Lost to Live Top Recommendations

In the last 9 years, we have traveled to over 8 countries and lived in 4 for an extended period of time while maintaining remote jobs. We have explored the United States from coast to coast, we have stayed in people’s homes and in hotels. We have hauled along our camera gear and sometimes only carried our phones in our pockets. The goal of Lost to Live is to do the research for you, find the best deals, and then point you in the right direction of our favorite products and services that have been trial tested and approved. Below you will find our top recommendations for accommodations, flights, international WIFI connections, and our most trusted gear. If there is anything missing from this list that you have questions about for your next adventure, don’t hesitate to reach out using our Contact page or email us directly at info@losttolive.com.

This page contains affiliate links. If purchases are completed, we may receive a small commission. Lost to Live recommends and affiliates only with brands, products, and services that we ourselves have used and trust. 

Affordable
Flights

Home
Accomodations

Hotel
Accomodations

Pocket
Wifi

Our
Gear

Affordable Flights | Google Flights & Instagram & FareDrop

We have turned to a number of sources for affordable flights in the last few years, but there have always been 2 sources that have stayed consistent no matter what: Google Flights and Instagram. Both seem so simple, but for us, they really have been the best resources for affordable flights and even extremely cheap flights.

If you aren’t familiar with Google Flights, it’s a simple program Google employs to help you search for flights across all major airlines. There is no charge for the service and it’s so easy to use. The fun part is that you don’t even need to know where you’re going or when you’re going. We often plan our own trips around the best prices on Google flights because they will allow you to simply type in a location to start from and a destination and then they pump out the lowest deals, in green font, onto a calendar so you can compare the best days to travel.

In this example above, I’ve entered my starting location as LAX airport and my ending location as Belize City, Belize. I’ve also entered in 2 dates, but if I select the calendar to change the dates (as shown in the screenshot), I can now see the lowest fares for the closest 2 months highlighted in green font. You can even continue to look through the future months, up to about 1 year out, to see what the lowest fares are for those months too!

Now on Instagram, this could take a little more legwork in the beginning, but once you’ve set it up, it’s as easy as scrolling through your feed. A while back, we discovered the Instagram account @flightsfromhome. The owner of this account is located in Utah and regularly monitors airlines for mistake fares, fantastic deals, and generally affordable flights out of the Utah airports. Now she primarily focuses on the SLC airport, but on occasion, she finds a great deal out of Las Vegas or Denver and posts those as well. There are accounts like this all over Instagram for what I would assume would be hundreds of airports in the United States, it’s just a matter of finding the right one for your location. To get you started, I found an article put together by ThriftyTraveler that lists all of their 18 Instagram accounts (for 18 different airports in the USA) with the sole purpose of informing their following when deals or mistake fares are found for these airports. I’ve listed those airports and Instagram accounts below. If you don’t see your own city listed, I would recommend doing a simple search for “Instagram Flight deals in <Enter Your City Name>”.

Minneapolis Flight Deals: @minneapolisflightdeals

Chicago Flight Deals: @chicagoflightdeals

Los Angeles Flight Deals: @losangelesflightdeals

San Francisco Flight Deals: @sanfranflightdeals

Atlanta Flight Deals: @atlantaflightdeals

Denver Flight Deals: @denflightdeals

Seattle Flight Deals: @seaflightdeals

Washington DC Flight Deals: @washdcflightdeals

New York City Flight Deals: @newyorkflightdeals

Dallas Flight Deals: @dallasflightdeals

Miami Flight Deals: @miamiflightdeals

Houston Flight Deals: @houstonflightdeals

Phoenix Flight Deals: @phoenixflightdeals

Philadelphia Flight Deals: @phillyflightdeals

Boston Flight Deals: @bostonflightdeals

Austin Flight Deals: @austinflightdeals

Portland Flight Deals: @portlandflightdeals

Detroit Flight Deals: @detroitflightdeals

FareDrop

Now that you’ve seen the free ways to find cheap flights, let’s talk about the paid version: FareDrop. Just as a disclaimer, I DON’T get a commission if you guys sign up with FareDrop, I just have to share it with you guys becuase I love it so much!

FareDrop is an automated fare tracker. It was created by two VERY EXPERIENCED world travelers, Kara and Nate. I had been following them on YouTube for years now and when they launched FareDrop I was one of the first to jump on it. When you sign-up for FareDrop you start by customizing all of your preferences including which airport(s) you want to fly from, which continents you want to fly to, your spending limits (available to be customized by continent), and the time of year you want to travel. Using all of that information, the progam will email (or text) you the deals it finds within your parameters, and guys, I have found some smoking deals!! Like flights to France from my local airport for just over $300 roundtrip! How crazy is that?!

They offer a 30-day free trial which is what solidified me as a user. Once the 30-day trial is over, they then only charge $47.88 per year. With how much I can save on flights, that price tag is 100% worth it!

Home Accommodations | Airbnb

Airbnb is our absolute favorite accommodation option! We cannot rave enough about all of the wonderful experiences we have had. Okay, so I know that sounds extreme, but really, we started using Airbnb in 2015 and it’s been our first go-to app ever since.

If you aren’t familiar with Airbnb, it’s a website that allows you to rent out a room in a local’s home or the entire home rather than stay in a hotel.  What we personally love most about travel is the ability to live like the locals and truly experience the culture. What better way to do that than share a home with a local or rent out the whole property during our stay? And, BONUS, it’s almost always cheaper than staying in a hotel!

We highly recommend it! If you’re new to Airbnb, you can use the link below and get a discount on your first reservation.

Hotel Accommodations | Booking.com

As much as we love staying in homes and getting a deeper cultural experience that way, there is definitely a time and place for booking a hotel room, and even better, booking an apartment or home through a hotel booking site! Since 2007, Booking.com has added booking options for homes, apartments, yurts and more to their available listings.

Booking.com

Pocket Wifi | Tep Wireless

Prior to our 3 months living and working in Latin America, we had no idea what the internet connection was going to be like. Obviously, that was a problem since we were taking work with us and we needed a stable internet connection. After extensive research into our options (Maddie is what’s known as a maximizer and had to find what she believed to be the absolute BEST option for our budget and needs), we finally decided to go with a Tep device. It was so easy for us to use! The experience was just like carrying around your home wifi with us everywhere we went.

Quick Details

  • Purchase or Rent: The Tep can be purchased or rented. (We purchased our because we knew we would use it over and over again, but renting would have been perfect for some of our family members who travel less)
  • Coverage: 100+ Countries
  • Cost: $7.95 per day if you purchase the device or $8.95+ per day if you rent.
  • The cost to purchase the device starts at $129.
Tep Wireless

Our Gear