Fare deals

Modern travelers take advantages of special offers and loyalty programs to buy plane tickets and pay for hotel stays. When searching for low fares on flights they use sites: AirfareWatchdog, Adioso, The Flight Deal, or Vayama and set alerts or sign up for newsletters to receive only best deals. Some of these websites also provide offers for accommodation. Another way of reducing the ticket price is using Hopper — an app for airfare predictions. This tool tells you when to buy the ticket on the route you want to travel to save the most money.

There are also loyalty programs for frequent flyers. Membership in these programs allows you to collect points or miles each time you travel. Then you can use saved points on your further trips. Miles & More, for example, gathers 13 different lines and is the most popular in Europe. But other lines have their own programs, like British Airways Avios or Delta SkyMiles.

Have you’ve already heard about Awardwallet? It’s a tool to track and manage loyalty programs from airlines, hotels, credit cards and others. If you participate in various — it’s really helpful. Although some airlines blocked Awardwallet from tracking their databases. And there is Travel Hacking Cartel. You have to pay for the membership, but it will let you manage and set alerts for deals on air tickets and hotel stays. And it supports Cartel members with tutorials on travel hacking.

Screenshots of Hopper app showing predictions for prices of NYC to Bangkok flight (left) and monthly price scheme for a flight from NYC to Bali (right)

Accommodation

Modern travelers often benefit of special offers for hotel stays, but they also tend to use alternative accommodation. Airbnb or RoomoRama are most popular sites to search for lodging while on the road. Both allow you to find a flat or a room from local hosts in the place you travel to. An opportunity of staying with locals is also offered by HomeStay. But there are still plenty of different options for travelers today.

Are you familiar with house-sitting or house-swapping? House-sitting is an opportunity for a free lodging when a house owner let you stay at his place in exchange for your taking responsibility of all house duties. You can search for house-sitting offers through sites FlipKey, MindMyHouse, or TrustedHousesitters. House-swapping or home exchange is based on a mutual agreement between travelers who swap houses for a certain time. Home Exchange and Love Home Swap are most popular places to search for travelers to swap houses. And NightSwapping is a new service that allows to swap even for a night.

You can try also membership in international networks as Couchsurfing or less popular WarmShowers (for cyclists). Possibilities are still growing. A recent popularity of digital nomadism contributed with such networks as NomadHouse or Krash. Those tools help to manage and arrange all lodging and working space issues before your arrival at chosen destination. And they also bring together the whole growing community of digital nomads.

Flashpackers and modern nomads sometimes tend to a bit anarchic and informal accommodation — squatting. SquatThePlanet or Squat!net will connect you with the world’s squatters community, help in localization of squats in different cities, and provide useful information.

Screenshot of nightswapping.com website that serves to swap houses between travelers for nights

Other travel tools

Modern travelers use various apps to save money and time and make the whole experience of visiting new places much easier. There are blockbusters like TripAdvisor which is the most popular and works in plenty of world destinations. It finds restaurants, hotels, or places to visit that are rated and reviewed by other users. But there are many others, less known, but similar apps that in certain places work better.

Foursquare let you search through local places for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or coffee. It will also guide you through the nightlife and various touristic sites and events. Spotted by Locals, even if not world widely known, is worth recommending. Right now it gathers 66 guides of different cities. But the best thing about it, is that it delivers up-to-date tips from locals. Around Me is an app that, apart from advising decent restaurant or bar, will cover finding such services as hospitals, gas stations or ATMs.

And have you heard about travel assistants? It’s a new kind of app for nomads and it delivers information about a variety of services that one may look for. Check out recently launched Bradley and Taylor Bot. The first one was created by Derek Low, the latter by levels.io — Peter Levels. He is an owner of Nomad List and a digital nomadism promoter who was awarded Maker of the Year 2015 by Product Hunt. Travel assistant apps are still in the development phase which means they won’t give you always satisfactory answers. But still, it’s nice to use something different from time to time.

Screenshot of conversation with Taylor Bot on Telegram — free messaging app

There is a bunch of other useful apps to benefit while on the road. Uber is used for a personal driver service. Cittymapper is an app for sightseeing planning and it helps with finding the right line of urban transport. Social City Guides from stay.com are good for the guidance of local experts and include offline maps.

Travelers can also find Google Translate helpful, especially in places where English is not widely spoken. You may write the phrase in your mother tongue and immediately translate it into another language. While this tool in not grammatically reliable, it can be a lifesaver. Some also use apps like Wi-Fi Finder (available on iOS and Android) to find the most precious thing for modern travelers’ — an Internet connection.

Resources, inspirations, products…

Nomadic Matt is one of best-known travel experts, but there are other travel celebrities to follow and learn new hacks and shortcuts. Ben Schlappig is an expert on using miles and credit cards points for special fare deals. Wandering Earl has stayed for more than 5000 days on the road and calls himself ‘a permanent nomad’. And Caz and Craig Makepeace advise people how to escape the everyday routine and travel with children.

Traveling blogs are a handful resource of information and inspiration for anyone who want to travel smart. Modern nomads can also find guidance on sites that focus on travel hacks. Triphackr by Clint Johnston and The Travel Hack are most popular. But you can find sites that specialize in more narrow traveling issues like Sleeping in the airports.

Smart traveling is inspiring not only to virtual activity. Recently some specific products designed especially for nomads show up. These are material products that are quite sophisticated. Like a nomad backpack by Andy Gor from Fast Nomad, a nomadic chair by Jorge Penadés, a hoodie for a modern traveler by Hypnos, or pick-pocket proof pants by Clothing Arts.