A home for my words.

WeatherSpark.com

Great for finding the ideal time to visit your destination of choice.

Anyone that knows me knows I have a far, far below average tolerance of cold, but a higher than average tolerance for heat. So this weather website is one of my first steps when choosing where to nomad to next. When I visit Weather Spark, I’m generally just paying attention to average temperature and rainfall (something else I try to avoid), but Weather Spark will even breakdown monthly averages for cloud coverage, hours of daylight, sea temperature, average wind speed, and more! These things come especially in handy if you enjoy a hobby that requires very specific conditions. The only con I can think of for Weather Spark is that the website has a ton of ads.

Sometimes Weather Spark also helps me learn fun facts, like how Lima, Peru basically doesn’t experience rain all year. That led me down a trail of more interesting geographical and weather phenomenon specific to the area. So it’s a tool that also leads me to be more educated on the places I choose to stay for a while.

Reddit.com

Decent for on-the-ground experiences and opinions.

While Instagram’s culture is known for filtered photos that highlight the best of a place (or worse, totally misrepresent a place), Reddit isn’t powered by visuals. However, Reddit does have its share of Negative Nancies trying to discourage others as well as gatekeepers who fear a place they see as a haven will get overrun by whatever brand of human they oppose. All that said, Reddit is still a great way to see snapshots of people’s general pros and cons for a place. If you browse a couple of threads and see a place has active politically-motivated violence or it is otherwise unsafe, it’ll make it easier to cross it off your list for the time being. If you’re looking for local websites that offer more affordable housing than Airbnb or other location-specific tips, people on Reddit can provide you with answers.

In the spirit of Reddit venting…if you’ve ever Googled “What does YMMV mean on Reddit,” you’ve learned that it’s an abbreviation for “your mileage may vary.” This irritates me. Why can’t it be YEMV (your experience may vary)? Most of these threads aren’t discussing vehicles at all and ‘YEMV’ sounds cooler. Okay, rant over :p

Flightsfrom.com

For plotting out airline connections.

Flights From is great for finding direct flight paths and can help you to reduce the costs of traveling to and from your chosen destinations. You can go directly to the website and search for a specific airport or you can simply use the airport code of your airport after the website name. For example, flightsfrom.com/CNX will show you direct flights to and from Chiang Mai. The website also shows the days of the week that these flights operate between the two destinations and a map view to see the layout of all connecting destinations. It’s a great way to plan out your nomadic path in a way that avoids exhausting layovers and would be super helpful for a backpacking trip as well.

Sometimes, I simply want to go where I want to go and have to tolerate layovers, especially because I prefer to stay on islands and in smaller cities and towns. But moving every three months becomes even more exhausting when you have to take two or more flights. So, Flights From is a great way to strategically plan a nomadic path.

Skyscanner.com

For finding cheap flights and new ideas for destinations.

While living in Spain, a friend told me about Skyscanner. I haven’t looked back since. I specifically use it to find the cheapest flights for any given time period and then I book directly with the airline. There’s also an option to indicate the airport you’d like to fly out of and then let Skyscanner offer up destinations that you can fly to from that airport. This was something I did often when looking to take trips from Phoenix around the US, like when I did day trips to Las Vegas or San Francisco, or when I saw flights to Minneapolis were super cheap and spent the weekend there. Each of these flights cost me less than $100 roundtrip and felt worth it to get out for a bit. It also helps if your travel plans are more fixed rather than flexible because you can filter out specific things like flight duration, departure time, airline, etc.

Viator.com

For booking tours with piece of mind in regard to refunds and cancellations.

I’ll get this out of the way: often times, booking directly with a tour operator is cheaper than booking with Viator, but the financial benefits of booking through Viator lead me to book through them 99% of the time.

for example…

I saw a multi-country tour that would take place over the course of a number of days. The tour operator had a website with a much cheaper price, but I couldn’t guarantee that they would refund my money if something went awry. Plus, I get points and cashback when I book through Viator with my credit card! AND Viator has its own cashback program as well. Combined, this made it both more secure and more financially beneficial for me book with Viator instead of directly with the tour company. This particular company was also led by a guy who seemed to have his tour up on Viator simply to advertise and then WhatsApp people to convince them to book directly with him. I researched and understood why someone in his country might prefer this, but the way he went about it and haggled put me off. I know haggling can certainly be a cultural thing; it just happens to be something I do not enjoy the sport of and tend to avoid at all costs.

so basically:

Depending on your situation, you can always start with Viator and then decide how you’d like to book. Once I crunch the numbers, it’s usually advantageous for me to book through Viator.

I’ve done dozens of tours through Viator over the past few years, and I have a shortlist of my absolute favorite activities here. They include tours taken in Ghana, Argentina, and Uruguay. Should you book any of those, Viator will give me a small portion of the sale.

Honorable Mention

AtlasObscura.com

To find off-the-beaten-path experiences.

Atlas Obscura’s tagline is “The definitive guide to the world’s hidden wonders.” I’ll admit that I sometimes feel like the website is lacking something, but perhaps that speaks more to hidden wonders than it does the website itself? But I believe it’s the place where I learned about La Ruta de Las Caras, which I loved! So it feels fair to award it the honorable mention spot. I’ve remained loyal to checking it every now and then throughout the years. Just keep in mind that it seems best at giving you suggestions for quirky places that can often only be reached by car. Also, be sure to double check anything that you see listed on the website because sometimes it mentions places that are no longer available. If you find anything you think is worthy of adding to your bucket list, do let me know!