Resources We Use and Recommend
Here are the products and services we personally use to feed our travel habit and to capture our travels for posterity.
Accomodation
I am a fan of Secret Escapes and Voyage Prive, the travel membership sites based out of Britain and France, respectively. Although they do not have very many family rooms available, occasionally you can find a good deal. I find the US website, Jetsetter, is better for finding family rooms as it will tell you readily whether the room can accommodate more than 2 people. Shop around – sometimes the room is much cheaper in dollars on an American website than British pounds on a UK website. Go figure!
We also regularly book our hotels through either Booking.com or Hotels.com, both of which have provided good deals.
My husband is addicted to checking everything on TripAdvisor.
Transportation
We use British Airways so much for our flights that our entire family are silver card holders.
For cheap flights within Europe, we like EasyJet.
We use Gold Card members of Hertz. Our rental cars are ready when we get to the rental station at the airport without having to wait in line.
Guide Books
I love the [easyazon_link identifier=”178657120X” locale=”US” tag=”jg20-20″]Lonely Planet books[/easyazon_link] and [easyazon_link identifier=”1465445528″ locale=”US” tag=”jg20-20″]Eyewitness Guides[/easyazon_link]. We use Amazon for pretty much everything.
Equipment
We are a Mac family. I have a [easyazon_link identifier=”B008BEYEL8″ locale=”US” tag=”jg20-20″]MacBook Pro[/easyazon_link] and an [easyazon_link identifier=”B018KXK652″ locale=”US” tag=”jg20-20″]iPad[/easyazon_link]. My kids have[easyazon_link identifier=”B01M0ASPFK” locale=”US” tag=”jg20-20″]iPads[/easyazon_link] and [easyazon_link identifier=”B01MXI7F8L” locale=”US” tag=”jg20-20″]Puro Sound Labs headphones[/easyazon_link] as well. My husband prefers his [easyazon_link identifier=”B00OQVZDJM” locale=”US” tag=”jg20-20″]Kindle Paperwhite[/easyazon_link] for reading. We have Mophie power stations that keep us all power.
I am devoted to my photographic equipment. I have a [easyazon_link identifier=”B01KURGS9E” locale=”US” tag=”jg20-20″]Canon 5D dSLR[/easyazon_link] for which I tend to use the standard [easyazon_link identifier=”B00009XVCZ” locale=”US” tag=”jg20-20″]Canon 50mm fixed lens[/easyazon_link]. I also have a lightweight easy-to-use mirrorless camera, the [easyazon_link identifier=”B00S6DBMOQ” locale=”US” tag=”jg20-20″]Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II[/easyazon_link]. I use it with the [easyazon_link identifier=”B0055PH83C” locale=”US” tag=”jg20-20″]Olympus 14-150mm zoom lens[/easyazon_link].
My daughter has a [easyazon_link identifier=”B00AWKJPOA” locale=”US” tag=”jg20-20″]Fujifilm Instax Mini[/easyazon_link].
We use our [easyazon_link identifier=”B00NIYJF6U” locale=”US” tag=”jg20-20″]GoPro[/easyazon_link] on beach holidays when we can remember to take it with us.
