

Tip: Choose accommodation that is close to the city center. It may cost a bit more, but in the long run, it’ll save you money on transportation, time (which is valuable when traveling), and stress.

1. Hostelworld

If you’re looking to stay in hostels on your trip, I always use Hostelworld to find places to stay and book.

It’s a trusted site with a lot of information to choose the best hostel, with loads of reviews on different hostels, ratings for each place, an interactive map to find the best location, and lists all the amenities the hostel provides.

Hostelworld is one of my favourite travel websites I use to help plan my trips.

2. Booking.com

Sometimes I’ll travel to places that don’t actually have hostels.

If this is the case, I’ll head to Booking.com and start browsing there. Booking.com is a great resource because it saves all of the accommodation you book on their website for easy reference, provides ratings and reviews, and is super user-friendly!

I typically check out prices and reviews on both hostelworld.com and booking.com when I’m deciding where to stay.

Find and Book Tours

Another thing you may be interested in while travelling is tours!

The three main websites I use to find and book tours are:

• Get Your Guide
• Viator
• Directly with the company

1. Get Your Guide

The Get Your Guide website is a third-party website that sells a bunch of different tours all over the world.

You can use this website to find the best tours in a certain place and what is offered in a certain city, as well as see ratings and reviews left by other travellers.

I’m normally comfortable booking a tour through this website after I’ve check out the ratings and reviews!

There are things like tours, admission tickets, food classes, and more offered by Get Your Guide.

2. Viator

Viator is another third-party website that has different tours, classes, and admission tickets on it as well. I’ll usually check both Get Your Guide and Viator to see what each website has, because sometimes each website has different tours for sale!

And, just like Get Your Guide, once I read the ratings and reviews of a particular tour, I feel good to book!

These websites are also a nice place to gather inspiration and see what you can do in each city, or even day-trips you could even take from different cities!

3. Directly With the Company

Another option for booking a tour is booking directly on the company website.

This one is pretty self explanatory, but in order to book directly with the website you will have to know exactly what you want to book! This is why Get Your Guide and Viator can be a great resource, because you can browse by destination to see what tours there even are.

If tickets are sold out when browsing directly with the company, you can check out GetYourGuide and Viator to see if there are any tickets left with those companies. Typically, it will still be the same tour operator running the tour (and you can find who the operator is in the tour description), just sold through a different website.

Looking for Safety Tips? Find out 20 Tips on How to Stay Safe While Travelling.

Websites for Trip Planning Summary

Planning a trip can be both super fun and also overwhelming! By using different websites and tools, you can gather inspiration, organize your itinerary, book flights and accommodations, and even find exciting tours and activities for your upcoming journey.

You can find great inspiration from Pinterest, Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, and travel blogs, keep all of your ideas together with Google Maps and Google Docs, and build your itinerary with Canva, and TimeandDate.com. When it comes to booking hotels, flights, and tours, there are a bunch of different websites you can explore!

Hopefully, this helped you to start with your trip planning process!

Let me know your favourites tools, websites, and resources you use to plan and research your trips!

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