Resources & Shop

The Hostelgeeks shop is your gateway to smart travel gear.

We love traveling light, in a minimalist way.

We share our backpacks, day packs, gear and packing essentials, and essential guides we wrote for you.

Everybody loves shortcuts. In the shop for you:

• Luggage
• Travel Essentials
• Electronic Gear
• Photography Gear
• Books
• Flight Comparison (and websites to use)
• Travel Insurance
• Hostel Bookings (and websites to use)
• Travel Apps
• Packing List

Luggage

When it comes to luggage, we recommend getting a backpack.

Yet, not any backpack. A bulky, heavy backpack is not recommended. For traveling light, a backpack must accomplish certain criteria, such as lightness and functional. The chic-factor may also be something to take into account.

Here are our top recommended luggage – including Matt’s own #1 choice: Lowe Alpine Carry-On 40l

Minimal Traveler Backpack (Matt’s #1 choice)
Lowe Alpine Carry-On 40l

Backpacker Style
Osprey Porter 46 Gear Hauler Duffel

Day Backpack
Fjallraven Backpack

Travel Essentials

The travel survival kit, the hostel starter kit. Here we list a bunch of travel essentials that you should bring. We made our experiences and recommend bringing certain items you most likely own already. Yet, a few things are worth it the extra investment such as light and quick-dry towels and dry-bag.

Here is our list of recommended travel essentials to bring on your adventure.

Electronic Gear

Welcome to the 21st century. We at Hostelgeeks travel with a bit of gear. Since we are working from the road, we carry laptops and cameras.

Here is our recommendations for camera gear and electronics.

Photography Gear

This section covers our camera gear.

You can purchase all these items via Amazon.

Not sure how to buy on Amazon? For the Spanish speaker: read this guide on how to buy on Amazon.

Books

Life’s a good read. Here we recommend books we enjoy and that can help you travel longer, with more confidence and stay in cooler places.

How to travel the world on $50 a day

Ultimate Resources

Shortcuts:

Flight Comparison – Travel Insurance – Hostel Bookings – Travel Apps

Let us talk about powerful and smart resources to use when traveling.

The whole Hostelgeeks team has been travel a lot, using different apps and websites for budget traveling. We were able to catch a flight from Barcelona to the Canary Islands for just 12€!

Not only that: we took a road trip across Central Europe, saving 70% of the transport costs thanks to an app.

Flight Comparison

The best websites to find cheap flights are:

• Skyscanner
• Kiwi
• Flights.google.com

Especially Kiwi is an incredible powerful website.

It comes with a radius feature.

Simply draw a circle on the map around your desired destination and find the cheapest connections.

You can search for cheap destinations only, and compare numerous days to fly from A to B.

Travel Insurance

We have used World Nomads on our travels around South East Asia and Europe.

Since we travel with a bit of gear and planned to do some activities like skydiving, motorbiking, diving and such, a travel insurance simply makes sense.

Hostel Bookings

Booking hostels has become more and more complex over time.

There are more hostels to choose from now than there were years before. And there are several hostel websites and booking portals you can use.

YET: which hostel booking site is the best and the cheapest?

We wrote a in-depth guide to booking hostels and which websites to use.

Travel Apps

We love travel apps. Here we share our favorite apps for your smartphone.

1. Maps.me

MapsMe is the perfect offline app for your phone. It works without internet connection.

Thanks to your GPS location you can find your way, wherever in the world you are. As an alternative you can use Google.Maps directly. It works as well offline.

2. TrailWallet

Traveling on a budget?

Then get TrailWallet to keep track of your budget.

It is so easy to use and gives you a full, up-to-date report. There is a free version which allows you to test it, but we loved it and invested 4,99€ in the full version.

3. FourSquare

This app is a gold mine!

FourSquare is an underrated app which has been used a lot, but nowa- days less people seem interested.

This is what makes it so awesome.

It helps you to find places around, such as

• cafés
• bars
• venues
• restaurants

With this app we found so many gems and design-led coffee shops. Go for it!

4. Snapseed

The best app for editing your photos on the road, Snapseed. It is easy to use and free to download. You can download Snapseed both for Android and iOs.

5. Kiwi Flights App

The previously mentioned Kiwi.com has also a handy map for finding flights. We love to activate the notifications for cheap deals to destinations we are interested in.

Download the Kiwi App here.

Read our complete review of Kiwi.com and how to use it.

Packing List

Our ultimate hostel packing list covers 23 items you need to bring. From padlocks, to hostel games and the perfect backpack.