For a more in depth look at travel/business tools and resources, check out my free book Location Rebel Arsenal.
What kind of camera do you shoot your videos with? What sites do you use to book your airline tickets? How do you do your SEO research? What hosting do you use for your sites?
I get questions like this?all the time.
Because of this I?ve been thinking about building a resources page for a long time, but just haven?t got around to doing it. Until now.
Below you?re going to find my entire list of everything I use to help me live the Location Rebel lifestyle.
I tried to be as thorough as I could with this. Still curious about a tool or something I use? Leave a comment and let me know, and I?ll update the post. ?Something I should be using? Tell me about those too!
With that, there?s a lot to cover, so let?s jump in.
Basic Web Essentials
Basic Hosting -?One of the few things here?that is a non-negotiable, must have thing if you want to be a location rebel. ?I used Fat Cow for three years due to their good customer service. ?These days however, I recommend Dreamhost.
Upgraded Hosting -?For a little bit more money you can get a VPS solution ? totally worth it in the long run. ?If you?re technically inclined (or work with someone who is) Linode is about as good as it gets, and is what I use. ?For usability however, Dreamhost?VPS is still a good bet here.
WordPress ? The CMS I use to run ALL of my websites. ?Want a blog? Use WordPress. Building an E-commerce store? WordPress can do that. Membership site? Check. Best of all? It?s free and has an unbelievable support community behind it.
Google Analytics ? Essential for figuring out what?s working and what isn?t. ?Also free, so there?s no excuse for not taking 3 minutes to install on your site. ?You can get info about how people are finding your site, where they?re from, and what your most popular pages are ? and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Cyberduck ? Open source FTP client. ?This allows you to access all of your website?s folders and files. You?ll need this at some point, I promise. ?FileZilla is also a similar program that I use.
Travel
I use a bunch of different travel sites and services depending on what I?m looking for.
Expedia ? For booking flights and hotels in the US, I almost always end up booking through Expedia. ?Also, if you?re going to some place like Vegas and need a hotel and flight, their package deals can be very good.
Skyscanner ? The travel aggregator to end all travel aggregators. ?Searches 1,000 airlines to help you find the best flights.
Vayama ? When flying from the US to Asia, Vayama repeatedly has the best prices.
Agoda ? The very best website for booking hotels in Asia.
AirBnb ? Hotels too expensive where you?re going? Get bigger apartments, in better locations, for less money.
Couchsurfing ? Still don?t feel like paying? Then head to Couchsurfing and find a place to crash. I know people that have traveled all over the world without paying a dime on lodging.
Tripit Pro ? Been using this for a few months and absolutely love it. ?All of my travel info in one nice, easy to access place. ?Not to mention the flight updates are great.
Online Marketing
Aweber. Your email marketing solution is one of the most important services you can can have. ?I highly recommend this over similar services such as Mailchimp for it?s robust feature set and high deliverability rates.
Wishlist Member ? There are a lot of WordPress membership plugins out there, but this is the one I use for all of my clients and my personal online membership sites.
OptimizePress ? A WordPress theme that makes it dead simple to create sales pages, launch funnels, and a membership backend. What Location Rebel is built on.
Thesis ? If you?re willing to get your hands a little dirty with the technicalities, Thesis is pretty much the most robust theme/framework for WordPress. ?Location 180 is built on Thesis.
Woo Themes - Dozens of high quality, easy to manage WordPress themes. ?When doing client work, I usually recommend they start with Woo Themes when looking to change up their website. ?Here?s a recent example.
iDevAffiliate ? There are a lot of solutions out there for?affiliate?programs. ?Use E-junkie if you?re just starting out, but I like the feature set and price point of iDevAffiliate so it?s what I chose for LR.
Office Autopilot?-?For as great as Aweber has been, I?m considering?making?the switch to Office Autopilot because the service (while expensive) takes the place of Wishlist, iDevAffiliate, and Aweber. ?Anytime you can bring everything under one umbrella, the better.
Other Great Web Tools
I realized I use a lot of things that don?t necessarily fit into any of the other categories, but are just as important.
SpeedTest?- Incredibly useful when traveling and trying to get a sense of whether or not the internet is actually manageable. ?I?ll often open up the app on my phone, connect to wifi and test the internet speed before booking a room if I?m in travel mode.
Lastpass?- Easily get access to all of your passwords in a very secure way.
Astrill VPN?- If you?re in certain countries (like China) good luck getting on any social media sites without a VPN. ?All of my friends over there swear by Astrill. ?They also have a free one week trial ? so check it out. ?Even if you aren?t in China, I recommend using this for the sake of security.
Prey?- Track your stolen laptop or phone as soon as it?s connected to the internet. Remote wipe all of the data. ?If your stuff gets stolen, this is your best chance of finding it.
Skype Call Recorder?- Super simple app for Skype that allows you to record your conversations. ?Great if you?re doing interviews.
Caffeine?- Mac only app that simply keeps your computer from going to sleep. Easy to toggle on and off, and is perfect when you?re doing things like webinars or other interviews.
Better Touch Tool?- I?m not a fan of some of the gestures that came along with OSX Mountain Lion. ?This solves that problem and let?s you pretty much create whatever touchpad gestures you want.
Mars Edit?- Edit and format WordPress blog posts offline with this super useful desktop app. ?I find myself using this on trains or buses all the time if I don?t have wifi.
Visual Website Optimizer?- Not the cheapest service at around $50/month, but its the easiest way I?ve found to edit pages and split test offers.
Pretty Links?- Make all of your ugly affiliate links look nice, and well, pretty! I use the free ?lite? version and it works just fine.
Planning
Whether your simply planning your next blog post, or writing out a detailed business plan, reliable planning tools are key.
Evernote ? There are two types of people, those who ?get? Evernote, and those that don?t. Spend an hour going through some online tutorials, or even better just grab this book. You?ll understand why this is such an essential tool for so many people.
Google Docs ? It took me awhile to switch from Microsoft Office, but the ease of?collaboration?with all the Docs makes it totally worth it in my opinion.
Mindnode ? There are a lot of mindmap tools out there, but for me, simplicity is key. ?So I go with Mindnode.
Mockingbird ? Mocking up a new website look for a developer? Trying to get the user interface down for a new project? ?Mockingbird is my favorite tool for this. ?However, lately I?ve also used the Google Drive Drawing feature for this ? which has worked surprisingly well.
Market Samurai ? My SEO research tool of choice. ?If you?re thinking about a new online venture that will be based around search engine traffic, this is a much better option than the free Adwords Keyword Tool.
Productivity
When you work for yourself, productivity and discipline are absolutely essential.
Ask Me Every ? You may have noticed that one of my biggest struggles as an entrepreneur comes down to?productivity?and accountability. ?Ask Me Every is a super simple concept and app ? you set it up to ask you a question every day. ?Maybe its a text message that simply says ?Did you floss your teeth?? So far its worked surprisingly well for me.
Rescue Time ? Want to know how you?re wasting time each day? ?Use Rescue Time to not only track your online?productivity?but figure out how to fix it as well.
Spotify ? Pretty much the greatest thing to happen to music (for the listener), well, ever. ?Don?t have it yet? Go check it out and thank me later.
Rage Chill ? Every once in awhile it?s nice to mix it up from Spotify. Rage Chill has a simple premise ? drag the slider towards rage when you?re ready to get crazy, and drag it towards chill when you want to take it easy ? or leave it somewhere in between. Found some good music on here.
Communication
When you?re working with people all over the world, good tools for communicating are absolutely essential. ?Here are my favorites:
Trello ? Free solution for team collaboration. I actually like this better than paid solutions like Basecamp.
Box ? Need to transfer really large files between people you?re working with? Box works great.
Dropbox ? Creates a folder on your desktop, anything you put in there gets automatically backed up to the cloud. ?Also great for sharing documents with others.
We Chat ? This is all anyone uses in China, and after using it for the last week I can see why. ?More or less turns your phone into a walkie-talkie with recorded messages. ?Makes it really easy to get ahold of someone.
Skype ? You know what it is. ?Call any phone in the US from anywhere in the world for less than $10/mo unlimited.
Go To Webinar ? My webinar service of choice. ?Been using it for almost a year, and once you get a feel for it, it provides a great service.
Canned Responses ? I get a LOT of emails asking me the same questions. ?I can use canned responses to take snippets of emails and add them in. ?I always have personal responses, but sometimes I?ll drop in answers to questions that I see frequently. Find in Gmail Labs.
Boomerang ? Don?t want to deal with an email just yet, but want it out of your inox? ?Boomerang? it and have it come back in 2 days. You can also schedule responses and more with this app for Gmail.
Video and Photography
Video and photography are a big part of my business and are one of my hobbies to boot. ?On almost every trip I take, I?ll have a multitude of cameras, and am usually the one trying to stick it in your face.
iPhone 5 ? My go to for day to day photos and just about anything else I do on a regular basis. Photo and video quality is surprisingly good. ?When traveling internationally though I tend to ditch the phone and go with my trusty old iPod Touch.
Instagram ? I didn?t get it at first, but after 6 months of being an Instagram user, I?m hooked. ?It makes sharing photos with your friends fun.
Canon S110 ? The latest tool in my arsenal. So far this camera has been excellent, and the photos have been very high quality for such a small camera. ?Worth noting, at $450 I would have purchased the Panasonic Lumix LX7, however I got a pretty ridiculous deal on the Canon and paid less than $300.
Canon HF200 ? While surprisingly enough, the video quality is higher on my point and shoot, this camera is much more flexible for audio. ?Doing an interview and need an external mic? This is a great camera for that. ?Probably newer and better models out there.
Audio Technica Lav Mic ? The best $20 you could ever spend to improve your sound quality.
Adobe Creative Suite - I used Photoshop a ton for touch ups, and InDesign for all of my ebooks. ?If you can find a student to grab this for you, then it becomes a no brainer. Or at $50/mo for the entire Suite, you can also keep it relatively affordable up front.
HDR Efex Pro ? My preferred method of photography is HDR. Not only does it allow you to be more creative, but if you know what you?re doing, it can make you look like a much better photographer than you really are. Use coupon code ?hdrsoftware15? for 15% off.
Final Cut Pro X ? Blows iMovie out of the water. Same easy workflow, with pro level tools. ?This is how I edit all of my movies and videos.
Gear
Depending on the trip I travel with a lot of different types of travel gear.
15? Macbook Pro?- Yes, it?s expensive, but if you?re going to spend upwards of 10 hours a day on one machine that?s solely responsible for your income, wouldn?t you want the ?Ferrari of laptops??
Bose QC15 Headphones ? The best headphones I?ve ever owned, by a long shot. ?Kicks the crap out of my old Beats, mostly because the noise canceling is so effective.
Osprey Farpoint ? The latest bag, I purchased just for my recent trip to Asia. ?Not perfect ?for my needs, but its light, carries a ton of stuff, and has a detachable daypack that makes my life so much easier.
North Face Surge ? Traveling light, but still gadget heavy? This is perfect. The bigger than it looks North Face Surge, is all I had with me on my original 7 month trip to Thailand.
Lowepro Fastpack 350 ? My go to, day to day bag in the States and on photography trips. ?If all you need to carry is a laptop and camera gear ? this is perfect. ?This never left my back during my trip to Jordan last summer.
Benro Tripod ? I bought this for about 50 bucks in Bangkok nearly 3 years ago. It comes on almost every trip I take, and makes all the difference in the world when it comes to the quality of your photos.
Social
Tweetdeck ? My Twitter client of choice. Makes it easy to manage multiple twitter accounts from one desktop
Buffer ? Time tweets to go out at the times you select. ?Makes it really easy to tweet articles and websites you come across on the web.
Finance
Shoeboxed ? I used to have receipts EVERYWHERE when I was traveling. Now I snap a photo, have it get automatically uploaded and organized to the site, and then I get rid of the receipt. Easy peasy.
Outright ? How I manage my finances for my business. Really easy to use, great tools for taxes, and although its no longer free for the premium features, it?s still an excellent site.
Well there you have it. These are the tools I use on a regular basis to travel all over the world and still run my business online.
What did I miss? What are your favorite resources? Share with us in the comments!
Source: http://www.seanogle.com/entrepreneurship/essential-tools
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