The internet is a treasure trove of information and resources, many of which you may not know about.

While this list may not be every single resource, it includes some of the resources I use both personally and from while I was a travel agent. All the sites will be linked down below, none of them are affiliated, and I am not getting any money to promote these sites or companies, and this video is an honest review of each of them.

Google flights

This is one of most popular tools on the list, by far. Google flights is an incredible tool that allows you to see all the flights available to and from a location on the dates provided, also letting you use a calendar to look at various dates to get the best price possible.

Where I hesitate with this tool, simply because people don’t pay as close attention, or may not know, is that it shows airlines that don’t work together, they also don’t always have the most up to date prices and there have been many times the tickets have sold out or the prices have changed in some way. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had to explain that we cannot book what clients have seen on google flights because it is not possible either due to price or airline agreements, or it may just be sold out.

What I would recommend is to use google flights as a tool for research, but not reserving. I always advise to book with a travel agent or at the VERY least, with the airline directly. The google flights site does redirect to the airline, or airlines in some cases, and when it does that it does not mean you’re booking with that airline, you’re still working with google flights and are subject to their (or an agencies) terms and conditions (since they do have agencies apparently but I’ve never seen any) as well as those of the airline. PLEASE be aware of this if you do choose to book on google flights.

Google Trips

This site is one of my favourites. Along with the app, google trips has been one of my favourite ways to keep track of all my reservations in one place. All you do is send your booking emails to a Gmail account, sign into the app and it will create a trip for you for each city you visit on a trip and will even have the reservation codes and qr codes for each reservation. I’ve used it for flights, bus tickets, train tickets, hotels, hostels and even a few activities. While it may not be for making reservations, it makes the actual travel part of your trip so much easier. Unlike other travel apps this is one that I will usually download for the length of a trip and delete after I’m done and redownload as needed when I start booking my next trip. I do this to save space as it has only one function which is to show bookings that have been made.

Rome2Rio

Rome2Rio is one of the best know sites I will probably ever talk about. Launched in 2011 this site has nearly 250,000 travel options from almost 5000 travel providers! You can book Transport by bus, ferry, flights and cars as well as accommodations on the site to and from just about anywhere in the world. They have massive partners like Amtrak, TrenItalia, Skyscanner, booking.com and virgintrains among others.

One of my favourite parts is that they give you multiple options for each trip for various types of transport and also shows you average prices and how long it takes so that you have an idea which is really the best option for you. I like to plan my trips and screen shot stuff to put in one document so I know where to go and how to get there for when I wont have an internet connection.

They also have travel guides for cities and countries around the world that will give you a good idea of day trips and adventures you can take and always mention how to get there, often for super cheap compared to what a tour would cost.

Eater

I, like many people, and most of my city, LOVE food. Growing up in Montreal, I’ve always had a vast array of restaurants to choose from for both dining in and take out. Sites like ‘Eater’ which is a blog type website where people come together to post and talk about food of all kinds as well as the restaurants and people that make the food. There aren’t a ton of cities with content quite yet, with Montreal and London England being the only two featured in the cities section as of posting this, the rest are cities all over the US, mostly focusing on cities already know for their food culture. If you have a question about it, they likely have a list of restaurants to visit, though I would still say to look them up and see what reviews they have as many tend to be the trendy spots, as well as high end, and if you’re like me you’re not super interested in them. To be fair, they have many articles about lower cost spots, but as I scroll through I found many about some more bougie places.

Trippy

Trippy is a site I only recently started using but is quickly becoming one of my favourites. Its simple to use, you go onto the site, and type in a question like “One Day in Montreal, what should I see?” or “what are the best Restaurants in Downtown Chicago?”, now to be fair, there are not nearly as many people using it as other sites like trip advisor, but the accounts have to be linked to a Facebook page, so they’re maybe a little safer from people paying for reviews or promotion, and there are also a few places with less questions or questions from years ago. I do still find the tool helpful in case you would like an answer about something you haven’t found elsewhere.

Monarc.ca

This last one is one almost no one knows about and it’s a shame. Monarc, yes like the butterfly, is a tool I ADORED as a travel agent for so many reasons. This website is for mostly hotels that are for vacations in places like Mexico and Cuba, along with the rest of the Caribbean and some parts of South America, they’ve even now expanded to Europe as of my last visit to the site. The reviews are all done by Canadians, with filters for language, province, most and least recent, Highest and lowest ratings. They also have certified reviews, ACTUAL certified reviews. They do this by only allowing people who have booked through a travel agency write a review, when you book with an agency they can send you a secure link to review where you stayed where the dates, location and other information CANNOT be edited.