Travel Resources

Now if there’s one thing that’s revolutionized travel in these past 10 years, it’s Airbnb. While the idea of homestay isn’t new, airbnb popularized this method of stay and made travellers realize that there are options beyond hotels that may be more comfortable, convenient, and cheaper. If you haven’t signed up yet, make sure you grab your free credit today.

A direct competitor to Airbnb is HomeAway which is now part of the Vrbo platform. While I do enjoy the user experience of Airbnb, you can often find even better deals on Vrbo simply because their fees are lower. As an example, I was looking at a property in Kauai and for the same property between the two, Vrbo was cheaper by $400. It could also work vice versa so I always check both.

Booking is now my go-to search engine when it comes to finding hotels. It’s an easy to use interface and at the end of the day helps me find cheap deals. On my trip to Iceland, I booked every single hotel, hostel, and guesthouse with Booking. Their inventory of accommodations that they now have is quite impressive.

Anytime I go to Asia, my go-to hotel search engine is Agoda without a doubt. They simply have the the most robust collection of accommodations in Asia and good rates. I’ve never been led astray by Agoda and I can comfortably recommend them when planning your next trip.

Now I don’t typically use Priceline for standard flight/hotel/car rental searches, the power truly lies in the Name Your Own Price feature. For years, I relied on this feature to bag some incredible hotel deals. The game of Name Your Own Price may sound like voodoo at first but I’ve written a handy Priceline guide that explains it all.

Whenever I travel, I like to keep track of the trip’s itinerary, writing down cool spots that locals recommend, interesting facts, and all the details of things that I know I’ll be sharing on the blog down the road. Evernote is my tool of choice because it’s super easy to use, quick to format, and syncs across devices. There’s a free version but I’m on the Plus tier because I use the app across 4 devices.

I’ve been on the hunt for a good mapping app that works well offline. Sure there’s Google’s “Ok Maps” feature but it’s not the most consistent. That’s how I eventually found maps.me which is the only map app you need when you know you won’t have access to data.

I don’t think I need to convince you why Uber is helpful when you travel. I’ve done my comparisons and 9 out of 10 times, Uber is cheaper than taking regular cabs. The app is so simple to use and what I love the most about Uber is that the drivers actually care about customer experience. Their livelihood depends on good star ratings. Has any cabbie ever offered you gum or a mint? Uber drivers have. If you haven’t signed up yet, make sure you use my invite code: willt1234ue. Get a…

I started getting into photography many many years ago with a camera that some will remember – the Canon Rebel XTi. It was my first introduction to DSLR and that flourished into the 5D Mark 2, followed by Mark. I began second guessing my set up though when I went on that big trip of mine back in 2012. I carried all of my fancy gear and the photos were amazing but at the end of it all, my back was killing and it got to the point where I didn’t want to bring…

The 12-40mm lens is my go-to lens in most situations but in case where I go on a trip with sweeping wide landscapes, I will most often switch to the 7-14mm lens to be able to capture as much of the scenery as possible. The quality of the glass here is impeccable. The only knock I’d have on this lens and pretty much any other wide angle alternative is that you can’t put a filter on this because of the dome lens. I think it has something to do with the optics and small form factor….

Paired with the E-M1, this is the best lens for travelling that covers the wide-angle range for those sweeping landscapes and the zoom range for portraits and close-up details. This thing is practically glued to my camera because while I’m on the go there simply isn’t enough time to be switching lenses. What I love about it is that not only is it versatile, the f/2.8 aperture gives my photos that blurry bokeh and handles low light very well. This is a top-notch high quality lens and a must-have for anyone invested in the M43 platform.

Duh you need batteries but the point I want to make here is that 1) you always want more batteries than you think you’ll need and 2) knock-off third-party batteries are a BAD idea. You need lots of extra batteries because you may be going on a multi-day hike like the Inca Trail and mirrorless cameras in general consume more juice. I’ve also had bad experiences with cheap batteries where in Peru, they started expanding at high altitudes to the point where they were practically stuck inside the camera body.

Your lenses need protection and that’s where the UV filters come in. While blocking UV is nice to have, the real purpose of these filters is to protect the precious front element glass from being damaged or scratched up. Also if by some chance your lens takes a tumble and falls on the ground head first, the filter will take the brunt of the damage. Don’t skimp out here, make sure you protect your lenses. In my opinion, B+W makes the best filters out there so make sure you grab one of these for your…

Outside of the UV filter, I’d only recommend one more type of filter, and that’s the circular polarizer. The purpose of this type of filter is to 1) cut down the reflection and glare of water and 2) to darken the sky and saturate the colors. Your landscape shots will thank you for popping on a circular polarizer. It will make your photos look that much more dynamic and will save you a heck of a lot of time post processing. The Kaesemann line from B+W is their highest which is why the price…

This is kind of along the same vein as batteries – you kind of need memory in order for your camera to function. The importance of high quality memory cards is of the utmost important because if you buy a bad one, you could be putting all of your photos in jeopardy. The newer cameras can utilize the UHS-2 speed which is why this one is 300 mb/s. This matters when you’re shooting high speed and video. I’ve also experimented with Lexar brand of cards but I’ve had way too many corruptions with them so…

As the next step in the evolution of Peak Design, they created the Travel Backpack with not only the photographer in mind but the traveller as well. Since this was released, I’ve used the Everyday Backpack less mainly because this is a larger pack to carry all of the photography and videography gear that I bring with me on all trips. I love that this backpack is rugged, discreet, and has all the quick-access features that you come to expect with Peak Design.

As a photographer or even an everyday traveller, you know that the struggle to find the perfect back is REAL. When this Kickstarter project started midway through 2016, I was excited as heck because their previous product, the Everyday Messenger was so good. The only issue with it was that for any serious travelling, it wasn’t useable because of the ergonomics of a messenger bag. What I love about this bag is that they’ve really designed it for the travelling photographer in mind. The divider system is pure genius in its flexibility and being able…

Adobe recently transitioned everything to the Creative Cloud and as such made things slightly more complicated in terms of payment because now they can charge customers monthly instead of one time for software. Luckily they have bundles like this out there that are the only two tools I use from Adobe. I personally prefer Lightroom where I use it to catalog all of my photos and is overall just much easier to do photo edits on but Photoshop is more of that precision tool if you need to do highly specialized edits.

So you’ve finished post-processing all your photos and you have all of your files safely tucked away in an external hard drive. Now imagine the unimaginable, the hard drive dies or a natural disaster hits your home. You’ve just lost all of your files. Don’t let that happen to you. Sign up for Backblaze and have your files automatically synced and backed up in the cloud for only $5 a month. It’s a super slick program that runs in the background of your computer and any connected drives you may have.

How could I forget about the all important tripod! The hardest part about packing for a trip is deciding whether to bring a tripod or not. I did quite a bit of research on this one and after reading all the different review websites and comparing all the specs, this little known China branded tripod came out on top. I’ve used it for a number of trips this year and I love just how small this tripod folds into and how ridiculously light it is. The ball head could be better but for most applications…

My last new favourite camera gadget is this awesome quick clip system that is perfect for my Olympus M43 camera. What I love about it is that I can have this clipped to any bag that I have on me. Instead of something like a neck strap, I can quickly clip in and out of the CapturePro. I usually like this set up on one of my backpack straps. This makes the camera easily accessible and safe and secure when I’m doing something like hiking. Highly recommended for any photographer!

This is an indispensable part of your photography toolkit. When you’re travelling, it is likely that your lens is going to get dirty. Instead of using your dirty shirt to clean them, something such as a LensPen is magic.