Here at Dollar Flight Club, we love to travel, but we won’t lie and say that planning trips isn’t stressful. From flights, hotels, rental cars, and figuring out which attractions to prioritize, making a trip itinerary can be more time-consuming than a full-time job.
One of the tools we rely on heavily is Tripadvisor. Their site has reviews for everything from hotels, restaurants, sightseeing, and recommendations from travelers just like us.
Here are some of our favorite Tripadvisor tools you can use to plan your dream vacation:
Tripadvisor Experiences
Tripadvisor is one of the only platforms I trust when it comes to booking travel experiences and tours. I know they only work with trusted partners so I’m not being scammed or swindled.
It’s also incredibly simple to book through the website. All I do is enter the location of where I’m headed into the search bar and then go over to the “Things to Do” section and scroll through to see what piques my interest.
You can find everything from private and luxury tours to privately led guides for multi-day city explorations to short 1-hour adventures. My favorite tours are the ones that let me skip the lines so I don’t have to wait all day to see the historic sites.
From hot air balloon rides in Egypt to snorkeling in Croatia, Tripadvisor has all the most coveted experiences ready to book with just a few clicks. Check out their Traveler’s Choice 2022 rankings of the top-rated experiences around the world and I’m sure you’ll be booking your next trip based on the activities.
Vacation Rentals
Most people know that Tripadvisor is a great spot to read reviews from fellow travelers, but did you know that you can also use their platform to search for vacation rentals?
You can search by specific location or browse accommodations at the most popular destinations. You can filter for everything from internet access to accessibility for elderly people to mountain views. You can contact the owner just the same and read reviews from other travelers, too.
Hotels
Speaking of accommodations, I love looking at reviews for hotels on Tripadvisor. I like seeing all the reviews in one place and then being able to see the top-rated hotels based on the entire city or a specific site.
You can filter by more than 50 hotel features including yoga rooms and swim-up bars, so you can truly find the hotel that suits you best. What I love the most, however, is that you can filter by distance from most major sites.
I personally used this to research hotels when I went to Italy for my friend’s wedding. I knew it was near the Colosseum and I was able to quickly filter and see which hotels were the best hotels near the historic site. If you don’t need to get that granular you can also search by neighborhood, traveler ratings, budget, hotel class, hotel brands, and more.
When I was searching, I found their site much easier to scroll. When the search engine delivered the results, they are neatly and concisely listed and show a carousel of photos, the reviews, where it ranks, and a short excerpt of a real review. It was easy to skim and pick which hotel to stay at.
When I’m not booking a trip, I’m busy daydreaming about the accommodations on their list of the Best Hotels, as chosen by fellow travelers.
Tripadvisor Reco
Did you know that planning a trip is one of the main reasons that people don’t take full advantage of their PTO? Honestly, we get it. Planning is stressful and can easily overwhelm even the most well-versed travelers.
Tripadvisor’s solution to that problem is the Tripadvisor Reco. With the Reco tool, you can hire a trip designer to book and plan your dream vacation for a flat $200 fee. Tripadvisor matches you to a Trip Designer based on your interests and then they work with you to customize your trip to be perfect for you. It’s just that easy.
All the trips are personalized just for you and crafted by experts who are either locals or have visited your destination within the last three years, so you know your vacation is in good hands.
Travelers’ Choice Awards
I don’t know how you start your trip planning but for me, it usually involves seeing a picture of a pretty place or a one-of-a-kind travel experience and then I obsessively look up information about it until I have saved enough money to book the trip.
I deeply value honest, unpaid reviews and consulting trusted travel sites for realistic travel information. There is nothing worse to me than a place being nothing like it is in the pictures. I love feeding my wanderlust itch and brainstorming my next trip advisor by perusing the winners of the Travelers’ Choice Awards that they do each year.
The trending travel destinations of 2023 certainly got me inspired. The list included places like:
- If I close my eyes and think of a perfect paradise, it looks eerily similar to what Mauritius, an island nation off the eastern coast of Africa, looks like. The waters couldn’t be bluer, the sand couldn’t be whiter, and the trees couldn’t be greener.
- Baku, Azerbaijan is unlike any other city. Its buildings are remnants of both the Silk Road and its Soviet history. Old meets new in Baku–the Old City sits in contrast to the modern skyline backdrop, creating a dizzying beauty.
- Juneau, Alaska made its way onto the 2023 list likely for its majestic whale-watching and glacier tours. Personally, it’s on my bucket list to take a cruise to Alaska and experience its unique wilderness.
So, what are you waiting for? Start to plan your dream vacation today. If you don’t know where to start, we suggest consulting Tripadvisor’s summer vacation ideas as a good place to start.
by travelers, for travelers.
