Good morning adventurers.
Well hello there!
And welcome to 2020
Yeah! (party sounds)
[Allison]: Our last video was our final road trip of 2019
We're going down to see family, we had wonderful holidays, happy new year
and now we're officially in 2020.
We also had enough of the cold weather
so we hiked hill to Texas.
Also, if you watched our last video, we have jury duty in Texas
Yes we're down here because, tomorrow actually, we have jury duty.
Fingers crossed we don't get picked or it's not super long if we do get picked.
Yeah, that will be bad.
Last year we did a video where we talked about some of our favorite travel items
And we thought it would be really cool to do a follow up where we talk about our favorite travel services.
So we've actually been putting together a list over the last 6 months or so
Every time we think about a really cool travel service
that we use all the time, that we want to tell you guys about
we write it down.
I'm sure we missed some but I think we put together a pretty solid list
that would hopefully would help you a lot in your travel planning.
Before we get into it: All the stuff we mention is going to be linked in the description below
so we're not going to get too detailed into everything
but if you wanna learn more about any particular service that we mention
click the link in the description and you can learn to your heart's content.
-Yup. -There you go.
These are in no particular order but first of is
a VPN.
This is something you guys heard us talk about all the time
it is probably one of our most used services while we're traveling
a VPN stands for Virtual Private Network
which probably doesn't mean that much to you but basically it helps you keep your internet connection secure when you're traveling
and you're on a bunch of foreign wifi's
You know, cafe's, and airports, and stuff like that
In addition it also allows you to use sites in your home country
because you can basically set your browsing site to wherever you want.
Which brings us to our next service which is streaming services
like Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO Go
-Spotify? -Spotify. Netflix.
[Eric]: A lot of these services offer specific programming depending on where you are in the world so
if you wanna watch USA content you can't do that when you're in the UK for example.
But you can switch your VPN to the USA and then you can watch it.
Having access to these entertainment anywhere is really important for us to unwind at the end of the day
or to put off line when we're about to go to a flight.
We use these streaming services and we think they're worth paying for
because it gives you instant entertainment anywhere.
One of the things that we are asked about all the time and probably one of the most important travel services is
Traveling Health Insurance
What do we do when we're on the other side of the world and something goes wrong or we get hurt?
Alright. Oh! (stumbles)
Okay, I'm dying!
Whoo! Oh!
Oh my god you guys I might have actually broke my tailbone on that one.
We're off.
[Eric]: Oh geez!
For the longest time we traveled without medical insurance.
Cannot recommend doing that.
No.
Luckily we didn't have any major issues
but we definitely have to pop in clinics here and there.
It's also just scary traveling knowing that if something goes wrong you gotta pay for it yourself and figure it out.
There are a ton of different travel medical service providers out there
but the one that we use is called Safety Wing
It provides travel medical coverage super cheap it's just $37/4 weeks
Safety Wing is actually sponsoring this video
and we have been using them for months now.
Sign up was super easy
and it's just really nice knowing that when this guy inadvertently twist his ankle,
we're covered.
Let's face it, it'll probably a lot worse than a twist of ankle when it happens.
But Safety Wing is available in 180 different countries.
You can purchase insurance while you're in the middle of traveling.
And we're gonna have a link to them in the description below like everything else so you can learn a lot more about that service.
We highly recommend it
along with all the other services that we're gonna be talking about today.
A lot of times when you're traveling, a country will require you to have tickets purchased out of the country
before you are let into the country.
Well, you don't always know where you're going
or when you want to leave and you don't wanna waste a bunch of money
either buying a really expensive refundable ticket or a throw-away ticket as they call them
So there's this site called Best Onward Ticket that we use all the time
and it has saved us so many times, you pay I think 15 USD
You give them information, they book you
a flight, just a random flight to anywhere, and then they cancel it for you.
But you pay $15, you get a flight that you can show to the airline to be let in to the country
and then they take care of everything else, so you don't have to worry anymore after that.
It's super convenient.
There's been so many times we showed up to the airport and
completely forgot that you had to have onward travel booked
The guy up here is making us have onward travel booked out of Japan which we do not have
I don't think we needed that last time we went to Japan
but he's being a stickler about it.
I don't know if we're gonna book a fake one, or a real one.
So we just load up BestTicketOnward.com and then within usually about 30-45 minutes
we have onward travel booked.
When you're traveling a lot and you're moving from place to place
and it's really easy to lose items or to misplace things, or to just forget them.
But there's actually a bunch of cool tracking services and items that you can use to keep track of these items
One of those is a GPS tracker
Now this is actually a physical device that you put in your luggage for example
and then it has an internet connection and the battery lasts for like 2 weeks
So if you lose your item you can always just track it on your phone and actually see it on a map.
The reason this is included as a service is because you actually have to have a cell phone service on these devices for them to work.
The downside of this is you have to pay for that service
you have to make sure that it's charged and
and the GPS device itself cost sometimes $80-100 just for one
But if that's not practical for you they also have Bluetooth trackers
like Tile
which is a lot smaller than a GPS tracker that you can put in your luggage or in a backpack
and it alerts you when you get too far away from that item
Those are a lot cheaper and they use a lot less power so you don't have to charge them all the time.
[Allison]: They're super small so you can put them on your keys, you can put them in your passport case if you have one of those in your purse
so you never leave them in the airport or anywhere else.
I also want to quickly mention Find My iPhone
If you're not familiar with this, it's a service that you can enable on your phone that when you lose it you can hold up someone else's phone and you can see where your phone is.
It puts it on a map so it's basically like a GPS tracker built into your phone.
So for example you lost your backpack with your phone in it
you can still track it but it's also just useful if you just lose your phone.
We've used it all the time.
Another really cool travel service that you can get are these little lost & found stickers
It's from a service called Return Me
Basically, you put these little stickers on an item and it has an ID number and it says "If found, put in this ID number and you get a reward"
So the idea is that people find it, they put in the ID number, you get reunited with your item
and they get an incentive for it.
Maybe not as reliable as a GPS tracker
'coz you have to rely on human kindness
But hey, it's an option.
And it's a lot cheaper.
Every time we try to talk we get huge gust of wind that comes through.
We probably should have sat so that the wind was blowing at us and not sideways
'coz I feel that my hair's been on my face this whole time
Alright, I think we're good.
It is an amazing day out here though.
It is. It's very lovely, it's in the 70's.
It's January and it's in the 70's. Huh, God bless Texas.
God bless Texas.
It's a song, by the way.
♪ God bless Texas ♪
We are in no way experts with credit cards
but we do have a Rewards Travel credit card
I would suggest anyone traveling get one. We get 2x the points
on every dollar spent that can go towards travel
So it can be redeemed for, or kind of erase
purchases like flights, train tickets, bus tickets
[Eric]: Ubers. [Allison]: Ubers. Everything.
Anything travel related.
We'll have a link to this credit card in the description below. We've had it for years.
We're very happy with it.
But you can learn more about it than we've told you in the description below
if you wanna know the nitty gritty details.
Basically, if you're not using some sort of a reward card, you're kinda just throwing away money
and leaving it on the table.
We put every purchase we can on this and then we pay it off the end of month and we get our rewards.
Bing-bing-bam-thank you. How is it?
Wham bam thank you ma'am.
One other thing we're asked about all the time
is how we stay connected, what kind of - do we have like an international data plan for a phone or something like that
The answer is - yes, we do.
We both have an international data plan with T-Mobile
It cost I think $50 a month for us
They give you data all over the world but it's very slow.
The reason why we think it's worth it is because
Ina pinch, you know, no matter where you are, you at least have access to data.
So you can use maps, you can Google stuff if you need to.
And we use it all the time, it's super helpful. It could be a little frustrating
but it gets the job done for us.
It is very slow, I think it maxes out at 2G speeds.
But you could also do a global WiFi hotspot that you can take with you
Those can get really expensive.
And if you just really need access to email and maps when you're not next to WiFi
we feel like it's better to go with an international plan like T-Mobile
but if you need a lot of data and you need it really quick, you need it to be fast
then go with the WiFi hotspots
and again we'll have links to more information on all this stuff in the description below.
Travel days, especially in the airport can be super stressful
but with something like Priority Pass
you can pay and get access to airport lounges
[Eric]: All over the world.
[Allison]: All over the world.
It could take so much stress out of your day
'coz you can just go in there, zen out, relax.
They usually have alcohol, food.
If you travel and you usually have layovers
or you like to get to the airport early
it's a great option.
And if you think about it, the amount of money that you spend outside the lounge on food and drink
a lot of people say that that covers almost the whole price of the lounge anyway
especially if you're getting priority pass because it takes the price of each individual lounge visit down if you go to them a lot.
If you have a priority pass you should leave a comment and let us know if you think it has been worth it.
Yes, please.
This next service is something we are very excited about
because we just became members
That is Global Entry and TSA Pre-check, baby.
We're global entrance!
I still don't know if that's actually how you...
Entriens.
A lot of times at the airport you get stuck in these long security lines
or these long immigration lines when you're coming back into the country
and Global Entry and TSA Pre-check basically gives you a fast track through those lines
It's amazing.
We've already used it a few times. We love it. It's only $100
Every 5 years or something so
do yourself a favor.
Yes, sadly it's only for a US citizen.
But it is super worth it. You can finally be one of those people that passes that long security line
and be like "I'm just gonna go on through, bye guys!"
Those people I used to hate. And now I'm one of them.
We're with them.
It is sometimes super stressful trying to keep all of the details of your trips together
and Tripit takes the work out of that
It puts everything for your itinerary in this nice...itinerary?
Let me say that again...
[Allison]: It puts all of your details for your trip into this beautiful itinerary
that you can share with anybody who's traveling with you
It just keeps you on track day-to-day. Here it says "Your flight is here."
"Your Hotel is here." "You have lunch plans here."
Whatever you have, you put it in there, and it's just in this beautiful little app
that you can pull up on your phone or your laptop.
If you've watched this channel at least one episode
you know that we exclusively stay in AirBnB's
And if you're not familiar with AirBnB
It's basically a service where you can rent out people's places when they're not there
or it's just rental property so you can rent an entire place
you can rent a room in a place
but the main thing is you can get something really cheap
or you can get stuff on the nicer end, you can get luxury villas on there
You can find anything.
It's a lot of fun because you can get more local experiences that way.
And we actually have links that we'll put down below
that will give you a discount when you sign up and book your first stay.
It will also give us a little bit of credit for our next stay so it's a win-win!
And another site like AirBnB that I use constantly
is SkyScanner
and it helps me find flights all over the world.
The best feature about this is you can put in where you're starting from and the other location
You can put everywhere in the world.
You can even search by a whole month
You can see what's cheapest at that month if you don't know where you're going.
If you do have solid plans you can put your destination in there
and it aggregates from all of these airlines
so you could see all of the prices
the timelines for all of these different flights instead of going site by site.
We're not experts in finding the cheapest deals or something like that
But we found that using SkyScanner is just one little edge that we can get to try to find the cheapest flights and keep our cost down
considering how much we travel.
Also pro-tip: If you use a VPN, sometimes you can set your location in the world
like your browsing from the UK or browsing from the USA
and you'll get shown a cheaper price.
And last but not least in the same bay as SkyScanner
There's actually a site called CruiseSheet that does pretty much what SkyScanner does
for airlines but it does it for cruises.
So you can basically put in where you wanna go, where you're coming from
you can find the cheapest deals on cruises.
The first cruise we ever did we used that.
We found a really cheap cruise.
Relocation cruise, it was 2 weeks, and it averaged out to like 50 USD per day per person.
It was 15 days of cruise and it got us over to Europe.
Cheaper than a flight, hotel, and meals, that we would have to pay to get over there.
Okay, that's it. That's what we have written down anyway
Of course there are tons more
There are some services we didn't include because the video would be too long
Also I'm sure you guys have a ton of really cool services that you have found
so if it's something we haven't mentioned, leave a comment, help us out.
Help other viewers out.
That's it? Okay. We're done.
If you guys watched our previous video, we had no idea where we were headed
in this - now- this year
We also asked for a bunch of suggestions which you guys came through. Thank you so much for all the suggestions.
We're compiling it all to a doc.
We'll keep you posted on where we're going though.
But we do know our first location, our first official location outside of the States
We are going to the Philippines!
We have some friends over there, there's a big festival.
At the end of January, so we're gonna pop over there and I think we'll be off to Sri Lanka?
And then some other goodies after that.
Oh yeah we got some really cool places, we're so excited.
and we're gonna be in places we've never been before.
Well I hope you guys find this super helpful 'coz it was a lot of fun putting these together.
We like helping you guys and making your lives easier.
Alright, goodbye adventurers.
We'll see you on the road.