Hi there, it's Ernest from Trip Astute. First off, we hope you had a Happy
Thanksgiving. We're thankful for a lot of things, including our community here on
YouTube. We appreciate all the support and love, and are so grateful for the
opportunity to share our tips with you. Today, we're releasing this video a
little bit earlier than our usual time. Since its Black Friday, we want to
highlight some of our top travel-related deals earlier rather than later.
(light chiming music)
While there are a ton of great deals out there, we wanted to share some of our favorite
products and services. This isn't an exhaustive list by any means, but I
wanted to share some products and services that I personally have used and
enjoyed, and can recommend without hesitation. So, let's jump straight into
it. Number one: G Adventures and Intrepid. G Adventures and intrepid are two group
travel companies that I highly recommend for those of you looking for a small
group travel experience. I personally have used G Adventures on two different
trips. One to Panama, and the other to Southeast Asia, and both experiences were
amazing. They not only handled all the logistics,
which is awesome when you need to do a border crossing with visas, but also
provided local tour guides who really understood the area and culture, and
could help maximize our experience. Both companies promote responsible and
sustainable travel - which is important to me. I also like that they are
structured tours, but they do give you enough flexibility and free time to
explore on your own, and often let you choose which activities you want to do.
I've made some really great friends on these trips from all over the world, so I
highly recommend them, especially if you are a single traveler looking to meet
new people while traveling. I've not personally used Intrepid, but I
know a lot of people who recommend them as well. I think the biggest difference
between G Adventures and Intrepid is the demographic of travelers. My impression
is that since Intrepid is an Australian based tour operator, you tend to have a
lot more Australians on the tour. While my experience on G Adventures is that we
had a fairly strong mix of North American and European travelers. Both
G Adventures and Intrepid are running pretty aggressive Black
Friday sales, so definitely check them out if you're interested in booking a
small group tour. Number two: Fluenz. If you're looking to
learn a new language in 2018, I highly recommend the language programs at Fluenz.
I've used their Italian and Spanish program, and both were top-notch.
We're planning to do a full review of Fluenz in the near future, but in the
meantime, if you have any interest in learning a foreign language, I highly
recommend checking out their language programs. At the moment, they offer
Spanish (both from Spain and Latin America), French, Italian, German, Portuguese,
and Mandarin. Their approach to language learning is different than some of the
other popular language programs, like Rosetta Stone, but I thought their
program was a great balance between teaching me useful phrases that I could
use immediately on trips while also teaching me building blocks to master
the language. In fact, I thought that combining Fluenz with the free Duolingo
app gave me the most progress in the shortest amount of time when learning a
language. Number three: GoPro. There are a ton of deals right now on GoPro cameras.
It's an awesome device to have while traveling, especially when doing
adventurous activities. We recently used our GoPro 4 Hero when we went swimming
with whale sharks in Mexico, and it made capturing the experience so seamless and
easy. Rather than worrying about damaging your expensive smartphone or DSLR, you
can submerge your GoPro without any worry. Plus, there are a ton of cheap
accessories and mounts and you can use to help capture the moment without
getting in the way. While there are a ton of different models to choose from, you
may not need the latest and greatest model. If you're only planning to use it
while traveling, you might want to save a few dollars and pick up an older model.
Keep in mind that all GoPro cameras have the same mounting setup, so you should be
able to buy and use many of the inexpensive clips and mounts already
available online. Number four: National Parks, REI, and Lyft. Many national and
state parks are offering free or discounted admission, so it might be a
great idea to enjoy the outdoors. In addition, REI announced this year
that they're closing their stores on Black Friday and encouraging people
to enjoy the outdoors with their #OptOutside hashtag. Lyft decided to partner
with REI and is also offering $10 off rides to major parks, not just national
parks, in 12 cities across the U.S. Not only do I think it's great that REI is
trying to encourage people, including their employees, to enjoy the day, but
it's a great opportunity to spend time at a national or state park in your area.
I'll include a link for more information in the video description below.
Number five: Travel Deal Tuesday. While Black Friday and Cyber Monday tend to
get the most attention, it's worth mentioning that the Tuesday after
Thanksgiving tends to be the best day to pick up travel deals, especially airline
tickets for those of you looking to book a flight. I highly suggest searching for
fares on Travel Deal Tuesday. Even better, you may want to use an app like Hopper
which can help track flight deals. All you have to do is enter your departure
location and destination and your date to travel, and the app will actively
monitor ticket prices and advise you when to buy based on historical trends.
It's a great way to automate the process and notify you as soon as it finds a
great price on tickets. And those are our top deals for this holiday. If you have
any questions or found an incredible deal online, let us know in the comment
section below. Again we want to thank everyone for supporting this channel. We
feel very grateful for all your support, and hope you have a wonderful holiday
weekend. Until next time, travel safe and travel smart.