Dear Fellow Travelers,
Another month has gone by, maybe even faster than the previous two! We kicked off Dating America in early July when we left Gallup and set off for Durango.
Our love story so far brought us a few dates with Boulder but it didn’t seem to be the fit that we thought it would be. We dated Denver and let it get away. We flirted with Breckenridge and Vail, walked out on Fruita, had a crush, or maybe still do, on Salida, we passed on Glenwood Springs, didn’t think Grand Junction was for us and we miiiight have cheated on Colorado Springs with a few cities in California before Colorado broke up with us and we headed to Washington State. The adventure continues!
Last month, because of all your questions, we wrote to you about all the logistics involved with house sitting, we hope we answered the “How the heck can you afford this” question on all of your minds. This month we want to give you some insights into the apps that make Dating America possible.
Well, first and foremost is RoadTrippers. We are, frankly, obsessed. We used RoadTrippers to plan our epic road trip, map and alter our route, and discover amazing detours along the way. We’ve been able to see the World’s Largest Office Chair, the Smallest Version of the Worlds Largest Things, and The Blue Whale all because of suggestions from RoadTrippers. We constantly update our route; check it here.We are also able to collaborate on our trip and both edit it from our apps. Best of all…it is free! You can find their website here and download the app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
Another great help as we travel around the country is Gasbuddy. It helps us find the best gas prices anywhere or locates the closest gas station when we push it just a little to far and almost run out of gas (as we have done far too often). You too can download their app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
When it comes to accommodations while we travel from city to city there are a few different apps we use. AirBNB is almost always the first place we look with Hilton and Hotels.com being second and third. AirBNB is great for stays of a few nights or longer but shorter stays tend to be less expensive at hotels due to the cleaning and other fees. As Cas travels for work regularly we tend to rack up quite a few Hilton Honors points that we redeem for free nights at Hilton family properties. Hotels.com gives you a free night for every 10 nights you book through them. Note though, that as of recent Hotels.com has started charging a $5 fee if you make a reservation on their website for that free night but booking your “free night” through their App is still free! Download the AirBNB (Apple/Google), Hilton (Apple/Google) and Hotels.com (Apple/Google) apps for your favorite device on their respective app stores.
As we date new cities we of course use the regular social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram to keep you updated on our dating adventures but we also use those apps to learn a little more about the city we have started to date. We use Meetup to find out about group events and other get togethers Yelp or OpenTable to find a place to eat and when we just want to get away from it all and take hike we use the AllTrails website to find nearby hikes and keep on track with their App while hiking. Their offline maps feature is great when hiking in areas with no cell phone reception! They also have a feature to track your hikes but we use Garmin Connect for that.
This is just a small collection of the different apps we use on a regular basis but if you have any suggestions as to what other apps we could use, or of course as to where we should live? We are all ears!
Happy Trails,
Caitlyn + Cas
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