26 Awesome Travel Sites Global Yodel Recommends for Daily Inspiration
Summer’s almost here. That means hundreds of thousands of you are about to hit the road, air or sea en route to your next adventure. To get you pumped, we’ve compiled 26 of our favorite travel sites below.
Read on to discover sites that help you prep for your next music festival, road trip, or stay at an underwater luxury hotel.
Know a great travel site we didn’t mention? Let us know in the comments below!
In 2011, Foster Huntington left his New York design job and moved into a camper. Since then, Foster has driven 80,000 miles around the American west, surfing, camping and documenting his adventures in beautiful photos and narrative posts.
An online magazine devoted to outdoor adventure in all its forms, Adventure Journal covers everything from anti-wolf laws in Idaho to reviews of an off the grid pump-house-turned-guesthouse in Australia. We’re particularly drawn to the adventure narratives and profiles of bad-ass travelers.
From a Nevada brothel that specializes in extraterrestrial fantasies, to witchcraft museums and restaurants with exposed graves, Atlas Obscura covers the world’s quirkiest and most macabre destinations. We love Atlas Obscura’s creative take on traveling. And frankly, we can’t wait to go to the toilet seat art museum.
What started 11 years ago as a designer’s personal log, Cool Hunting is now an international site featuring everything awesome and innovative in the worlds of design, technology, style, culture, food and travel. Their travel channel features gear reviews, city guides and updates on the latest travel apps.
coolhunting.com
Fathom is an independent travel site on a mission to inspire with everything from guides to Williamsburg’s food markets, to tips on how to maximize every cubic inch of your suitcase, to instructions on having your future told at a Buddhist temple in Taiwan.
Created by hotelier Chip Conley, Fest300 is a collection of the most unique, diverse and cultural communal experiences around the world. According to Conley, festivals offer a “collective effervescence” that we lose when tethered to our tablets and iPhones. Fest300 covers everything from South Pacific male fertility rituals to an Alice in Wonderland-like illumination party in a Michigan forest. (Sign us up!)
Photo by Adam Zareczny/Fest 300
Curated by TIME’s photo department, the LightBox blog features the work of established photography masters and new pioneers. Featuring everything from portraits of Ukrainian weightlifters to visual documentaries of the evolution of the American worker’s ID badge, we visit this site when we need a hit of photographic inspiration.
Built by three backpackers with a passion for cartography, Maptia creates a storytelling platform around custom maps. The site’s mission is to honor not just the culture and stories of the places we visit, but the physical places they inhabit on the map.
Any map can list a destination’s street names, but only Map Urbane tells you the area south of E 96th Street in NYC is full of hidden sushi gems. And if you cross Central Park, you’ll find the city’s best bagels. Created in March 2013 by an urban planner, a food critic, and a real estate broker, Map Urbane provides crowd-sourced maps that define neighborhoods by how residents and visitors perceive them.
Map Urbane
Matador Network is an independent travel site that features everything from city guides, to personal narratives of losing a loved one while on the road, to fun roundups of the castles you can rent on AirBnb.
Found is a curated collection of photography from the National Geographic archives. The Tumblr showcases photographs of people, moments and places of the past, from the famous (American president Lyndon Johnson watching the first manned flight to the moon take off), to the more subtle (a portrait of Russian orphans after their immigration to the U.S. in 1919). The photos remind us that the quest for understanding and finding our place in the world is nothing new.
NatGeoFound
Part of the NOTCOT Inc network of design sites, NOTVENTURES is a curated pin board of everything from reviews of the newest ice hotel to tips on where to eat in Portland. Warning: you will get lost in pages of travel awesomeness.
Nowhere Mag is a downloadable digital journal of narrative travel writing. The most recent issue includes an essay about a found horse skull and a story about a traveler who almost orders a prostitute from a Kenyan bartender.
This Tumblr follows NPR reporters as they cover stories around the globe, giving you a behind-the-scenes look at their recent coverage of the Sochi winter Olympics, the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, and NPR’s reporting trip along the US and Mexico border.
Barley suitable for work, sometimes illegal, but always entertaining, Off Track Planet covers the best of the world’s art, food and culture. From reviews of a pop-up cocaine club in Bolivia, to a roundup of the most archaic forms of birth control around the world (heads up, crocodile dung is not an effective spermicide), we dig Off Track Planet’s no-holds-barred take on exploring the world.
Off Track Planet
Our Open Road follows Adam and Emily Harteau and their daughter Colette as they slow travel through South America in a VW van. The blog is a refreshing reexamination of the American Dream, as well as a window into the cultures and people the Harteaus encounter along the way. We love the colorful photos and honest commentary on the joys and trials of life on the road.
Panorama showcases the best photojournalistic coverage of under-reported issues throughout Egypt and the Arab world. With short documentaries about Buddhists in Egypt, and photo essays that recount the wishes of young people in Turkey, Israel and Gaza, Panorama is on a mission to break stereotypes and go beyond simplistic representations of the Middle East.
Roads & Kingdoms is an independent journal covering food, politics, travel and culture. The digital magazine publishes everything from tips on what to eat in Sicily, to in-depth coverage of Madagascar’s gem trade. We dig R&K’s dedication to deep reporting and fluff-free travel narratives.
Roads and Kingdoms
This site chronicles the best of long road trips: uninterrupted stretches of highway, undiscovered local diners and quirky roadside wonders. But co-founders James Fisher and Tatiana Parent don’t want you to merely live vicariously through their travels. They developed the Roadtrippers app to help you map out and experience your own open road adventures.
Spot Cool Stuff’s travel section includes everything from reviews of cupcake ATMs, updates on new underwater luxury hotels, and roundups of the world’s best bakeries. We also peruse the site’s design and tech sections for reviews of portable wood burning spas and tips on taking better photos.
Created originally as an entry in a talent search for new public radio presenters, State of the Re:Union is now a full-fledged radio travel show exploring how American cities define community. Part 60 Minutes and part MTV, State of the Re:Union takes listeners from Milwaukee to Miami, exploring the people and places it encounters along the way.
Stuck in Customs is the photo blog of Trey Ratcliff, the photographer with the unique claim to fame of shooting the first HDR photo ever to hang in the Smithsonian. The blog includes daily photo editing tips, cultural insights from Trey’s travels, and gear buying tips.
Stuck In Customs
Tiny Atlas is a gorgeous behind-the-scenes look at the travels of photographers, designers and stylists who don’t want to confine their adventures to call sheets and location logs. The site also includes interviews, travel journals, and fashion shoots.
Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott are the husband and wife storytelling and photography team behind Uncornered Market. They travel deep and off-beat, slow-traveling through countries like Iran, Burma and Kyrgyzstan. Their posts cover everything from how to pack for a trek through the Himalayas, to the importance of being present during your travels (and life in general).
Vispo.com’s Teleporter lets you explore a panoramic image of a randomly generated spot in the world. Check out the entrance of a South African theme park, a remote highway in Kazakhstan, or a beach in the Marshall Islands.
Run by Visual Supply Co, the group behind the popular VSCO Cam photo app, this site follows journalists as they document their experiences with photos processed using VCSO Cam. The journal covers everything from a fascinating look inside a California coffee brewing equipment manufacturer, to a photo essay about a Michigan musician on tour in Japan.
Vsco.co/journal