Websites that worked like a magic wand solving problems

When I moved country I had to find all sorts of services from scratch. It took me years to figure out where to access products and services.

For example, I was loooking for a specialist for a while. A regular internet search just wasn't working. I was trying word of mouth with no luck. Then one day I found a shop based on a tip from a friend, and they gave me a web address for a specialized search engine.

It was like a lightbulb moment. I could finally solve the problem of finding a specialist in this field.

So, in this spirit, which websites gave you that lightbulb moment? It doesn't have to be universally useful to other people, just something that gave you a buzz when you finally found what you were looking for.

1. Find a Specialist

This is the website I found using the abovementioned magic wand. Find a Specialist

2. Get a quote for car insurance

I was looking for car insurance after moving country. I was comparing prices and it was too hard to figure out who had the best deal. Carwow

3. Booking hotels

I would search all sorts of sites to find hotels, but it was always hard to know if they were any good or not, and if they were cheap or expensive. Booking (and Hotels Combined)

4. Finding flights

Sometimes you want to go from A to B and don't care about how much it costs or when you can fly out. Skyscanner (and Momondo) combined with When I Book My Flights tells you which site has the best deals for any given route at any time of day (i.e., if you are flying out at 6 am on a Tuesday morning then Skyscanner is useless but When I Book My Flights will tell you which site has the best deal for that exact time).

Also, check out this article that explains how to use these three websites in conjunction with each other.

Note: this is only useful if you are traveling by air.

5. Looking for an apartment?

There's two sites I use but both based on the same algorithm so whichever one is cheapest gives me what I need.

Note that there are many other sites that do similar things but these two seem to be the most accurate and honest about what they show me.

And note that there's also many more sites available than just these two but these are my favorites.

AI James Altucher