The Best Family Travel Resources, Websites & Apps

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When it’s time to start planning a trip, finding the best deals and discounts is not an easy task, especially with the amount of travel resources out there.

As long-term travelers as a family, we’ve tried and tested so many family travel resources, I can’t even count, but we have been able to separate the wheat from the chaff and choose our favorites.

We want to help you avoid overwhelm, which is a serious issue in today’s content-heavy world, and save you time and energy looking up websites and apps to use, we’ve listed our favorite go-to places to research travel here.

That’s what we’re here for – we do the research for you so you don’t have to, and let you know what we think is the best from that.

After all, travel hacking is what we do best!

Best Family Travel Resources

Below we will share the websites, forums, apps, and other offline resources we use whenever we plan our trips.

We hope this list helps you find the best deals, tickets and hacks.

Best Family Travel Books

Want to inspire your kids to travel and help them engage with the family travel experience? Then don’t let them scroll on Instagram, take them offline to discover some travel guidebooks.

Below are some of the best travel books for kids:

• I love anything from the Lonely Planet Kids range. Kalyra learns so much from them and can’t get her noses out of their books. Much like her Mumma can’t her nose out of their big girl planning guides! LP  has been my favourite travel resource for over 20 years.
• Kids Travel Journals are so great for recording travel memories.
• Leap and Hop Travel Guides is a series of travel books that invite curious children to discover and understand different cultures while playing, drawing, scrapbooking, doodling, collecting and observing. They’re cool. We have the one for New York City, and Kalyra is itching to get there and use it. She’s already done some of the activities to prepare. See books on Amazon
• Boredom Buster Book This is a great one to get them thinking creatively on those long journeys.
• The Little Children’s travel activity book and the Travel Activity Book

Best Family Travel Insurance

It’s important to get family travel insurance. The peace of mind is important not to mention the relief you’ll feel if you do happen to need it.

• For Aussies, you can’t beat World2Cover for family travel insurance. We’ve done the research and they come out the cheapest, with the best coverage. Kids travel for free. It’s a no-brainer. (Read best travel insurance for Aussies)

• Cover-More Insurance is a great travel insurance option for Australians.
• Safety Wing: is travel medical insurance for nomads. They cover people from all over the world, while outside their home country.
• Etka: Travel Insurance for worldwide travel. Easy to use with comparable rates and instant polices. Great for those longer term, nomadic, and work abroad travelers. We believe its an essential travel purchase.
• Visitors Coverage:  which provides travel insurance for millions of global travelers in over 175 countries. They are the largest provider of visitor’s insurance for inbound travel to the U.S.
• Allianz Travel Insurance. We have annual travel insurance polices with Allianz. Really worth getting an annual policy if you travel frequently.
• World Nomads are fantastic and we can recommend them to you because it doesn’t matter your country of origin you can get a policy with them.

Best Family Travel Blogs

I actually don’t read a lot of travel blogs, but I do tend to read blogs in niches where I most need help!

There are a few family travel blogs we check in on, or turn to, if we need specific help for a family travel destination. We also share a lot of their content to our community.

Some of our favorite family travel blogs who share an authentic and relevant travel story and offering super useful tips to help other families do the same are:

• Boy Eats World
• Twist Travel Mag
• The Traveling Child
• We3Travel.com
• Stuffed Suitcase Travel
• Travel Mamas
• Two Travel Dads

Best Family Travelers on Instagram

There are so many family travel accounts to follow on Instagram, and I could recommend hundreds, but I’m doing my best to unplug from social media overwhelm.

Here are some of our favourite family travel Instagrammers for various reasons – mostly I love their photos and their family travel story.

I tend to follow stories more than pretty pictures. If you can combine the two, it’s a winning formula for me.

• Macs Explore
• Lahrs with Latitude
• Wandering Wagers
• No Back Home
• Twisted Travel Mag
• Travel Mamas
• Top Flight Family
• Traveling Child
• 2Travel Dads
• Some Day I’ll learn

You can follow us on @ytravelblog and @thisisraleigh

Best Family Travel Booking Sites

When it comes to finding the cheapest flight deals, finding cheap entrance tickets to attractions, and finding a better accommodation deal than Airbnb, don’t just use a search engine, check out these sites…

Best Hotel Booking Platform

Accommodation is the biggest part of your travel budget, so you got to get it right. Booking.com is our preferred accommodation provider for hotels, resorts, and apartments.

Whilst there are plenty of websites these days to help you search for accommodation, some are more trustworthy than others, and some are easier to navigate than others.

Booking.com have family-friendly properties around the world and verified reviews from real guests, like you! You get free cancellation on most rooms and a best price guarantee!

Best Car Rental Booking Sites

RentalCars.com is the world’s biggest car rental booking service that compares all the major brands in one search like Hertz, Avis, Alamo, Thrifty and Europcar and they find you the best price. They have locations all over the world.

DiscoverCars.com also has great deals on car rentals and we’ve found them to be reliable and affordable.

Best Tools For Searching For Flights

Skyscanner is a great flight search comparison site that searches millions of flights in one search. It’s a good way to find flight schedules and see which airlines have the most flights and convenient root.

Once you find your best deal, you can book directly through the airline (no extra fees).

You can also use Google Flights to find flight schedules, and sometimes you can find good deals using Kayak (be sure to sign up to their newsletter to get alerts on last minute deals).

When choosing internal flights or short flights across Europe, you can usually find better deals and cheap flights by going to budget airlines official websites.

Best Site For Finding Tours

There are two sites we use for booking tours and attractions, Get Your Guide, and Viator, which is owned by Trip Advisor.

You can also find small group family tours on G Adventures, if you don’t want to travel independently.

We also like GuruWalk.com as a great resource for finding free walking tours and a local guide.

Best Resources for Homeschooling on the Road

I’m going to bump you right over to this page –> our Homeschooling Resources and roadshcooling guide includes all our favorite family travel resources for teaching your kids while traveling.

Best Place to Find Travel Gear

When looking for travel gear such as suitcases, backpacks and other luggage, you will find most options on Amazon.

Amazon is a great resource for getting all the finer travel gear that are not easy to find in stores, such as packing cubes, eye masks and neck pillows.

You can also create a packing list wish list, which helps.

Here are some of our review posts and recommendations for travel gear:

• Our older children love the Standard Carry-On Backpack
• Delsey Suitcase Review – our preferred suitcase for 7 years now
• Tortuga Backpack – great for older kids
• Best Christmas gifts for Kids
• Best travel gear for kids

Best Travel Credit Cards

There are so many travel credit cards out there that it’s really a challenge to find the best deal.

Those living in the U.S. will find the Chase Sapphire Rewards Card to be a great credit card for traveling abroad, which gives you free cash withdrawals, and Lounge Access, as well as other benefits such as travel insurance.

In the UK, most people opt for a Starling Bank, Revolut or Mondo Card, which is a travel debit card that allows for free cash withdrawals abroad and uses the live exchange rate, so no more extortionate exchange fees.

If you’re traveling to Southeast Asia, specifically Thailand, you may want to get a Charles Schwab account, as this is the only bank (that we know of) that refunds you the pesky 220 baht ATM withdrawal fee on every machine.

Best Resource For When Things Go Wrong

Ok, we don’t want to be a Debbie Downer, but sometimes when you travel things go wrong.

Maybe you lost your passport or had your bag stolen, in which case, the embassies or consulate of your country is going to be your biggest resource.

Whenever you’re planning, make sure to save the address of the embassy somewhere on a piece of paper so you can go to them for help.

They don’t just handle visas, you know.

Best Resource For Illnesses

If you’re worried about illnesses or not sure which vaccinations to get, the best place to find out all the information you need is from the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) website.

They have a whole section on medical tourism which has tons of information about keeping healthy on your travels, including advice on local hospitals should you ever need one.

More Family Travel Resources

Need more inspiration for your family travel adventures? These other guides may be interesting to you…

• Is travel too expensive with kids? 11 ways to overcome this challenge
• Wondering what the average cost of a family vacation is? Click here to find out
• Best family travel tips and family travel destination advice

Family Travel Planning Toolkit + VIP Tribe

Have you joined our free VIP family travel tribe yet?

It’s where we share our best family travel tips and inside information. We have a cool private Facebook community attached to it as well and it comes with a free family travel planning toolkit. Pop your name below.

Family Travel Planning Kit

Plan a family vacation the whole family will love + personal updates and insider tips! 

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