I recently told you about a few of my favorite apps and websites for general travel and booking. Now that you've got your hotel and airline tickets, I'll continue my technology in travel series with my go-to apps for planning the fun stuff and getting around.

Groupon. For those of you who have never visited Groupon.com, go now. I'll wait. Groupon is amazing and everyone should experience the thrill of finding fantastic deals on everything from wine tastings to a jaunt through Ireland. Groupon could have been in my booking tech category or fun tech category, because the site offers deals on flights and hotels, all-inclusive trips, excursions, restaurants, and it really excels at the weekend getaways, or those spontaneous trips that pop up as flash deals. The best deals are reserved for those who can go any time. In addition to savings on your hotel and transportation, Groupon is most famous for deals on day adventures, restaurants, sporting events, and luxuries like spa days. So once you've booked the hotel and flights to the Bahamas, don't forget to reserve your stingray adventure for 30 percent off on Groupon!

TripAdvisor. Here's the question: Do you book your Stingray excursion with Stingray Adventure, Stingray City, or Castaway Ray's? Sure each of their websites is flooded with high-res photos of people having a blast. And their testimonials pages glisten with praise and admiration. They're all great choices, right? Let me tell you a story about the worst excursion my family ever went on. When I was 13 we went on a cruise through the Panama Canal, and debarked for the day while the ship rose through the locks and turned around. My mom found an excursion that included boating down a beautiful river and monkey watching. There were supposedly hundreds of monkeys along the river and lake. It sounded like an incredible experience. That day is now a total joke in the family: a hot, old bus that drove through the barrios of the city (which incidentally gave us a reality check for how people live in other parts of the world), a rickety, probably unsafe boat that smelled heavily of gasoline, and, the crowning glory, not a single monkey the whole trip. Not one. That excursion is my own testimonial for why TripAdvisor is crucial to any traveler. TripAdvisor is a forum for fellow travelers to rate their experiences in cities, in hotels, with excursions, at museums, eating out, etc. If someone has had a bad experience with a company, it will be reflected in the reviews and ratings. Bottom line: I always double-check my trip itinerary against TripAdvisor before leaving town.

HopStop. Let's say you've decided to spend a week in New Orleans and don't want to waste half your budget on taxis or Uber. But you know there's a trolley system, and public bus system (and if you're in a bigger city, a subway). Without asking passing locals, or attempting to print schedules and routes, how does a traveler navigate local transportation? I turn to HopStop. HopStop is an app with a comprehensive knowledge of public transit systems throughout the US and many other countries. Just pull it up, input where you are and want to go, and HopStop will give you the most efficient methods to use. It even gives you the fare cost if possible. An app like HopStop becomes invaluable when you get to the massive metro areas like New York City with hundreds of options.

Now you know all the travel tools I use from booking to planning to actually visiting. Of course there are hundreds of other specialized tools you may find useful, such as a translator or currency converter, or specialized city app like the Music City app for live music listings in Nashville. But these core six will take you anywhere you want to go.

Next time: Family summer vacations for less than $1,000.

Julianna Satterly is a Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy graduate who worked as the editor in chief of her college newspaper at Washington and Lee University for three years. She's lived in three states, visited 28 others, and has toured 13 countries. Contact her at juliannasatterly@gmail.com, or on Facebook or Twitter at @jsattz.