Travel Resources - Curls on a Quest

I’m so excited to share some of my travel secrets with you—stuff that even my most well-traveled friends haven’t discovered yet. We’ve crafted this list to ensure each item is a game-changer for your travels. These are the very resources we use every time we travel!

Remember, I’m here to guide you step-by-step, so let’s get into it!

Eat Food, Shop Around, & Earn Miles!

Did you know that you don’t have to have a travel credit card in order to get points for flights and accommodations? In fact, all you have to do is eat and shop, literally everything you probably do on a regular day!

Using dining portals, search for a restaurant, dine and pay with your linked credit or debit card, and earn miles for every dollar you spend. Don’t believe me? Here are the portals I’ve used to earn thousands of miles just by dining:

The same goes for shopping! Find and click on your store, shop like you normally would, and earn miles for buying what you would’ve bought anyway! Here are the portals I’ve used to shop:

What’s the catch? Well, you can only be subscribed to one program at a time. If you ever want to change programs, just add your card to the new program!

Also, some programs are currently unavailable to residents of the European Union, United Kingdom, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway.

Money Hacks

Now, we’ll say it straight out: We use our travel credit cards because we earn even more points!

Of course, we are wise when we use them, ensuring we have what we need to pay the bills. But why wouldn’t we use them? They give us points for travel and dining and help us with a locked amount that we cannot go over.

If you’re not a credit card person, we totally understand (Ceasar isn’t much of one either), and you can scroll on to our next best-kept secrets. But if you are, here are my personal favorites that I use:

Chase Sapphire Preferr ed — There is just no question that this is probably my favorite travel credit card!

Not only is the sign-on bonus pretty good (often 60,000-75,000 bonus points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months), but you also earn 3x the points on dining, 2x the points on travel, and 5x the points on travel through Chase!

Plus, they gave me complimentary Instacart+ for 6 months and DashPass for an entire year! This card is literally so good that I can’t even complain about the $95 annual fee.
Capital One Venture Card — My second favorite is Capital One’s travel credit card. It credits you $100 for TSA PreCheck and gives you complimentary access to Capital One Lounges twice a year! It also has a sign-on bonus similar to the Chase Sapphire Preferred, which helps significantly when booking flights with its partners.

Now, there is good news and bad news with this card. The good news is that you get 2x the points on every purchase you make, from your flight to the toothpaste in your carry-on.

The bad news is that you get only 5x the points on hotels and rental cars through the Capital One Travel portal. The fact that this card has a similar annual fee to Chase’s travel card kind of bums me out, but I do like the lounge and TSA PreCheck perks, so I take full advantage of those!
Capital One Savor One — Now, this is only for my friends who prefer cash over miles!

The Savor One card with Capital One was one of my very first cards, and I used it all the time, especially during the pandemic when all I was doing was ordering out. It’s like Capital One’s “Foodie Credit Card” because you get 3% cash back on dining and entertainment. And there’s no annual fee!

You might not get all of the perks you would with a high-end travel credit card, but this is perfect for someone who spends more on food than flights and accommodations.

Flight Secrets

Going — This is my go-to for saving money on flights!

Going, formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights, is one of my favorite secrets for finding the best flight deals. I used to use Google Flights and the ITA Matrix to find great deals, but Going does all the hard work for me! They send me all the deals I would spend hours searching for. It’s literally such a good investment.
FareDrop — You probably think we’re crazy, but yes, we are subscribed to two flight deal apps! We don’t want to miss any good flight deals.

Plus, FareDrop was created by one of our favorite travel couples, Kara & Nate, who have been traveling the world since 2016. We’ve been trusting their travel advice for a long time, and when they created an app for flight deals, we knew we had to try it! It’s definitely one of our favorites.
Skyscanner — This is where it all started; back when I first started looking for flights, this was my go-to for the best flight deals to anywhere around the world, and it’s absolutely free to use!

Accommodation Favorites

VRBO — To really immerse ourselves in local life, we love renting homes on VRBO. Every time we book with VRBO, we know that we get the entire place to ourselves, and that’s important to us. We want it to feel like we’re living right at home in a new city.
Booking.com — If we decide to book a hotel like we did in Dubai, we love using Booking.com, because of its unique filter options. I’m constantly looking for hotels with breakfast included, but imagine having both breakfast and dinner taken care of!
Airbnb — We also love Airbnb because of its wide selection and unique accommodations!

For Tours & Activities

Viator — When we booked our Dubai desert safari tour using Viator, we were hooked and told everyone about it when we got home! This tool was the secret to doing unique things in the city that most travelers miss out on. Don’t be one of those travelers!
Get Your Guide — We love Get Your Guide because they literally categorize their activities with you and me in mind! We know you love culture and food; otherwise, you wouldn’t be on this blog. Well, they’ve got some amazing tours dedicated to culture and food, like this 5-star croissant baking class in Paris that I’m so upset we missed out on!
TripAdvisor — Now, TripAdvisor is our original go-to for all activities, so it’s a must for us to mention them! What I love about TripAdvisor is that it’s been around for a while, so there are plenty of reviews. It helped me decide which Dubai dinner cruise to take!

City Transportation

Now, we understand that each city has its own transportation system and availability. We do some research on the city before deciding how we want to get around.

Turo — If we want to drive around on our schedule like we did in Disney World and Miami, we book with Turo. We can ride in style, select the exact car we want, and have the owner deliver the car directly to us. There is no waiting in line, and we aren’t left to guess what kind of car we’ll end up with.
Uber & Lyft — We typically use a rideshare service when we want to get around but don’t want to deal with the traffic and find parking spots like in New Orleans. Which one we actually use will depend on what is available in the area.
Public Transportation — If the city has an amazing transportation system, like Paris’, we will opt for public transportation. This usually saves us a lot of money and really helps us immerse ourselves in local life. Each city has a different public transportation system, so if it’s a great system, we highly recommend going this route!
Rental Cars — If all other options are unavailable, we go with the industry vehicles and rent from companies like Enterprise and Sixt.

Packing Essentials

We know that packing essentials may vary depending on where you are going and what matters most to you, but these are the most important things when we’re traveling, so we figured you might like them too!

Portable Luggage Scale — It’s embarrassing when I have to open my suitcase and remove items because my bag is too heavy. That’s exactly why I bought this portable luggage scale; now, I can check the size before I leave the house!
Memory Foam Travel Pillo w — I love to fly, but one thing I hate is how uncomfortable it is to sleep, especially on long flights. This pillow, sleep mask, and earplug combo fix that! It’s perfect for someone who not only finds sleeping on flights uncomfortable but also struggles sleeping with light and noise, like me!
Anti-Theft Purse — I’ll never forget being in a foreign country and watching someone steal from a woman’s purse! I immediately appreciated the many locks on my purse and the fact that nobody could steal from it internally or externally. If you don’t get anything else, get this!
Travel Adapter — Think you can plug your phone charger into the walls of your European Airbnb? Think again! We realized this in our Parisian apartment: different countries have different outlets. This one item saved us time figuring out how to charge our electronics.
Portable Charger Power Bank — Imagine getting lost in a city and having only your phone as a navigation system. But uh oh! Your phone is holding on to that last bit of juice. This was almost us in Paris, but fortunately, Ceasar packed his power bank! Yay for Ceasar!

We hope that you find value in these travel resources! We use them all of the time, and it’s crazy how few travelers know about some of these things. Not you! If you use even one of these travel resources, I’m sure that your trip will benefit