Secret Travel Hacks You NEED in 2024!

in today's video I'm going to be sharing some lesser known travel hacks might I say secret travel hacks that you going to want to know in 2024 and let's be honest travel is constantly changing from year to year it can be hard to keep up with at times but with these travel hacks that I'm about to share I'm going to keep you at the top of your travel game make sure you stick around because as we know travel is getting increasingly more expensive every single year and 2024 is going to be no different but fortunately a lot of these hacks that I'm sharing today will help save you tons of money on your travels especially number 13 but let's start talking about these tips the first hack we are going to talk about is eims now you might not even know what an eim is and most likely it's only going to benefit you if you're traveling internationally but in my opinion this is going to be your best and most efficient way to handle your cellular data in service while you are abroad so every phone has a SIM card and it's usually a physical SIM card that you can access through the side of your phone and basically what an eim is is a electronic version of that SIM card that you can download onto your phone the old school way of doing SIM cards while traveling was actually plugging in a physical SIM card but nowadays they have these awesome and super conven venient eims now I've personally used eims for probably the last year and a half of travel and I used to do the physical SIM cards but since moving over to the eims I love them they're quite affordable a little bit more expensive than the physical ones but still very affordable and they're really easy to set up and you can actually set them up before you travel so that way when you land your phone is all ready to go which we know is is super nice now I know there's a lot of great companies out there for eims I have personally only used one called aolo which I have found to be awesome one thing I really like about AO is they offer Regional and Global eims so for example when I recently just went to Southeast Asia I got a SIM card for that entire region so I was able to get access to data in Vietnam Thailand Cambodia Singapore all under the same SIM card the reason I'm mentioning eims in this video is I feel like there's still so many people that don't know about eims especially being here from the United States I often get questions of how we handle our phones when traveling and I often hear people just use their carrier for data while traveling for example Meg and I here in the United States have rizon and they have this service called travel pass which on the surface seems really great being that it it's just convenient venient and you just let them know when you're traveling but it costs like $10 a day and honestly the data is kind of really slow and you don't get very much so you could save a ton of money especially if you're going on a one or two week trip in Europe by just buying an eim versus paying $10 every single day for data while you're traveling so that's why I really really like eims over even just a physical SIM card or getting data through your normal carrier at home number two flight away a.com and to be honest with you this website is a little bit new for myself as well but I found it to be super fun and super useful the main way I use flight aware.com is to check flight status to check if my flight is delayed or it's on time or maybe there's some bad weather coming it's a great database that I found to actually be a little bit more updated than what you're going to get from your airline so you can go on there there a day or 2 days in advance and make sure your flight is on time another great use for it is Tracking not only your flight but somebody else's flight maybe you have a family member or a friend that's picking you up from the airport or you're picking somebody up from the airport flightaware.com is great to use for that as well it gives you a cool map with a little plane graphic so you can see exactly where the plane is in the world and like I said it's going to give you really updated information on if that plane is on time or delayed so that way you can go to the airport at an appropriate time and lastly if you're just kind of an aviation nerd Flight Aware can be super fun to just play around with they have all these different stats on how many flights are taking each day what is the busiest airports what kind of plane is Flowing the most so in general if you just like Aviation you should definitely check out flight aware.com number three travel credit cards come on what are you doing if you're traveling in 2024 without a travel credit card card but seriously though um travel credit cards are amazing and I would highly recommend getting yourself a travel credit card now I am not claiming to be an expert in this field by any means I would definitely recommend checking out some of the other people that are really good at Travel credit cards and kind of travel hacking whether it be the Points Guy or the daily drop there's tons of great resources out there and I'm not claiming to be an expert but Megan I really really don't pay for our long flights anymore because of travel credit cards there's so many benefits and it doesn't have to be super hard you don't need five credit cards you don't need 10 credit cards even if you just have one travel card you are going to be reaping the benefits and it's going to allow you to travel more efficiently and cheaper personally I have the Venture X card from Capital One and I know there's a ton of other great travel credit cards on the market you should just just find one that works for you and a lot of these travel credit cards do have Annual fees which I feel like scares people away but honestly if you just do some simple math you'll realize that it basically pays for itself even if you only travel like once a year for example with my Venture X card I get priority pass lounge access I get a $300 travel credit I get a stien for TSA pre-check and Global Entry there's so many benefits when it comes to having a travel credit card if you travel so if you don't have a travel credit card I would highly recommend lining one up for 2024 travel number four keep your boarding pass especially for international flights now this isn't quite as groundbreaking as maybe our first three hacks but it is something that people forget about and it is really important when you travel especially internationally now domestically we get used to maybe not even having a physical boarding pass or something like that but when you're traveling intern nationally often times they will ask for your boarding pass when you get to your destination and often times they will even require a paper boarding pass there's been multiple times when we've been traveling in Asia and Europe where they actually require you to have a paper boarding pass to get through security so just keep that in mind if you are traveling internationally it might be in your best interest to hang on to your boarding pass for Customs when you get to your destination number five Google flights specifically the explore tab now if you don't know what Google flights is um where have you been not just kidding but seriously Google flights is the PowerHouse when it comes to finding flights for your trip it has the largest database in my opinion and it's just going to be the most efficient way to find the cheapest flights and a lot of people do a really good job of going on Google flights plugging in their destination plugging in their dates and it's good to go but if you're really looking to save a lot of money utilize What's called the explore feature where you can plug in just kind of a date range of when you want to travel but don't plug in a destination and when you click on the map you are then able to see all of these different destinations and you're able to pick what might be the most cheapest option that you're interested in and this can be a great way to help you decide where you want to travel but also it's going to give you afford spots to travel sometimes you don't even know what you're looking for when it comes to flights and using the explore tab can be a great way to help narrow your search down a little bit without spending a ton of extra money unnecessarily if you're interested in more information about Google flights I made an entire video about how to find the cheapest flights on Google flights I go over a lot of the different features and different ways you can save quite literally hundreds of dollars on your flights so I would highly recommend checking out that video If you're looking to save some money on your flights in 2024 number six travel arrow and you've maybe never heard of travel Arrow before because it's not super welln but it is super beneficial in Saving you tons of money on your flights and travel arrow is a Google Chrome extension that works with Google flights so what we just talked about but basically what travel Arrow does is is when you search for your flight on Google flights a little white box is going to pull up on the side of your browser which is going to automatically compare the flight you plugged in on Google flights with all of these other sites Skyscanner Expedia kayak all of these other databases to help you find the best price because sometimes Google flights might not be the best deal and maybe Skyscanner or kayak is running some sort of special on the flight that you're looking for so travel arrow is a great way to reassure that you're getting the best price for your flight number seven my maps from Google Maps not Google Maps my maps from Google Maps and this is an awesome service that Google provides and I'm always surprised to hear that a lot of people don't use it or even know about it and basically what my maps is is gives you the ability to create your own map your own Google Map and I use this for basically every single trip that I go on because you can create basically a One-Stop shop for places to eat hikes you want to do driving directions photo spots beaches that you want to go to activities you want to do and it can be your One-Stop shop to know exactly where everything is on your trip because we all know when you're traveling the last thing you want to do is do a bunch of research figuring out where things are and what the address is and how long it takes to get there but prior to your trip you can prepare all of this and do the research ahead of time I've actually considered making a video all about my maps and how to use it efficiently so let me know down in the comments if you would be interested in a video like that but honestly I would highly recommend trying out my maps it's not as hard to use as you might think and it can be really really helpful when you travel number eight don't be afraid to book the back of the plane I feel like the back of the plane is heavily underrated and I'm not going to say the back of the plane is best in all situations for example if you have a tight connection and you're in a hurry the back of the plane is not going to be ideal but I feel like often times people avoid booking seats in the back of the plane just because the Deep planing process takes longer but there's actually a lot of benefits to potentially booking your seat in the back of the plane the first first one being is the chances are way higher that you're going to have more room and the plane is not going to be as filled which is really nice you might have a seat between you or beside you where nobody's sitting also you're a lot closer to the flight attendance which is really nice if you're looking for some good service particularly on international flights when you're getting served meals again specifically more so on the big planes for international flights you're going to have more space to walk and move about which is really nice on a really long flight you might also have some more overhead bin space my point here is that the back of the plane does have some benefits so don't immediately dissociate from the back of the plane you might want to try booking in the back because I know Meg and I personally have had some great flights sitting in the very back row of the plane number nine seat Guru this is a great little resource that you can use when it comes time to picking your seat you plug in your flight information and your destination and it gives you a seating chart of the plane that you're on and not just your basic average seating chart it's going to give you detailed descriptions of each seat telling you if it's a good seat or a bad seat telling you if the seat reclines or not telling you if there's floor storage telling you if there's extra leg room or not telling you if there's a window or not and again as you can probably tell it's a great resource if you're somebody that's maybe a little bit picky about your seat or you're looking for a specific seat with specific amenities I would highly recommend checking out seat Guru to solve and answer all of those questions number 10 dry soaps and let me tell you I have no idea why I haven't been doing this for my entire travel career but I've just recently added dry soaps into my packing list the first one that I've been bringing with me me is a solid shampoo and conditioner which is just so much more convenient you don't have to worry about the liquid you don't have to worry about it getting caught through TSA it lasts forever the one that I've been using is from Lush it smells great again just an awesome addition to my packing list another thing that I've been using a lot as well is paper soap I've recently got this paper soap from a company called SE to Summit comes in this nice little package with 50 sheets I use it for washing my hands it can be used for shampoo body wash it can really be used for anything laundry but it's just a nice alternative to the hand sanitizer I find whenever I'm traveling I'm like always putting on hand sanitizer and I feel like by the end of a travel day my hands are like sticky from so much hand sanitizer what's nice about the paper soap is you can actually go wash your hands with high quality soap and it doesn't take up a ton of space and you don't have to worry about it getting caught through security again a really nice benefit so I would highly recommend trying to introduce some dry soaps or solid soaps into your packing list for 2024 number 11 Ziploc bag I don't I honestly don't even think that this is a secret but Ziploc bags are the goat of travel items and in my opinion I haven't found a it that has beat it specifically when it comes to packing your liquids I always see people buy these like fancy like liquid bags and let's be honest they don't work as well as Ziplock bags Ziploc bags are cheap they take up no space and they hold in all of your liquids for the most part travel hack number 12 a carabiner and in my opinion the Carabiner is like the Swiss army knife of traveling there's just so many uses I've been using this Carabiner honestly this thing is not the best for travel it's this like super big rock climbing Carabiner but again there's so many uses for a carabiner whether it be hooking some shoes on the outside of your backpack because they got wet or clothes or hanging a water bottle or hanging clothes out to dry when you get to your destination or using it as a safety feature to help lock your suitcase or backpack a carabiner just seems to come in handy more than you would like to think number 13 fly carryon only and I feel like this one in 2024 and the years to come is going to be the one thing that is going to save you the most money I feel like every single year checked baggage fees are going up by 105 $20 these days especially if you're flying a Budget Airline the baggage fee is nearly as much as your seat it costs just as much to fly your bag underneath the plane belly as it is for you to sit your butt in your seat it is honestly crazy and I would highly encourage everybody in 2024 to start practicing carryon only travel it'll save you tons of money potentially a lot of stress of not having to worry about your luggage getting lost or anything like that carry-on travel is going to be the best way to travel in my opinion in the Years to come and it's best to just start practicing now number 14 time shifter and time shifter is a cool little app that I've actually mentioned in one of my previous other videos but I figured I would bring it up again being that it's a piece of technology that could be really useful for you especially if you're taking long international flights and as we know technology is kind of taking over the travel space so it's good to stay up to date with all these different apps and time shifter is an app specifically designed to help you deal with a jet lag and basically how time shifter works is you're going to plug in your flight information which is really easy to do you just plug in your flight number and it's going to populate your flight schedule and based on that flight schedule it's going to give you a protocol to help avoid jet leg as much as possible and basically how it does this without me being a scientist and getting too sciency is it's going to start to adjust your circadian rhythm so that way when you get to your destination you're already adjusted to the time change and how it does this is it'll give you a schedule on when to sleep when to stay awake when to take caffeine when to take melatonin if you choose and I actually found it to be quite successful and quite helpful with that being said it comes at a price and if you're not for sure that you want to invest in it what's awesome is they allow you to do one trip for free and you're able to get a feel for the service that they provide so either way whether you want to do it longterm or or not trying it out once can be really beneficial because you might learn a lot from just that one experience and maybe you won't even need to invest in it in the future but it is kind of a fun app to try out at least once thanks for watching this video hopefully you came out of it with some lesser known travel hacks that you can Implement in the upcoming year of travel this time of year the start of the new year is always really exciting for travel the travel planning juices are flowing everyone's making goals for the trips they are planning for the year and we are here for it we are here to help you we are here to inspire you let me know down in the comments any travel goals you have for the upcoming year I love to hear where people are going and things they're excited about when it comes to travel if you enjoyed this one though I would highly recommend checking out the first video we made this year which is Unwritten rules for the airport I always have fun making those videos I get to unload some of my pet peeves off on to you guys and whether you agree with me or not is just some good discussion in the comment section anyway thanks for watching this video If you enjoyed it please give it a thumbs up as well as subscribe to our channel for more content like this we will see you in the next [Music] video

Channel: The Travel Coaches

Views: 17,995

Keywords: the travel coaches, travel hacks, travel hacks 2024, travel tips, travel tips 2024, how to travel in 2024, travel mistakes, travel mistakes to avoid, travel mistakes to avoid in 2024, packing tips, airplane travel hacks, airport tips, first time traveler, secret travel hacks, how to travel more, how to travel cheap, google flights, travel credit cards, travel credit cards for beginners, travel in 2024, best travel tips, best travel hacks, travel essentials, 2024

Id: QgqYmPZsVJQ

Length: 20min 23sec (1223 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 13 2024