Hello and welcome to the TRL. Our goal is to provide an up-to-date, comprehensive, straightforward destination where travelers, backpackers, vacations and those preparing for study abroad are able to find the top travel resources by category. Our goal isn’t to link to every travel site and resource out there. Instead, we’ll work with our readers to create a list of the most popular/useful sites you may have never heard of.

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HOLIDAYS

Luxury Holidays

Luxury Holidays

Honeymoons

Maldives Holidays

Mauritius Holidays

Budget holidays

Hostelworld – One of the largest/best 2nd generation hostel booking resources available.

Hostelz – A great hostel look-up site which incorporates reviews and listings from the other major hostel booking engines.

BootsnAll – Excellent community oriented 2nd generation hostel booking resource.

Hosteling International – Far from my favorite this 1st generation hostel network is good in places under-served by 2nd generation hostels.

Water Saftey

National Travel Health Network– A website that gives reports on a country-by-country basis on water drinkability.

Packing

The Ultimate Packing List

Bed Bug FAQ

Bed Bug Info – General information on preventing, treating, and identifying bed bugs.

Air Miles Resources

Flyer Talk – The web’s most popular frequent flyer community.

WebFlyer – A go-to resource for deals, specials and recent news in the airline mileage/frequent flyer industry.

ExpertFlyer – A site focused on flight rewards and upgrade programs.

GROUND TRAVEL

General

Flightless Travel – A community dedicated to sharing flightless travel stories, strategies, tips and tricks.

Routes International – While technically a booking site they provide comprehensive line info. Especially useful for ferry travel.

Automotive Travel

RoadSharing – Originally started in Italy, the site has grown to serve all of Europe. It works as a facilitator helping strangers carpool.

ViaMichelin – Comprehensive Europe focused resource for people planning on taking a trip by car provided by the Michelin tire company.

Rail Travel

Seat Sixty One – Comprehensive travel info for Europe and Asia tied to travel from the UK.

Urban Rail – Comprehensive international resource site with Metro maps for major city’s subway systems.

Bus Travel

Megabus – UK/North America centered discount Bus line.

Eurolines – European centered discount Bus line.

Orange Ways – Eastern European centered discount Bus line.

By Sea

Go Nomad’s Guide – Solid writeup with general information and general pricing estimates.

A la Carte Freighter Travel – General info about travel on cargo vessels.

Crew Seekers international – Similar to Global Crew Network. Puts deck hands/volunteers in contact with captains and their ships.

Sailing Networks – Their slogan “connecting sailors everywhere”. Note the crew finder option.

The Float Plan – Site dedicated to connecting crew and volunteers.

FINANCIAL

Credit Cards

Flyer Guide: Travel Friendly Credit Cards – Hands down one of the best resources for picking a travel friendly credit card/researching foreign transaction fees.

Currency Exchange

Google Currency – View charts of historical currency trends and current exchange rates.

XE – All things currency look-up related.

TRAVEL COMMUNITY

Free Web Travel Guides

Traveller’s Point Guides – A wiki-based set of international web based travel guides.

Travelfish – The go-to guide for South Eastern Asia. Provides .pdf guides.

Travel Discussion

Bootsn All Forums – very community oriented backpacker/hosteller themed forums with advice, general discussion and a wealth of information.

Lonely Planet’s Thorntree Forums – Backpacker/hosteller themed forums with advice, general discussion and a wealth of information.

Traveller’s Point Forums – Backpacker/hosteller themed forums with advice, general discussion and quality information.

Aardvark Travel Forums – Travel themed forums with advice, general discussion and good information.

Travel Blog Exchange – A wonderful travel themed community which is specifically tailored to travel bloggers.

WORK/STUDY ABROAD

Teach English

TEFL.com – Stands for Teach English as a Foreign Language. Site with job postings and info.

TEFL.net – Same as above but with a list of job opportunities and programs.

Study Abroad

ISIC – International Student Identity Card. The go to international student ID for stud-abroad.

Institute of International Education – A wonderful resource focusing on study abroad programs.

Go Abroad.com – A resource to help facilitate identifying, researching, and choosing international internships.

StudyAbroad.com – A resource to for identifying, researching, and choosing international study opportunities.

Transitions Abroad – A resource to for identifying, researching, and choosing international study opportunities.

SEA Semester – Spend a semester sailing around the world on a large sailing vessel. Students man and crew the ship in addition to performing research and studying.

Semester at Sea – For those who can’t pick a single country to study abroad in. Spend a semester touring the world, while learning and studying on a large cruise ship/floating university.

Live Abroad

Expatriates (InterNations) – A community dedicated to bringing together expatriates and global minds to pool expertise, connect people and facilitate new relationships.

Volunteer/Work-Stay Programs

Grow Food – Connects farmers interested in teaching with people interested in farming and doing work/live exchanges.

HelpX – Help Exchange for organic farms, non-organic farms, farm stays, home stays, ranches, lodges, B&Bs, backpackers hostels etc.

WWOOFING – World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms – one of the largest resources of its kind.

Work Away – A site dedicated to facilitating travel, work, and volunteering exchanges.

Personal Overseas Development – Non-profit organization arranging ethical volunteering opportunities around the world.

VolunTourism – Another Volunteer travel group.

Idealist – A comprehensive directory which connects organizations with volunteers.

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