3 Helpful Websites for Travelers

View from Mount Roosevelt - Black Hills, South Dakota (July 2016)

"Traveling is too expensive."
"I don't have enough time to take a trip."
"I'm not sure where I want to go."
"Where could I even go for $300?"

If you've caught yourself saying anything along these lines, then this might be just the article you need if you're looking to exchange the excuses in for experiences. It's probably not smart of me to give away my three favorite travel-related websites right off the bat, but knowledge needs to be shared right? Here's my list for three of the best sites to help you when planning your next trip.

1.  Kayak - One of the most well-known travel planning sites today, this website is chock-full of useful tools for the eager traveler. From booking hotels and flights to train and rental car reservations, Kayak is beyond useful. The one specific tool that I love about this website is its Explore feature. At the top of the homepage simply click the More tab and there you will find Explore. From here you can enter in any city you would like to depart from and it will search for flight deals to destinations across the world. Maybe you are in Bozeman, Montana looking for a flight to London but don't feel like driving down to the larger, Salt Lake City to fly out from. With this feature you can "explore" places you never thought you'd consider going. Perhaps you live in Colorado Springs, want to take a trip somewhere, have $300 to spend on a flight, but have no idea where that $300 can take you. How does a five day trip to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula sound? Thanks Kayak. It's that simple.
2. Skyscanner - From all the insight my sister's boyfriend has shared with me about traveling, perhaps none have come more valuable than him showing me this particular site. I'm still not sure how they do it, but Skyscanner is a fantastic site if you're looking to save some money on flights, hotels, and car rentals. I personally have not used Skyscanner for anything other than searching for flights but that's all I've ever needed it for. Much like other plane ticket search engines, Skyscanner searches multiple different sources to come up with a variety of options at different costs. It was from here I was able to cut my flight to Europe by around $500! 
3. Travel & Leisure - Best for last! Rounding out my top three websites for travelers is by far my favorite. TL has got to be one of the greatest tools for travelers of all types to use. They post a wide variety of content from updates on travel deals (hotels, vacation packages, flights) to gift ideas for your nomadic friends. There is so much to this site that even I haven't discovered, so I encourage you to give it a look.

Now I probably shouldn't say this, but if you start poking around just these three sites, I fear as though it won't take long before you don't need The Roaming Colt for advice, tips, etc. I will admit that I have gained a lot of travel wisdom from these three sites and may even regurgitate some things from them here or there. With that being said I hope you see for yourself how excellent these sites are. Organizing your traveling plans can be difficult, but with the help from pages like these it should hopefully come with more ease and give you more confidence to get out and go! If not, you can always...

Just wing it.

- C