My Favorite Nomad Travel Tools Of 2023

Last year I detailed the tools I’ve amassed that have made my nomad life easier in the post below. Well less than a year later, I’ve found even more. I’m always impressed with all the things that are available on the internet for free that improve our lives 🙂 . So let’s get into it!

• These Are My Favorite Nomad Travel Tools!

Airport Lounge Guide: Lounge Buddy

As you may know, I love to plan ahead 🙂 . And one of the things that helps me get even more excited about a trip is seeing what fun adventures I have in store on a fancy flight I’ve travel hacked, and that doesn’t just include the flight, but also the lounges!

Lounge access is another wonderful perk of business and first class flights. They usually offer free food, drink, wifi and a quieter and more comfy place to relax than on a terminal floor 🙂 . This site helps me easily see everything I need to know about a lounge in advance, including their location, hours and even reviews from other travelers.

Airline Carry On Rules: OneBag

Surprisingly, I fly less in retirement while having a fully nomadic life, than I did while working. However while working, I usually flew one or two airlines on the same routes to visit friends and family. In retirement, I am all over the place – literally 🙂 . And as a result, I’m often flying airlines I never have before, which all seem to have different luggage rules.

This page easily shows carry on requirements for all of the airlines around the world, which was super helpful when I planned to hop on many planes on the other side of the world, like I am for my upcoming Australia/New Zealand/Singapore adventure. This site also has other cool features, such as sample packing lists for specific itineraries.

The site’s idea is built around traveling with one bag, and its main concept seems to be showing the features, pros and cons of different bag choices, as well as how many airline carry-on bag requirements it meets. Very cool idea!

Gas Price Comparison: Gas Buddy

Since I’ve been staying around the US for most of my nomad travels to accommodate my partner’s work hours, at times we have needed a car to get to far flung parts of the country. In those moments, you better believe I’m going to try to optimize where we get gas since it’s still often $5 a gallon in the places we’ve been this year.

This site lets you search local gas prices based on city or zip code, and provides a list or (my preference) a map to show the different prices around the city. I used this to choose the best priced gas that was along our California road trip route and saved enough for at least 2 In N Out Double Doubles 😉 .

Realtime Train Status: RailRat

As you might have known, I love tracking things 🙂 . Unfortunately, I found the tracking offered by the boards in my Amtrak station to be lacking, so I searched around and found RailRat! Apart from the funny name, it’s a very simple and extremely helpful site that has accurate minute to minute locations for trains around the US. It also has the Amtrak Twitter account associated with that route embedded in the site so you can see official updates that way as well.

I found RailRat much more accurate than those boards and continue to use it instead of the tracking offered by Amtrak, though this visual tracking map is cool looking 🙂 .

Realtime Cruise Tracker: Cruise Mapper

So my Mom went on a cruise lately and a woman she met said this was her first cruise despite her being 58 because her great grandmother was a survivor of the Titanic, which apparently left from the same dock as this cruise and she’s there to overcome her fear.

So of course this heartwarming story made me immediately irrationally panic about my Mom’s safety 🙂 . So I found this helpful tracker, which put me at ease. It’s basically a flight tracker for cruises. You can see where any cruise in the world is at that very moment and their full itinerary. I was able to see that my Mom’s cruise would always be close to the coast of a country, which also in my mind means she’s closer to rescue. So there’s a lovely anecdote for you🤣.

All that to say, it’s awesome that there are trackers for things like cruises. I had no idea they existed at this level outside of flights.

Tipping Etiquette: Who To Tip

When I’m going to another country, I try my best to adhere to local customs and that includes tipping. The US has such a fucked up tipping system that I prefer to err on the side of caution (aka always leaving a tip), but I also don’t want to offend anyone if that might be received poorly (like on my latest Amtrak sleeper train ride).

Luckily, this site is dedicated to telling you not just what countries do and don’t appreciate tips, but also in what situations and establishments and how much is appropriate. It’s saved me so much time and anxiety 🙂

Prescription Equivalents: Pill In Trip

I’ve been cataloging my explorations into Medical Tourism around the world and as a result, I’ve had the unique challenge of trying to translate medicine that’s manufactured in one country into another. Luckily I’ve discovered that a lot of medicines are universal, but go under a different name in a different country. That’s where Pill In Trip comes in!

They check to see if there are exact equivalents based on ingredients between medicines in different countries. As a result of using this free site, I was able to tell a doctor in the US the US equivalent of a medicine I was prescribed while in México so I could continue using the medicine in the US. It was the same stuff, but under a totally different name. Super cool!

Schengen Visa Calculator: Visa Calculator

This site I learned about from the bloggers Bonus Nachos. Figuring out visa rules, especially in Europe, can be a bit complicated, so this Visa Calculator helps with that. I’m starting to plan my Eurotrip for next year and I’m hoping knowing all my visa rules will help this trip not at all resemble the ridiculous film, Eurotrip.

CONCLUSION

And those are a few tools that have made my life easier 🙂 . I hope they can help you as well when you embark on your next adventure!

What are your favorite travel tools?