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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.

  • Google Maps — Don’t laugh. I study Google maps heavily before visiting areas to find what shops and restaurants will be near my hotel, whether it looks like my hotel may have a roof-deck that would make a good photography location, etc., etc. Street view can even let you “pre-walk” the streets so that when you’re onsite you are familiar with the landmarks.
  • US State Department Travel Advisories — Stay safe and learn of any special concerns about the region you are about to visit.
  • FlightAware — A good flight-tracker site for helping to visualize routes.
  • Seat Guru — Lots of good information to help you pick the best seat on a variety of aircraft.
  • WeatherBug — A good way to see what awaits you in terms of weather before you make critical packing decisions. Good radar maps as well.
  • World Standards Page on Plug and Outlet Types — A good place to check to see which plug adapters you might need in any given country.
  • Kikkerland Universal Travel Adapter (on Amazon) — One of the most compact solutions I’ve found for a multi-plug adapter that’s handy to always have on hand in case you find yourself surprised by an unexpected outlet during your travels.
  • REI — One of my favorite places to grab anything travel-related from luggage locks to quick-dry shirts I can was in a hotel sink.
  • Parador.es — Only useful if you’re headed to Spain, but this is one of my favorite hotel chains. It’s operated by the government and repurposes old castles, monasteries, and palaces for tourism. They’ve hosted me many times and I’m working on an e-book documenting my experiences. Coming soon!

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?)

Michael C. Snell

Michael C. Snell is a travel photographer based in Lawrence, Kansas. After working as a designer and art director in the advertising and marketing industry for over 12 years, Michael left to pursue a freelance career in photography and design. Since then, he has had images published in a variety of publications around the world and his stock photography is available through Robert Harding World Imagery and at Alamy.com.

Michael is a member — and former Board member — of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW). He is a past Chair of SATW’s Freelance Council and is currently the Chair of the SATW Photographers’ Sub-Council.