I travel in other countries a lot, often in remote places, and when I do I prefer smaller hotels, hostels, guesthouses, homestays, inns and Airbnb. Over the past decade I’ve used many apps and sites for booking smaller places in Asia, Latin America and Europe, but in the last 3 years I’ve settled on Booking.com as my go-to. It has a unified interface to 1.1 million hotels and guesthouses worldwide, with the widest coverage and selection, accurate prices and info. It is also high reliability (if they say you have a reservation, you do) and they make it very easy to change or cancel. If I can, I will always book through Booking.com rather than the hotel direct. — KK

I travel a lot, mostly overseas, often for many weeks at a time, and sometimes in very remote parts of the world. I pack everything I need for 3 weeks or more of adventuring and business speeches into one carry-on size luggage. My bag of choice is the Travel Pro Crew, also highly recommended by the intense researchers at the Wirecutter. At 20-inches in length it fits easily overhead, has plenty of storage, pockets, and recessed wheelies. Fully packed it won’t tip over. This is slightly lighter, cheaper (and shorter) than Travel Pro’s Magna 22-inch model, but since I carry on rather than check it, it’s held up fine. — KK

Hertz rental cars have an option called “Manager’s Special”. You agree to take whatever car they give you at below Economy car rates. You’ll get at least an economy car, but usually a bigger car, maybe even a nice car. — KK

Google Trips is an app (for iOS and Android) that scans my Gmail for travel and dining reservations to build an itinerary and offer things to do at your destination. It’s worked like a charm so far, identifying every upcoming trip I have planned. It even created summaries for past trips. — MF

Would you like to improve your chance of having an empty middle seat when you fly on Southwest? Here’s a trick I’ve started to use that works. When I board, I look for a 3-seat row of chairs where a very large person is sitting in the window or aisle set. I will sit in that row, either in the aisle seat or window seat. As the plane starts to get full, passengers will be reluctant to sit in the middle seat because the big person is encroaching on the space. One time when I did this, the guy sitting in the seat (he was probably 6’5” and weighed 300 pounds) leaned over and said conspiratorially, “No one will sit here. It’s always the last seat they take.“ — MF

GateGuru is a smartphone app with a lot of travel features, but the only one I use is the amenities list. It will show you all the eateries, shops, and services located in your terminal, along with the location. It also has user ratings for the places. I use it to find the best place to eat when I’m waiting for a flight. — MF

Airlines are reluctant to tell passengers the real reason a plane is late, or how long a delay will actually last. But if you go to your airline’s special cargo website, you’re more likely to get the real story. I’ve also found FlightAware to be an accurate source of information about delays. — MF

Certain airlines offer very low prices on flights, and then charge for things most airlines include. On Frontier, a carry-on bag is $35-$60. I avoided the fee by using luggage that was small enough to be considered a “personal item” (It has to be under 14" high, 18" wide, 8" deep). A lot of backpacks will meet the size requirements. I have a Swissgear rolling bag, similar to this one. It held enough summer clothes for a 4-night trip, plus a gadget case, a toiletries bag, and my 13-inch laptop with charger. — MF

A Global Entry pass is a true bargain if you do any international travel. You don’t need to wait in line for immigration at reentry to the US. But it also serves as validation for the TSA Pre-check short-cut for security screening at most major US airports. Much shorter lines. To get in the program requires an appointment to get fingerprinted and $100 every five years. Well worth it. — KK

I have two US passports, both valid and official. Because I travel overseas so much, I often have my passport tied up in getting a visa somewhere, so I have the second passport available. This gives me some breathing room. It’s also useful if you are traveling to countries that don’t recognize Israel and you have an Israel stamp in your passport. To get a second US passport you apply as if you are renewing your passport by mail and add a letter requesting a second passport. Instructions here. — KK

Scott’s Cheap Flights is a free newsletter that finds amazingly inexpensive flights all over the world. The newsletter includes Google Flights and Momondo links, so you can book the flight yourself. The latest newsletter has a roundtrip flight from Los Angeles to Stockholm for $343. — MF

My international flight to Los Angeles was delayed for 10 hours. The airline didn’t tell me I was eligible for compensation, but a friend told me about an app called AirHelp. I entered my name and confirmation number. Instantly, AirHelp told me the airline was obligated to pay me about $700. AirHelp did all the work, and about a week later I got the money, minus a 25% commission for AirHelp, which was a small price to pay for not having to do anything. — MF

There are occasions while traveling that you want to enter a country with a one-way ticket, but that country requires an onward ticket to enter. This is a job for Best Onward Ticket which will sell you a legit onward ticket that you use only to get in and then they cancel after 48 hours. It costs $12. Much easier than booking a ticket yourself and cancelling because it avoids byzantine fees and hidden charges. I have not personally used this service yet, and other similar services in the past have gone belly up, so buyer beware, but this outfit gets good reviews and I find the hack useful so I’m mentioning it. Let me know if you’ve tried it. — KK

I’ve been exploring the vast territory of Central Asia, sometimes known as the Silk Road. Between the Caucuses in the west, and remote parts of China in the east, these places are exotic, beautiful, vastly varied (deserts to alpine) sufficiently developed to be fun, yet devoid of tourists. In the near future these will be prime tourist destinations. But right now it can be hard to navigate and occasionally hard to get visas. By far the best resource is a website, called Caravanistan, run by a English-speaking couple that has the clearest, most up-to-date information on the practical aspects of traveling along the Silk Road. Not what to see, but how to see it. Highly reliable, immensely helpful, and always inspiring. — KK

If you are in LA, 5 Every Day is one of my favorite smartphone apps. It’s very simple and its purpose is clear: it recommends five things to do in Los Angeles that day. Art openings, lectures, art house movies, music, food, etc. Many of the events are free. If you come to LA for more than a couple of days, install it on your phone. — MF

Whenever I travel I search for my destination at the Atlas Obscura website. It will yield dozens of very obscure, very offbeat attractions in the area. How else can you find a nearby museum of parasites, or trail of doll heads, or a restaurant of robots, underground tunnels, or a store for time travel? — KK

My first choice when seeking exotic destinations is to check this list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. These are 1000 culturally significant places worth preserving, which means they are usually the best places to visit. While many sites are well known, many more are little known gems. Most counties have at least a couple. I’ve never been disappointed traveling to a World heritage site. — KK

A tour in the Galapagos was one of our best vacations ever. There are no hotels so you live on a boat, which travels during the night so you wake up in the cove of a different island each morning. Each island is a different biome (inspiring the idea of evolution for Darwin). You spend the day actively hiking around the islands encountering myriad perfectly tame animals and birds. While there are large cruise boats, the key is to sail on a small boat to minimize transit times ashore. Go to Happy Gringo to find diverse small boat tours, rated by previous customers. They are utterly reliable and 1/3 the cost of others. — KK

The Te Papa Museum in Wellington, New Zealand has a permanent exhibit, Scale of Our War, that is almost worth going to New Zealand to see, and should certainly be on a must visit list if you happen to travel there. Weta Workshops, the folks who made all the props and special effects in the Lord of the Rings movies and other Peter Jackson productions, created a set of sculptures to mourn the disaster of the WWI battle of Gallipoli, Turkey, which was the seminal trigger for New Zealand independence. Weta created 2X lifesize versions of soldiers and nurses in the war that are hyperreal in their detail, from each hair on their arms, to flies on their frayed jackets, the 2X scale of threads in the cloth, and uncannily realistic flesh and faces, all at twice the size. You are looking up, in the embrace of these large beings, like a child in the arms of its parent. I’ve seen statues and art, ancient and modern, around the world, and no sculpture has been so emotionally potent as these. Worth going out of your way to see. — KK

My family and I are obsessed with escape rooms. Twelve people are locked in a themed room (theater backstage, 1940s Hollywood private eye office, alchemist’s laboratory, etc.) and given one hour to solve clues to get out. You’ll quickly get over any shyness of strangers as you collaborate to beat the clock. There are escape rooms all over the world. I recommend Escape Room LA in downtown Los Angeles. — MF