Travel tips and helpful links
Here are links to sites that I find useful in my travels and travel planning. These are not sponsored, but merely sites that I use or think are interesting. If any become sponsored in the future, I’ll be sure to note that after the link.
There are many, many more useful sites out there for the travel industry. You can Google and find other lists that compile sites like Travelocity, Kayak, AirBnB, Uber, etc., but I’ll try and keep my list focussed on the sites that are maybe lesser known that I find really useful.
Airline Apps
I would suggest downloading the apps for your airlines to your smart phone before you travel. I still prefer to use paper boarding passes rather than using an image on my phone, but the apps have other uses and can be much better about keeping you updated about delays and gate changes than the announcements made over the airport speaker systems. Many also tell you when your checked bag has been loaded and unloaded which can be welcome information during multi-connection flights. It won’t protect against a lost bag, but it’s psychologically helpful to know your bag is onboard (you just hope it’s onboard the correct plane!)
If you’re visiting this site primarily for travel information and inspiration, hit the link for the “travel” post category found in the righthand sidebar of this page as well as in the footers. That will help you filter out the off-topic and really nerdy photography posts that may be of no interest to you. Some travel posts may still contain information about photography, but I think you’ll find a healthy dose of travel inspiration sprinkled throughout. I also tag posts by country so if you’re interested in a particular region, that should help you narrow down the relevant posts.
For reference, here is a list of countries I have visited so far:
My Most Visited
USA
(46 of the lower 48 states)
Canada
(All of the southern provinces)
Spain
(Andalusia, Extremadura, Galicia, Murcia, Navarra, and more)
China
(Shanghai, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Shandong, Zhegiang, and more)
Visited once or twice
England
Ireland
Northern Ireland
Scotland
France
Greece
Turkey
Switzerland
South Korea
Egypt
Chile
Thailand
UAE
Jamaica
Germany
Fiji
New Zealand
Iceland
Czech Republic
Japan
Brief visits that barely count
Austria
Italy
Slovakia
(Sometimes you find yourself on the border and figure you might as well step across, even if only for a few minutes, right?)