When wanderlust hits full-force, you’re instantly ready for take-off. But when you’re just looking to take a break from the grind, it’s easy to get bogged down in the planning stages. We like to keep the inspiration flowing with regular visits to our top five travel resources -- so the shortlist (while growing ever-longer) stays fresh. Just launched last week, we can already tell this site is going to be one of our go-tos.

The Travel Curator is Melanie Brandman; between running her own travel PR firm and running her own elephant polo team in Southeast Asia, she has somehow found the time to start running her own travel blog, too. Focusing city by city on destinations around the world, she shares insider tips and interviews with locals to make sure all of her recommendations are simply the best of what’s around.

An eclectic mix of photos, videos, and dispatches from around the world, Andrew Evans (often seen here) shares both practical insights and celebrations of an eclectic variety of sights. His Twitter is a thrill-a-minute, while near-daily posts always make sure to celebrate a multiplicity of great finds wherever he is.

Founded by Melissa Biggs Bradley, the founding editor of Town & Country Travel and an industry veteran, Indagare is an invaluable resource for the modern sophisticated traveler. Their destination guides are both deep and broad, with educated recommendations on everything from the best five-star resort to the best food stall at the night market. A basic membership starts at $275 a year, but for regular travelers, it’s worth the money.

With everyone juggling their DSLRs, their backup point and shoot, and their Instagram app, it’s both educational and refreshing to see how one of the pros do it. Ralph Velasco's site covers everything from developing a shot list for your next trip to his own rich, deeply textured photo albums shot around the world.

It may be geared towards families, but even the child-free can benefit from fanatic traveler Katrina Garnett’s in-depth travel research. Her background is in tech, and that’s produced a site that is easily navigable and packed with tools to help you plan your trip and make the absolute most of the site’s content, and of course, your own travel time.

Okay, so it’s a print magazine, not a website per se. And we said 5, not 6. But we dare you to spin Afar's virtual globe just once.