With so many websites and online travel providers, it’s hard to get started. Finding the best websites to book travel can be tedious and time-consuming unless you know where to look.
As the options are overwhelming and seemingly endless, we put together a list of the top websites we use when booking travel. These are tried, trusted and Conscious Wanderlust approved.
From flight bookings to great accommodation, the list below will make your travel booking easier to maximize your enjoyment. These are the best sites we’ve come across for finding deals, reliability, and ease of use.
An extra tip to help you navigate these websites is to not overthink it. Don’t spend hours reading every review. Don’t look at every hotel even though you already found one you like “just in case”. I’ve made these mistakes several times and have to constantly remind myself. Travel planning should be fun, not stressful.
The Best Websites to Book Travel
- Flight Deals & Search Engines
- Accommodation Bookings
- Travel Insurance
- At Destination Extras
- Bonus: All-Inclusive Vacations
Flight Deals & Search Engines
The option to book directly with your airline of choice is always available. However, if you’re looking for the best deal it’s better to shop around using one of the flight search engines listed below.
Skyscanner, Kayak, and Google Flights are all search engines. They are not airlines or travel providers. Instead, they provide flight price and route comparisons and redirect you to the airline or travel agent for booking.
If you choose to book with one of the travel agents it’s important to read the fine print. Some of these providers do not have helpful customer service. They may have hidden or high fees.
Unfortunately, we learned this the hard way in 2017 while traveling South America. We accidentally booked the wrong date and despite realizing it within the first 24 hours of the booking, were charged almost the full price of the ticket to make changes. What was supposed to be a great deal turned into a massive blunder. Don’t be like us.
Want to travel but don’t have the money yet? Check out: How To Budget: The Ultimate Guide to Save for Travel
1. Skyscanner
Skyscanner is usually our first stop when looking for flights. It used to be our primary tool for booking but now we use it more as a first reference point. We check it when we have a destination in mind or when just browsing.
One of my favorite features is the ability to search for a flight going “Everywhere”. It’s great if you’re not picky about where you go and want to find a great deal. In addition to round-trip or one-way, you can also book multi-city flights with up to six destinations.
The search engine has added flexibility with the option to search for the cheapest month or flexible dates. The calendar search shows the various prices on different days throughout each month. You can even set up alerts to keep an eye on prices for your chosen flight path.
Skyscanner is more than just flights as you can also look for hotels and car rentals (we haven’t used this yet).
2. Kayak
Kayak is another all-encompassing flight search engine with many of the same features as Skyscanner. Momondo, another popular search engine, is the same company.
Kayak offers similar functionality to Skyscanner. Both allow you to narrow your search to the number of connections, flight length, and budget. You can even specify departure and arrival times and preferred airlines.
The major difference between the two for me comes down to personal preference. I am more familiar with Skyscanner and have been using it for over a decade.
3. Google Flights
Google really can do it all. You’ve already used it to plan your trip and map out your days, so you might as well plan your flight with it too.
Similarly to Skyscanner and Kayak, Google Flights searches all available airlines and travel providers to find you the cheapest flights and best options.
One feature that Google Flights does better than the other you, in my opinion, is its date grid and price graph. If your dates are flexible you can easily compare alternatives to find the best departure and return flights.
Bonus: YEG Deals
If you’re more flexible on dates and destinations and love a good deal, someone may already be doing the work for you.
YEG Deals is a Canadian-based flight-deal finder website. I subscribe to YEG (Edmonton), YVR (Vancouver), and YYC (Calgary) Deals to ensure all my bases are covered. Whenever there is a great flight deal I get an email telling me when, where, and how to book it. The website does a great job of outlining the steps to find and take advantage of the deal.
I am only familiar with this one, but am sure other ones exist in your home city/country.
Bonus: Air Travel Credit Cards
In the interest of being completely transparent, we primarily book with WestJet. Since obtaining a WestJet credit card in 2023, all of our flights from Canada have been with WestJet. This has worked well for us. We have checked baggage included on all flights, earn reward dollars for future trips, get a yearly companion voucher, and are notified of deals and promotions.
For more reading on San Francisco, give these a try:
Travel Stories from San Francisco: A Married Couple’s Memoir
San Francisco: The Most Amazing Things To Do In The City
Accommodation Bookings
Deciding where to stay can be one of the most exciting or overwhelming parts of the trip-planning process. Before you even start to look it’s best to have a budget, location, and vibe in mind of where you want to stay. Setting these parameters first will help narrow down the best options.
4. Booking.com
Booking is the number one website we use for accommodation. We’ve used it for hotels, motels, guesthouses, apartments and hostels. It operates all around the world with millions of listings.
The site is intuitive and user-friendly. There are options to filter by price, amenities, location, star rating, and more. The booking process is easy and transparent. Price and cancellation policies are clearly outlined.
When you create an account and make multiple bookings, you work towards levels of “Genius Status”. This earns you discounts and rewards on select bookings.
5. Expedia
Expedia and booking.com are almost identical. They have all of the same features and capabilities.
We briefly check Expedia alongside Booking.com because there can be slight price differences and offerings. Expedia sometimes offers additional discounts when booking on the mobile app compared to the website.
You can also book flights, rental cars, and cation packages and find local attractions on both Expedia and booking.com.
6. Hotels
Hotels is another similar option, part of the Expedia group. It has a good rewards program, but I can’t vouch for personal experience.
A feature present in all of the sites is the ability to search for flexible dates to secure the best possible price. When entering your desired dates you have the option to search those exact dates or plus/minus up to 7 days.
7. Hotwire
Hotwire, another Expedia group company, has a unique surprise booking option. You choose the star rating, location, and amenities. They hide the hotel name but give you the details and potential options it could be. You don’t know what you’re booking.
We’ve done this once before and had a great experience, but it is risky. When we did it, we knew it was going to be one of three hotels in that area. We read reviews for each and made peace with whatever complaints people had. It ended up working well for us. We got a higher-star-rated hotel at a discounted price.
8. Trivago
Trivago is an all-encompassing hotel search engine search engine. No, I did not mistype that.
It compares prices of hotels across hundreds of sites, including the major sites mentioned above.
We haven’t used this one recently but will start so we can provide you with thorough information in the future.
9. AirBnB
We started using Airbnb in Australia in 2014 and loved it. It was different at the time than it is now. Our early experiences involved us booking a room in someone’s house. We met and got to know so many interesting people. Some of whom we still talk to today. It enhanced our experience of traveling as we had local insider knowledge of the best places to go.
Airbnb, and our use of it, has since changed. Now we use it to find more unique places, especially within North America. We use it for bigger groups of people. Recently we used it to book rooms in people’s houses, circa 2014, and again had lovely experiences with the homeowners.
The biggest benefit for us is the private space, amenities, and home comforts. You feel like you’re living as a local in a brand newity.
Staying in an Airbnb has many advantages for you, but can have negative consequences on the local housing market. The topic of Airbnb could be an entire blog post series on its own, so I won’t get into that now.
10. Vrbo
Vrbo differs from AirBnB because no matter what, you are the only people at your accommodation. With Airbnb you may be sharing a place with others or with the host. Booking with Vrbo gives you the entire vacation rental.
Like Airbnb you will find a range of places like entire homes, vacation rentals, apartments, and condos. Many will have different and unique features and amenities.
If you’re looking to save money, this may be one of the more expensive options unless you’re traveling as a group.
11. Hostelworld
Hostelworld is the top site around the world for booking hostels. We used it extensively from 2013 to 2018 while backpacking around the world. It offers all the same filters and search options as the other sites. The reviews are generally comprehensive and up-to-date
The benefit of booking with Hostelworld is for budget-conscious travelers. Especially those who love meeting people. Hostels often put on events like bar crawls, pool parties, or daily yoga. Staying in a dorm room is also usually more affordable than a hotel.
Although we don’t book with it often anymore, we check Hostelworld just in case. A bed in a dorm room is reasonably priced, but we’ve found the private rooms to be more expensive than other options. We both love staying in a hostel environment but haven’t found one that fits our current lifestyle.
Need a little inspiration? Read our 10 Reasons to Start Traveling Now (And Why We Will Never Stop)
Travel Insurance
12. World Nomads
World Nomads is the only travel insurance provider we use. We’ve searched various other providers throughout the years and nothing comes close. The price is right, the coverage is amazing, and customer service is top-notch They make it easy, accessible, and affordable for everyone.
Rental Cars
13. Rental Cars
We rarely rent a car when visiting a new place. We usually opt to take public transit where needed. Our preference is to visit and stay in walkable destinations. As a caveat, our definition of walkable isn’t everyone’s definition. We can easily walk upwards of 30,000 steps in a day.
When we do need to rent a car, we use Kayak. As I mentioned above, Kayak does more than just accommodation bookings. It searches various rental car providers to compile a list of the best options.
We like to choose the surprise vehicle option where possible. Like hotels on Hotwire, you don’t know what you’re getting but you do get a great price. The last time we did this we were pleasantly surprised and felt like we were living the high life for a budget car price.
All-Inclusive Vacations
We don’t often book all-inclusive vacations. Only in the past two years have we looked more into them.
16. Tripcentral
My favorite starting point to see what’s available is Tripcentral.ca. It’s great for last-minute bookings or flexible dates. Or to get a general idea of what’s available.
You can search for vacation packages to a specific destination or to anywhere. There are options to search by price range, star rating, and features. All packages and their details are laid out in a grid for easy comparison.
To book the packages, you are either redirected from Tripcentral or can go straight to the provider’s website yourself.
What websites are your favorite to use when booking travel? Let us know in the comments section below!
