Internet News

Maps from National Geographic

Maps of the National Geographic - superb resource of atlases and gazeteers to maps in all forms on all subjects (nearly).

+ play with the puzzles
+ explore the interactive maps for adventures
+ use EarthPulse to examine trends on population, energy use, agriculture ...
+ preview road trips like this one on the Big Island
+ and so much more - buy maps too.

Internet Scout Project picked this up - see their comments in the January 13, 2012 issue.

Google and Bing show their own travel first

Google under fire for travel search placement, Josh Lowensohn, Webware (Dec 27)

Some travel companies are upset that Google is showing its own travel service first in search results.

"The Wall Street Journal today points to a practice begun by the search giant earlier this month, which provides results for travel-related searches--such as domestic flights--from right within Google, as opposed to pointing searchers towards places like Priceline, Expedia, and Orbitz. "

Bing has been doing the same, except it favours its partner Kayak.

Read more about that in Danny Sullivan's Bing’s Travel Search & Kayak Favoritism Angers No One, While Google’s Gets Headline Attention From WSJ

It gets pretty complicated. Sullivan ends with, "The more that search engines start diving into providing direct transactions or being transaction brokers, especially where they might charge providers a fee through ads or by taking a share of sales, the more any publisher should be concerned."

Google has a hotel finder

Google Tests Its Hotel Finder As A New Comparison Ad Atop Search Results, Matt McGee, Search Engine Land (Dec 14)

Watch for Google placing first on searches for hotels.

"The comparison ad invites searchers to select a hotel quality level and click a “Book hotels” button. It’s quite similar to the mortgage comparison ads that Google launched in late 2009. Comparison ads are now also available for credit cards, checking accounts, savings accounts and CDs (the money kind, not music). "

Flight search in Google

Google Flight Search now integrated into general search, Next Web

Google is building up its flight search service, which is now integrated into general search results.

Search for flights seattle to palm springs - you see a short block of information about airlines and flights. Click on Flights on the left side to get a page with all of them.
If you enter flights seattle to toronto - you get schedule information for the Air Canada flight, and everything else is ads.

Hmm - does this mean Google is building a travel vertical? This flight search is very handy - and we can hope Google extends internationally soon.

Bing's maps of US airports

Bing’s New Airport Maps Aim To Make Air Travel Easier, Matt McGee, Search Engine Land (Sep 29)

Only in US airports - pity. "Bing’s airport maps take searchers inside the airport to see things like gate locations, stores and restaurants on each concourse, restroom locations and more. "

This terrific guide to 42 US airports is only available on desktop at present. But what a tool to use before going to New York or Chicago!

Find hotels through Google

Search For Hotels With Google Hotel Finder, Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Jul 28)

Google's Hotel Finder will help you find hotels in the United States and compare prices. It's being called an "experiment".

Oyster for judging a hotel by its picture

Oyster.com Adds Hotel Search By Image Featureby Elisabeth Osmeloski, Search Engine Land (Jun 27)

At Oyster you can search the images of hotels by place, attributes, and type.

"Upon browsing the images, users can compare hotel features and quality side by side, save favorites or like/dislike a photo, search images by hotel availability, and price data is shown to help make their decision in selecting a hotel for business or leisure travel."

Modify the search by photo content, location (mainly beach and sun places though does have Seattle), Oyster rating, and hotel type.

Great for previewing Hawaii and the Caribbean Islands.

Flight information through Google (coming soon)

Google Tests New Travel Search OneBox, Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (May 24)

Preview Google's new flight search responses as seen in screenshots taken in the UK. If this "takes", Google will show non-stop routes to your destination.

Bing - Attractions

Bing adds “Attractions”, Liveside.net (Mar 17)

Bing has added Attractions to the Travel vertical.

"Attractions bring together a number of bits of information for some 52,000 attractions around the world, offering addresses, details, reviews, video, and images all in one page."

On a places it will list the attractions - attractions in Toronto - must use attractions as a keyword. Check the left panel for filters.

The new feature is to also give a detailed description of some attractions using information from Frommers, TripAdvisor - others. See the Bing Blog posting for screenshot and details. Good for the big museums , famous buildings, and other kinds of attractions (including national parks) in the United States, England, and France (three I checked). The 52,000 attractions Bing claims does not appear to include any in Canada.

Turbulence in Travel Search

Travel Search: Are Google and Microsoft Confused?, Stephen Arnold, Beyond Search (Mar 8)

If Stephen Arnold is right, and he likely is, there's not much hope for travel search - mainly because, whatever the deal between search engines and content sources, " airlines are starting to play hard ball with aggregators and middle people"

Of interest - and something to ponder - "The big search services are now little more than collections of vertical content."

There are more points - do read - expect turbulence.

Fly with Bing

Bing taps Kayak for its travel search, Josh Lowensohn, Microsoft (Mar 4)

Microsoft has partnered with Kayak to improve flight information for Bing users in the United States.

"Now, when users do a flight search, it will be grabbing results from what Microsoft says is a larger set of flights than what was previously available. That new data will begin appearing in results in "the coming weeks, ..."

Also note - "Just a week ago Microsoft had introduced an auto-suggest feature that would display flight prices before users even completed typing in their query. The technology would find out where a user was accessing Bing, and chart the search from the nearest airport."

Google's Aspirations for Travel Search

Google hopes to become hub of online travel, MICHAEL LIEDTKE AND JOELLE TESSLER, AP via Globe and Mail (Feb 16)

Google is seeking permission to buy ITA Software, the purveyor of air flight information and travel search software. Many in the travel industry are worried that Google, if it wins this acquisition, will become that 800 pound gorilla that will force everyone else out.

Google says - don't worry - it won't sell the tickets or do the bookings.

"Google says owning ITA, the brainchild of computer scientists specializing in artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, would lead to lower prices and more convenient ways to shop for tickets on the Internet. For instance, travellers might tell Google how much they could afford to spend to visit a warm place on certain dates, and the search engine would turn into a travel guide."

Discussion of this has been going on since last summer when Google announced it's intent. ResouceShelf has background information.

Google Acquisition: Fast Facts About ITA Software; System Can Handle More Than One Million Queries Per Second

Stay tuned.

Flight Searches Getting More Difficult

Search for Low Airfares Gets More Competitive By JAD MOUAWAD and CLAIRE CAIN MILLER, New York Times (Feb 10)

Finding the best flight or lowest fare is getting harder. American Airlines pulled out of Expedia and Orbitz (or was dropped). All airlines have a variety of charges - nothing is all inclusive. Google has travel search intentions which worry others - mainly about fees. Etcetera. It will probably get worse for the consumer before it gets better.

Sentiment Analysis about Places

Google To Buy Sentiment Analysis Engine, fflick, Search Engine Watch (Jan 26)

fflick does movie recommendations now, but under Google it might be used for ranking places (assessing reviews about places).

Of interest: "Micro-reviews are also a trend to keep an eye on too -- something TripAdvisor has already implemented successfully. Using semantic analysis TripAdvisor is able to identify some common meaningful themes within all their reviews and aggregate them in a scannable format. "

Bing Travel Comparisons

Bing Travel Now Offers Destination Comparison Tool, Search Engine Land (Jan

Bing will show destination pages that let searchers compare several destinations at once in a familiar side-by-side layout. See examples in the article. There are 315 destinations. Search on destinations

Connecting TripAdvisor to Facebook

Get TripAdvisor tips from Facebook friends , Beth J Harpaz, Globe and Mail (Jan 14)

If you travel and your friends travel, connecting Facebook and Trip Advisor could be a good thing to do. You and friends can more easily see reviews and seek advice.

"Once the dialogue is established, you'll be able to easily identify which friends can offer information on which destinations. You'll see TripAdvisor reviews written by your Facebook friends and a map with pins that show what cities your Facebook friends have marked in the “Cities I've Visited” Facebook app."

There may be privacy issues - "Some users may get cold feet about the privacy aspects of integrating these powerful websites. But various features allow you to control how much information is seen. If you don't want access to your friends' travel advice or you don't want your reviews seen by friends, you can opt out of that feature. You can also disconnect your Facebook and TripAdvisor accounts with one click if you change your mind altogether."

Finding Flights

Navigating the Airfare Maze Online Gets Tougher By MICHELLE HIGGINS, New York Times (Jan 7)

Airlines are in a fight over fees with the online travel sites such as Orbitz and Expedia. American Airliines removed its flights from Orbitz and it no longer shows in Expedia either. Problem - there is no one-stop shopping site for flights. Instead, we must use a few sites to assess what's available - and then - likely book through the airline's website.

Ones mentioned in the article for travel in the USA:

+ ITA Software
+ Fly.com or Farecompare.com - meta search of travel sites
+ airfarewatchdog.com

For Europe - momondo.com

Of interest - "To help evaluate prices, consider Bing.com, which offers a Price Predictor that uses algorithms to determine whether a fare is likely to rise or fall in the next seven days; this can help when trying to decide whether to buy now or wait for a better rate. "

Even more in the article.

Best Travel Sites

The Web's Best Travel, Shopping, and Dining Sites, Robert Strohmeyer, PC World (Dec 26)

This is an odd mix - surely travel deserved its own article. No Expedia here, or Trip Advisor. The recommendations are Kayak, Hipmunk (searches major airlines including AirCanada and WestJet), Hotels.com, and Vacation Rentals by Owner (VRBO)>

Google wants into Travel Search

Travel companies band together against Google. Don Reisinger, The Digital Home (Oct 26)

Google announced in July that it would acquire ITA Software, a company that develops flight search software. Several online purveyors of travel deals (including Tripadvisor, Kayak, Expedia, and Travelocity) have formed FairSearch.org to argue as a group that this would give Google an unfair advantage. ITA Software also supplies flight services to those travel companies.

Of particular interest in this article is Google's diagram of the Online Trave Ecosystem

Google Travel?

Google moves into online travel market with $700M acquisition , Michael Liedtke, AP via Globe and Mail (Jul 2)

Google must have some plans for a travel vertical or at the very least a service for booking flights.

"Google Inc. plans to buy travel technology company ITA Software Inc. in a $700-million (U.S.) deal that would enable the Internet search leader to steer more of the airline reservations booked on the Web.

The all-cash acquisition announced Thursday signals Google's intention to challenge flight-comparison services that are ITA customers, including Kayak, FareCompare, Hotwire and Microsoft Corp.’s Bing Travel. The deal is likely to face a rigorous review by federal antitrust regulators."

Pauline Frommer and her blog

Social media can help your holidays…or not, Pauline Frommer, The Star (May 17)

Have you used social media for making travel plans? Probably most people have used TripAdvisor - and maybe posted to it. TripAdvisor is not mentioned by Pauline Frommer (yes -daughter of Arthur) in this article, but some other new social services are.

+ "Traxo.com, which is a site that — like the better-known Tripit.com — allows users to create easily managed travel itineraries and share them with selected friends."

+ "A relatively new website called SecondPorch.com has created a marketplace for “second homes,” properties that owners use on weekends or at vacation times but usually don’t rent out of fear of damage, theft and other hassles."

Pauline Frommer keeps a daily briefing blog which has some Canadian news. This is a blog for those with the travel bug to watch.

For Travellers with smart phone

The Top 10 Free Travel Apps, PC Magazine (March 10)

First you need a "modern phone" and then you can add these travel apps. Course, if you are good at planning, you could use most of these before you left home.

"A modern phone is pretty close to the ultimate travel gadget, letting you tap into all sorts of useful information on the road. Here are 10 travel apps that I use regularly when I'm out of town. "

+ Google Maps
+ Trip it- "keep track of things like flight confirmation numbers, hotel confirmation numbers and such. "
+ Tripcase
+ Kayak - travel booking
+ Yelp
+ Weatherbug - of course
+ JiWire Wi-Fi Finder
+ Priceline Hotel Negotiator
+ Google SMS - get Google search results at text messages

+ Kayak - travel booking

FunnelScope for travel

FunnelScope - travel search socialized, AltSearchEngines (

Funnelscope claims to merge vertical search (travel), semantic search, and social search. Searches Expedia, Orbitz, Kayak, and TripAdvisor

Finding Flights

Travel search engine Cheapflightsfinder relaunches, Altsearchengines (Nov 24)

"Cheapflightsfinder officially relaunched its website today with a new search tool that compares 16 flight comparison sites with one single user query performing what it claims is the world’s first meta-meta search for flights. The new search engine enables consumers to compare prices from top online aggregators including Kelkoo, Kayak, Dohop, Skyscanner, Mobissimo, Momondo, Cheapflights.co.uk, Travelmarket.co.uk, Fly.com, Wego, Bing travel, Easyvoyage.co.uk, Globaltravelmarket, Tripadvisor, Travelfusion and Travelgrove."

Where Canadians turn to for travel

Top Canadian Travel Websites , Hitwise (Nov 16)

"Among Travel websites, last week, Expedia.ca and Westjet ranked #1 and #2 in share of Canadian Internet visits."

Air Canada was third, abd TripAdvisor fifth.

Travel Tools

Online tools for making you a smarter traveler by Don Reisinger, Webware (Sept 24)

Has a roundup of a "few resources to help you enjoy a better traveling experience whenever you want to get out of the house."

Goby for things to do

What, Where, When: Travel & Local Search Combine @Goby.com by Elisabeth Osmeloski, Search Engine Land (Sep 23)

This new travel / local search engine comes with good credentials.

"Goby.com (GO-be), a new entrant into the foray of “deep web” search technology, led by a founding team with web and search experience from Endeca (CEO Mark Watkins), Lycos (Jim Fell) and Reprise Media (CTO Vince Russo), MIT (professor Michael Stonebraker, co-founder) as well as travel distribution experience with John Walsh (World Travel Holdings.)"

Twitter and Travel

A Look At The Travel Industry On Twitter by Michael Gray, Search Engine Land (Sep 8)

Michael Gray points to three ways companies in general can use Twitter productively and gives examples from the travel industry.

* Community engagement and customer service
* Broadcast channels for news, articles, and information
* Dedicated sales channel

Lists over 100 different Twitter profiles from the travel industry

Travel on Twitter

Tweet deals (and good advice) , Mercedeh Sanati, Globe and Mail (Aug 12)

"As hotels, airlines and travel gurus sign on to Twitter, the social-networking site is becoming a source for up-to-the-minute deals and info. Here's who you should follow".

Has Twitter tips for travellers.

Hotel Reviews

Former Live Search Director Launches Oyster.com, Hotel Review Site by Elisabeth Osmeloski, Search Engine Land (Jun 22)

Oyster.com is a new travel site with hotel reviews.

"Seidman [creator] points out that Oyster’s most valuable search asset is their unique content, that they are blending the inspirational aspect of travel search with specific data requests - whether they be traditional traveler requirements (spa, pets welcome, beachfront) to more experiential themes (if vodka, for example, is your #1 vacation must-have), and not least of all,"

Travel tips and tools

Seven stress relieving tips for business travelers , by Adam Pash, PCWorld via itWorldCanada (May 27)

Several tips and tools for making travel less stressful.

+ SeatGuru - find best seat on the plane

+ Convert a DVD to a Video File

+ Pack Lighter - get tips from OneBag. Has a packing list.

+ Find Wi-Fi Hotspots - JiWire's Wi-Fi Finder

+ Collaborate using Google Apps

+ Use LogMeIn for Remote Access to Your Data

+ Find a Good Restaurant on the Road With Yelp (in the US)

Hello Bing, Goodbye Live

There will be hundreds of articles over the next few weeks about Microsoft's new search place - called Bing - that will take over from the Live Brand of search and I presume everything else.

Goodbye Microsoft Live Search, Hello Bing, Stuart J. Johnston, Internet News (May 29)

Some are saying it is better at finding relevant results than Live ever was. It's being called a "decision engine" - to help people make decisions starting in the consumer areas of shopping, travel, local companies, and health.

"Within those areas, the idea is to provide an organized "experience" where all the information that a user would need -- say, for planning a trip -- is available in one place. Other features meant to enhance the experience include a "quick preview" function that lets a user hover over a link to provide a caption of what's at the link, as well as an "instant answer" capability that aims to provide all the needed information on a single results page."

Travel component sounds promising -- Bing is using Virtual Earth for maps (renamed to Bing Maps), Farecast for travel information on flights and hotels, and Powerset semantic language processing.

Travel Journals

Share your vacation with these online services. by Don Reisinger, Webware (May 15)

Vacation-sharing tools: "document where you've been, share pictures, and upload videos".

Pity I didn't see this before I took my vacation.

+ Everytrail - "EveryTrail EveryTrail populates your profile page with all the places you've been on vacation. But instead of requiring you to do it yourself, the site uses your GPS device and photos to do it for you"

+ Here or There? - blog

+ myTripBook - blog, diary - can add recommendations

+ RealTravel - "Once you create your free blog, you can use the site's interactive maps to route your trip. "

+ TravBuddy - basic blog

+ TripTie - TripTie is one, big online community of travelers sharing their vacation stories.

+ VCarious - said to be one of the "nicest travel-sharing sites on the Web". Use it while travelling.

+ WAYN - WHere are you now? - "well-designed, highly detailed site that combines social networking with travel in a package that's second to none. "

Travel Tools and Sites

12 essential sites for the savvy traveller by Cynthia Ross Cravit, 50 Plus.com (Apr)

"These websites predict travel fares, help you plan the best trip, find the best deals and even tell you which seat to select." US travellers will benefit from most but Canadians can use some aspects of them.

Travel Map Mashups

The best Google Maps mashups for travel, Keir Clarke, Guardian (Apr 2)

There are 10 travel-related Google Map mashups - of course touring through Google Street Views is one of them.

"Restaurants, hotels, galleries … anything that can be mapped can be added to Google Maps, creating invaluable tools for travellers. Keir Clarke, of Google Maps Mania, picks his favourites"

Airlines and airports

Péter Jacsó at the University of Hawaii must travel a lot. In this article that appeared in Online, he reviews Skytrax, Kayak, OAG.

Per Koch commented on the article with some additional information in The best airport and airliner review sites, the Enjoy - Food & Travel Blog.

Two discoveries in one - the blog and the article.

Farechase Closed

Yahoo Closes The Cabin Door On FareChase, Matt McGee, Search Engine Land (Mar 25)

Another service that Yahoo bought (probably at a high price) has been shuttered - Farechase the metasearch discount finding search engine.

Yahoo statement:

"“After careful consideration, Yahoo! is discontinuing FareChase, a travel metasearch engine, effective March 25, 2009. After this date, users will no longer have access to FareChase to compare travel prices, but can continue to shop for and book flights, hotels, cars, cruises and vacation packages through Yahoo! Travel and its partners."

Plan Your Vacation

It's time to find the world's best vacation spots by Don Reisinger, Webware (Feb 20)

Don Reisnger has five sites to use to help us plan our vacations. "Each site offers outstanding resources to help you find the right destination. And thanks to their user communities that often discuss affordability, you can make a better-informed decision about the price tag."

+ Driftr - travel community for photos, videos, blogs
+ RealTravel
+ TripAdvisor (of course)
+ UpTake - if you're travelling in the United States
+ Virtual Tourist - directory style - doesn't look as active as TripAdvisor

Travel Sites for Planning

Travel Sites Venture Beyond the Bottom Line by Janet Fullwood, PCWorld (Feb 2)

There are many travel sites mentioned in this article that go beyond bookings and help with ideas on destinations, creating itineraries, seeking out special interests, getting local information, and organizing your plans. Some connect to Facebook.

New Travel Search Engine

U.K. Travel Search Engine Nowfly Relaunches , TravelPulse (Jan 23)

Travel meta-search engine Nowfly in the UK (nowfly.co.uk) searches 340 airlines and can find hotels and car rentals. Hotels are shown on Google Maps. Prices are given in the British pound but can easily be changed to other currencies.

Has potential. Might not have the airline you want to use. When I tried this there was something wrong with the date function that made it impossible to select an outgoing date beyond tomorrow.

GoPlanIT for planning an itinerary

GoPlanit lets you shuffle travel plans like a music playlist Posted by Josh Lowensohn, Webware (Sept 10)

"GoPlanit is a service for travelers to find things to do in places they've never been. It removes the need to buy travel books by automatically figuring out your itinerary based on budget, physical health, and how much free time you've got."

GoPlanit will help you plan visits to 10 cities in the United States.

Plan Vacations with Planet Eye

Planet Eye was one of 10 Web 2.0 companies to watch in an itWorldCanada article (July 23)

"Toronto’s PlanetEye, for example, combines geo-tagging and a range of online sources to help users plan vacations. “There are a variety of different sources travelers can use,” Collins said. PlanetEye gathers it in one, conantly updated and relevant place. The company is currently relying on licensing fees and affiliate income – the company has affiliate deals with Travelocity, among others – and has partnered with Open Table’s restaurant review and reservation portal and Flickr for travel photography.

Podcast on Travel Sites

Real Deal podcast: Our favorite travel sites By Rafe Needleman, Webware (Jul 15)

Tom Merritt and Rafe Needleman cover travel sites in Episode 119 of The Real Deal - "The challenge: There are dozens of good travel sites we know of, and probably hundreds we don't. So we broke down our discussion into sections (planning, booking, organizing, social, and air travel) and discussed our favorite sites and tips"

Provides link to a Google Docs spreadsheet on types and sites - nice use of Google Docs.

For podcast press the play button in the posting. Very enjoyable and useful.

Tripwolf - social travel

Tripwolf, the Frankenstein of travel sites By Michelle Thatcher, Webware (July 1)

This improbably named social travel site, Tripwolf, gets a somewhat favourable review from Webware.

"The massive international site, which has local versions in German- and English-speaking countries, is a travel guide, reviews site, social network, blogging platform, photo- and video-sharing site, wiki, and (soon, I'm told) travel booking site all rolled into one. It sounds overwhelming, and it is: every city page shows a map with points of interest, a brief overview of the city, a list of friends' recommendations in that location, several sections for user-submitted comments (e.g., best time to go) and content about that city pulled from elsewhere on the Web (e.g., YouTube). On the flip side, the Tripwolf city page does give you a quick overview of information about your destination, along with starting points for further research."

I looked at Montana - videos, photos - no overview. Too much of the wrong content for me. There was a map - that helped.

There are social networking capabilities - of course - but how many people travel in groups larger than two. I know - sometimes class mates etc - but mostly not.

TripSay

Plan trips based on likes and dislikes with TripSay By Josh Lowensohn, Webware (June 26)

TripSay - another social travel site. It's in private beta - if you like the sound of it, ask for an invitation.

"This afternoon TripSay, a travel site that's currently in private beta is opening up to a larger group of testers and launching a few new features. The service will help you figure out places you should go on your vacation based on a calculator that will narrow down the results based on your budget, lingual ability, and comfort zone for going off the beaten path. You can also plug in your interests, and add ratings of places you've already been."

PlanetEye for Touring

PlanetEye to blend travel photos, trip planning By Rafe Needleman, Webware (June 23)

PlanetEye will take you on a photo tour of places while mentioning hotels, restaurants and attractions all imposed on a Microsoft map. As you find what you want you can save it to a Travel Pack.

Rafe Needleman said ,"But I found it frustrating to use the map to look up attractions and restaurants." Well - I found it frustrating to get the photos, but the idea is great.

A new version will be released in July. Can get familiar with this one today but don't commit yourself until you see the new.

The article links to related stories on trip tools.

TravelMuse to help you plan

TravelMuse tells you where to go (on vacation) By Rafe Needleman, Webware (June 8)

"If you can't make up your mind about where to go on vacation and are comfortable buying prepackaged vacation deals, there's a new site for you: TravelMuse. You tell it where you live, what your budget is, and what you like, and it will suggest destinations and hotels."

Needleman's favorite planning travel sites are TripIt and Offbeat Guides (by invitation at this time).

Compile your own travel guide

Offbeat Guides: Build your own travel books By Rafe Needleman, WebWare (June 1)

Soon we'll be able to create our own travel books from materials gleaned from many sources including some licensed content providers.

"Offbeat Guides is a service for printing customized travel books. When you go to the site, it asks you five basic questions: Your name, your destination, your trip's dates, where you live, and where you're staying (if you know). With that information, it scours various open sources (like Wikipedia, Wikitravel, and Eventful) as well as some licensed content providers, and builds a custom file for you about your destination."

UpTake aggregates and analyzes travel

Travel Search Engine Kango Relaunches As UpTake by Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land (May 15)

"UpTake [formerly Kango] describes itself as a "travel search and discovery site." It's aggregating consumer reviews and listings information from many travel sites to attempt to create a trusted destination to begin travel search. Content comes from Expedia, Fodors, goCityKids, Virtual Tourist, TripAdvisor, Citysearch and Yahoo, among others."

MSN Farecast

Microsoft buys travel search site Farecast Physorg.com (Apr 18)

Microsoft now owns the Seattle startup Farecast that made a name for itself predicting air fares and helping people buy at the lowest price time.

" The Seattle startup tries to predict whether air fares will rise or fall, helping travelers decide when to buy plane tickets for upcoming trips. Farecast's site also has a section that searches for hotel room rates, then tells Web surfers whether the price is a good deal, or no deal at all. "

Travel Searches

Kosmix, a different kind of clustering engine Pandia (Mar 30)

Pandia looked at the Kosmix travel vertical (Kosmix also does health and autos). Kosmix slots sites / pages into pre-determined topics. On the whole, endorsed Kosmix, finding it as good or better than Mahalo. (Ah - an endorsement for it.)

"Finding good travel info online isn’t easy. The search results of Google, Yahoo and Live are all riddled with spam. So far, the best place to go for spam free info on hotels, sights and more has been Mahalo, a human powered search engine edited by payed editors and volunteers. My favorite for computer generated results used to be Ask (here’s an Ask search on Venice)."

I compared several for Kauai, a Hawaiian island

Kosmix had a full profile with images, videos, restaurants, arts and culture - and other ways to refine the search.

Mahalo did have a page for Kauai Vacation with a good set of starting points.

If Mahalo is going to be considered, so should the guides at About.com. The guide for one for Hawaii has a page on Kauai with attractions and lodging well organized.

Ask will always provide a good breakdown on a topic and sometimes a "smart answer" or information capsule. Kauai doesn't warrant the capsule but Hawaii does.

Tech Friendly Airlines

The Most and Least Wired Airlines and Airports by James A. Martin, PC World (Mar 17)

Some airlines are doing more to provide entertainment, e-mail connections, IM, and power outlets for laptops. PC World does a "roundup of the best U.S. and international airlines for business travelers and tech fans".

It's not a long list but Air Canada is it - "Air Canada offers many mobile browser tools, such as flight check-in and the ability to view the airline's full timetable. It's also one of the few airlines to let you use your cell phone as a boarding pass. Many of its seat-back screens offer free movies, TV programs, and music on demand".

Five US airports are commended for wi-fi service, but the best tip was to sit outside an airline membership lounge and tap into its wireless service (though there may be a fee).

Finding Hotel Rooms

Big Four Travel Websites Outperform Travel Specialists PR Newswire via Globe Investor (March 7)

HotelsCombined.com is a metasearch engine for hotel rooms. It did a 'quick' survey of travel sites on St Patrick's Day "on hotel availability for St Patrick’s Day festivities in Dublin" .

The comparison was:

Leading European travel specialists Booking.com
Lastminute.com
Laterooms.com
Opodo.co.uk

Vs Big Four
Expedia.com
Orbitz.com
Travelocity.com
Priceline.com

Result: "top four still come up trumps when it comes to hotel inventory and availability"

Presumably you could do even better at Hotelscombined.

""On HotelsCombined.com, we show all these brands, from niche sites to all the major online brands. Consumers can use our website to get results from all these hotel reservation websites on a single webpage. They don't have to search each hotel website individually to compare pricing and availability information. That way, they can get the maximum results for hotel availability for any destination and the lowest prices for any hotel.""

Results also posted to Hotelscombined - Big four travel websites outperform travel specialists

B&B Directory

BedandBreakfast.com claims over 6,500 listings. Most will be for the United States, but there are some for Canada and Europe (especially the UK). Stratford, Ontario, as an example has several, but most are bare bones with only address and phone - no photos. Some have reviews. The full listings link to web site, have photos and more detail, and sometimes "hot deals".

Search for a place will bring up an interactive map. If B&B is what you want, this would be a good start. Results from this site also show up in Google.

Glam Travel

Two travel search engines seek the rich & trendy in LA Times Travel - Daily Travel and Deal Blog (Feb 21)

"For those short on time or memory but not lacking the funds to live like a jet-setter, there are the websites Fabsearch and TravelsInTaste. Both save time by just giving you the details of only the most fabulously glamorous vacation spots, but we thought we’d ease your busy schedule even more by listing the pros and cons of each."

Fabsearch -- "Chronicles the places major players such as Vogue and Tatler deign worthy to eat, sleep, shop and spa."

+ Search by source (only 12 of them) or by location - really about sleeping and eating - a handful of entries for Toronto..

TravelsinTaste -- "For those who live the high life (or just want to while they’re on vacation), TravelsinTaste gives all the info on where to power lunch, fine dine or get new bling like you mean it."

+ Luxury guide to 8 places in the United States, Las Vegas being one. Needs content.

Using Ask for Travel

Tools for travellers at Ask.com Pandia (Feb 7)

Gary Price, Director of Online Info Resources at Ask, gave the Pandia people a tour of tips for using Ask to make travel plans.

TVTrip - finding hotels

TVTrip - hotel video guide - get photo and video tours of hotel destinations before you go. Site has a map - just click and go.

Kayak-SideStep merger

Travel Search Sites Kayak And SideStep To Merge In Nearly $200 Million Deal Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land (Dec 21)

Considering how competitive this market, it's probably best that they are merging. However, both brands will be kept to serve their customer base.

"Kayak-SideStep competitors include Yahoo's FareChase, Mobissimo, Farecast and then, of course, the range of more traditional travel sites such as Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity. It's a fiercely competitive, if lucrative, online segment. Kayak-SideStep has a way to go to catch these more traditional sites, which have more established brands and many more users."

Travel at Business Week

Business Week has a travel section under Lifestyle and a business travel blog

+ LifeStyle Travel: news, business travel, and leisure travel. Has videos and slide shows. Aimed at well-to-do travellers.

+ Traveler's Check Blog: From the About section: "usinessWeek editors Dean Foust and Justin Bachman provide road warriors with the latest news, trends in business travel, which as most readers are aware, has all the romance of taking a school bus cross country. Come here to pick up travel news and tips or just commiserate about your latest business trip gone awry."

Google Flight

Need Flight Status? Google Now Provides Tracking Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Dec 19)

"Instead of just providing a link to get flight times, you get that information directly in the OneBox area at Google, without requiring a click to see it."

Holiday Prep

Flight Tracking, Airport Conditions, Real-Time Traffic, & Other Thanksgiving Search Tips, Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land (Nov 21)

Flight tracker shortcuts at Ask, Google, Yahoo - and also Gary Price's list of flight tracking services .

But there is even more:

+ real time traffic
+ information about thanksgiving, and more importantly, the food (finding recipes).
+ shopping

Get to know these now because there will be another round in 4 weeks for Christmas.

Google Public Transit

Google Transit - plan your use of public transit (bus, train) in several US cities and Japan. Now out of beta and ready to help you get where you are going. (Yes, it seems that several American cities do have public transit.)

Travel videos

lastminute.com Selects Pixsy for Multimedia Travel Search Econtent (Oct 26)

Lastminute.com, an online travel retailer, will be using Pixsy's media search technology (video and image search). Users will be able to "to search millions of travel photos and videos while simultaneously shopping for travel services".

Lastminute.com is based in the UK and the flight finder has all its flights starting from there. For people in North America, this site will probably be good for ideas, and not for travel packages.

FareCast in the US

Farecast Offers Hotel Search Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land (Oct 12)

FareCast began as a place for getting forecasts of air fares for flights in the US - now it does hotels in about 30 US cities.

Yahoo Travel Shortcut

Yahoo Search Adds Travel Shortcuts by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Jul 26)

Yahoo pops up with a shortcut box for travel destinations containing visitor information, hotels, restaurants etc. Here's one for Toronto

Farecast for Flights

FareCast Leaves Beta, Adds New Features, ResourceShelf (May 24)

"FareCast is one of a number of shopping tools (in this case air fares) plus intelligence (using data mining) that offers not only pricing and reservation access but also makes predictions about fares and provides historical data." But only for flights in the US.

Travel Videos

SearchforVideo.com Users Can Indulge in Computer-Chair Travel as the Site Adds Travelistic to the Search Index, Business Wire via Marketwatch (May 15)

"... 2,400 free travel videos from Travelistic are now available at Searchforvideo.com " -- "Launched in October 2006, Travelistic is a Web community featuring videos filmed in over 400 cities around the world. Travelistic offers both professionally created and user-generated video content. Included on the Web site is The Map, an original weekly podcast series hosted by Liza de Guia, which provides viewers with a guide to the world of travel from an internet perspective. "

Videos are at http://www.searchforvideo.com/pub/travelistic/

Yahoo Maps for Europe

Yahoo Upgrades Online Mapping Service, AP via AP.org (May 16)

Yahoo -- " Yahoo Inc.'s online mapping service in the United States will begin giving driving directions in 34 European countries Wednesday as part of an upgrade aimed at luring traffic away from rivals AOL and Google Inc."

Some numbers: "In April, AOL's industry-leading Mapquest service attracted 49.2 million U.S. visitors, a 3 percent increase from last year, while traffic to Google's maps surged 49 percent to 30.8 million visitors, according to comScore Media Metrix. Meanwhile, U.S. traffic to Yahoo maps declined 5 percent to 29.4 million."

Travel sites

Travel Search Overview: Informative or Commercial?, SEW Blog (May 9)

Update on travel sites for people in the United States.

Personalized Yahoo Travel

Yahoo clicks on personal touch for travellers by Jonathan Thaw, Business Day (May 10)

Yahoo Travel will suggest destinations to users based on pages they have viewed or places they have searched. "The recommendations work in a similar way to those on sites such as Amazon.com and Netflix, which suggest books and movies based on users’ interests."

I don't imagine that there are a lot of people short on ideas on where to travel to next - but you never know - something very serendipitous might popup.

Momondo for european air

Momondo Travel Site Makes Summer Travel Planning via Low-Cost European Air Carriers a One-Stop, One-Minute Process Market Wire via Marketwatch (Apr 30)

"Momondo ( http://www.momondo.com), Europe's most comprehensive travel search engine mashup that delivers low-cost airfares to consumers, today announced that it has greatly simplified summer travel planning in Europe. By using Momondo Flight Search, customers can now search across all 100 low-cost air carriers serving Europe in a single query. This capability, only available through www.momondo.com, saves customers significant amounts of travel planning, and meanwhile, ensures that they have the most flight choices and the best price."

Panoramio and Google Earth

Panoramio Approaches 1 Million Photos in Google Earth, Google Earth Blog (Apr 25)

"So, if you are browsing the world and need more information about interesting places, I highly recommend turning on the Geographic Web layer. The Panoramio photos in particular are particularly useful for letting you get a perspective on what people have seen in the area you are viewing. I'm looking forward to planning my next trip and using this as a way to make sure I see the best things."

Start by reading this posting and then go to Panoramio. Oh my - this will be wonderful for people who want to do a travel journal.

CheapCaribbean

CheapCaribbean.com Awarded 2007 'Best Overall Provider of Outstanding Travel Deals' by Travelzoo, PRNewswire via Marketwatch (Apr 9)

" CheapCaribbean.com has grown from a simple idea six years ago to become a well-respected travel provider of the best beach destination deals plus one of the top websites in the world dedicated to travel to Bermuda, the Caribbean and Mexico."

Wiki for Travel

WikiTravel has destination guides and articles for the traveller. There's a news feed for travel news and trivia. Has content in several languages. One to watch - http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page

Travel Planning Online

Five reasons people shy away from online travel booking By: Denise Dubie, ITWorldCanada (Mar 21)

"Forrester Research found that in the light of recent survey data those who book travel continue to resist the Web as their main resource for making reservations. The research firm polled about 5,330 North American consumers in the last quarter of 2006 to determine exactly what prevents them from putting their faith in online travel sites. To start, the top-three most common reasons for those who book travel not to stay online to make reservations include concern over credit-card security, Web-site performance issues and limits on the actions they could take online."

Yes - absolutely - but dealing with phone-menu systems and long waits for an "available operator" isn't much better.

Virtual Trip to the Caribbean

New online exhibition opens up 300 years of Caribbean history, National Archives (UK)

"Caribbean Histories Revealed, a new online exhibition from The National Archives, launches on Tuesday 6 March. The exhibition traces the history of the British Caribbean through Colonial Office records from the 17th century to 1926. From maps and photographs, to letters and petitions, it brings to life over 300 years of life in the Caribbean."

Visit http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/caribbeanhistory/

Has a very good map too.

Flight Sites to go

Picked up some flight sites from The Waiting Game by Douglas McArthur, Globe and Mail Travel (Mar 14).

Flightstats.com - check historical data for airlines, flights, airports. Also has information on flights in progress. Much more - travel deals, fares, advisories.

For real-time tracking of flights in the US and Canada can also use:

- FlightArrivals- also has airport status for US airports.
- FlightView - map view of departure status of US airports.
- Flytecomm - there is mobile device service too.

Travel Web Sites

Online finds help save time before travel by James Gilden, Orlando Sentinel (Mar 11)

Selected web sites for travelers who are looking for couches (couchsurfing.com), thinking about cruises and looking for reviews (cruisecritic.com), wanting to make the world better through volunteer help (idealist.org), wondering about rights (mytravelrights.com), looking for a train seat in Europe (seat61.com), or just browsing for a travel portal (Johnnyjet.com). And then there are those looking for bathrooms (Thebathroomdiaries.com).

Online Travel Agencies Doing More

The price isn't right anymore Michelle Higgins, New York Times via Orlando Sentinel (Feb 25)

"As more hotels offer bargains on the Web, online travel agencies are losing their luster."

""Many people are searching online travel-agency sites," Sileo says, and then moving on to the hotel sites to make their reservations "because they are either getting the same rate or a more flexible cancellation or change policy.""

So the online travel agencies are beginning to offer more packages and more service. "Online travel agencies also have begun to focus on discount packages combining flights, hotels and rental cars. And they are trying to set themselves apart with new customer services."

Farecast Fare Guard

Farecast Offers Insurance Policy on Airfares, Searchengineland (Jan 22)

"Travel search engine Farecast officially launched its Fare Guard service, protecting flyers from volatile airfare prices. The service allows travelers to basically purchase an insurance policy on a flight for $10 ($3 until February 1), thus locking in the published rate."

Operates in the US.

Europe-Targeted Search Services

Checking Out Allcheckin Travel Search, Search Engine Land (Jan 19)

Two Europe-targeted travel search services: Allcheckin - meta-search travel engine with many options, and Opodo - for UK travellers. Considers Allcheckin a good "backup" to Expedia.uk.

Sidestep's Cruise Vertical

SideStep to Launch Travel Search Industry's First Cruise Vertical, Business Wire via Marketwatch (Jan 4)

"SideStep, the Internet's leading travel search company, today announced the upcoming launch of its Cruise vertical, the company's latest category expansion. The new Cruise search, which will be available this month, will enable SideStep users to research and book all major cruise destinations -- including the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Alaska, The Bahamas and Europe -- and will include useful information such as ship details, ship reviews and star ratings, and photos and tours, as well as detailed information regarding staterooms, public areas and deck plans."

Home and Abroad uses Maporama Maps

HOME & ABROAD SELECTS MAPORAMA WEB SERVICES TO HELP CUSTOMERS PLANNING THEIR TRIPS Press release (Nov 20)

"Maporama International, the European leader of geocentric services, announced today that Home & Abroad , Inc. is using Maporama Web Services to enhance its web-based travel planning and booking application. Maporama Web Services provides interactive directions capabilities, allowing end-users to spot quickly one or several destinations and to select directions based on transportation mode (driving, walking)."

About Home & Abroad : "Founded in October 2005, Home&Abroad next generation travel-planning and purchasing tool for online consumers, online travel agencies, bricks-and-mortar travel agencies, GDS services, hotels, and more.'

Price Protection on Flights

Farecast Selling Airline Ticket Price Guarantees, TechCrunch (Nov 13)

"Seattle based airfare prediction service Farecast is testing what the company calls its first retail product beyond basic price forecasts; the company is now offering to lock in ticket prices against an increase for one week for $1. When the testing period for the product, called Fare Guard, has ended the price will become $10."

Using Transit

Google Transit Expands With New Cities PLUS a Selection of Other Real Time and Trip Routing Tools, ResourceShelf

Google Transit covers 6 cities now: Tampa, Honolulu, Seattle, Pittsburg, Eugene, Portland.

ResourceShelf lists other real time services - Traffic.com has Toronto, and Vancouver has trip planner.

NetRatings' Top Travel Sites

Top Travel Sites, iMediaConnection (Sept 26)

Nielsen//NetRatings lists the top 10 travel sites - and also online education / careers, and health advertisers.

Flight and Airport Updates

Real Time Airport Delays via RSS and/or E-Mail (#11 in the ResourceShelf Real-Time Series), ResourceShelf (Aug 29) - flights and airports.

Farecast expanded to 55 US cities

Farecast.com Now Available From Over 55 Cities Nationwide PRNewswire via Marketwatch (Aug 21)

"Farecast.com, the first and only airfare prediction website, announced today that travelers can now get free airfare predictions from over 55 U.S. cities nationwide, including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago and Atlanta. Farecast.com will help airfare shoppers across the country save money by answering the question: should you buy now or buy later?"

Tools for Choosing Cheapest Time to Fly

Casting Net For Better Airfares Wired (Aug 18)

There are two flight comparison sites that help travellers choose the cheapest combination of route, dates, and length of stay.

Flyspy uses data from Northwest Airlines. It shows prices over the next 30 days - adjust the dates and the duration. This is still in alpha - the only city you can leave from is Minneapolis.

Farecast , a Seattle-based operation, will show changes in fare by time and day, and also predict changes in the fare (use Flexible Search to see this). Farecast is limited to departures from Seattle and Boston at present and flies only in the US. Data comes from ITA Software.

"Customers who buy through Farecast are redirected to the appropriate airline website, and the site also allows shoppers to compare prices by departure time, or view a map that displays cheap flights across the country."

The article also describes the revenue managements systems that airlines use that use several factors to set prices and adjust as seats are sold.

Travel Domain

New Travel Search Portal Makes World Debut; www.search.travel Delivers Authenticated Results, Business Wire via Marketwatch (Aug 15)

"Consumers now have a quick and easy way to find information about legitimate travel and tourism suppliers online with the introduction of .travel's new vertical search portal, http://www.search.travel ."

This looks like a good idea - travel service providers register in the travel domain. These include government tourist bureaus, hotels, travel operators - the full range. The web site supports parameter search on kinds of lodging, restaurants, transportation, cruises, destinations. Very promising.

Learn more about the domain at http://www.travel.travel/

Sites for Air Travellers

Search Tools for Air Travelers by Chris Sherman, SearchDay (Aug 2)

Chris Sherman has tips for air travellers - "These sites aren't travel search or agency sites that help you find and make bookings; rather, they're ancillary tools that can help you make better decisions, save time and so on."

Sites for Frequent Flyers

Airport Directories, Airline Abbreviations, Seating Guides, and More Travel Reference ResourceShelf (Jul 18) - Gary Price does a lot of travelling. These databases for checking flights, airlines and airports are likely very good.

One of them - seatguru.com - for plane configurations was Deryk King's, CEO of Direct Energy, "secret travel tip" in an interview (jul 19). "A website called seatguru.com that covers the seating arrangements of all major airlines with commentaries by people who travel a lot."" (Jul 19)

Yahoo Trip Planner

Yahoo! Packs Its Bags by Rachel Rosmarin, Forbes (Jul 9) -- Yahoo Trip Planner site is live and waiting for you to add your travelogue (and to send you ads).

"Yahoo! hopes to lure surfers to the site using Silicon Valley's favorite gambit of the moment--user-generated content, this time in the form of user-generated travelogues and photos. “I don't know about any premium brand being associated with a 100% user-generated content product,” says Jasper Malcolmson, director of Yahoo! Travel. “Advertisers tend to feel uncomfortable with user-generated content because it is unpredictable.”"

Best Travel Prices

New Players in Travel Search by Brian Smith, SearchDay (June 27) -- looks at two travel sites that might help make it easier to get best prices.

Farecast tries to predict airline prices. "Farecast has developed the latest travel search engine (similar to Kayak, Mobissimo, Sidestep and Farechase). With each search, all flight options are displayed on the search results page with links to book direct at airline websites as well as Orbitz."

FareCompare analyzes pricing data. "As opposed to the normal schedule driven approach, FareCompare is all about analyzing travel from a price driven perspective, allowing the flexible leisure traveler to get a better sense of when to book. "

Kayak.com for Deals

Review: Kayak best travel search engine, by ANICK JESDANUN, Associated Press via Silicon Valley (May 24)

Jesdanun tried several travel engines and liked Kayak.com best -- "Factoring that in, Kayak.com most often had the best fare - six times - while Yahoo came up best - or tied - five times. Mobissimo was on top four times, and SideStep Inc. tied for first once." ... "But Kayak is a good place to start, both for its deals and ease of use. Since it already searches Orbitz, you only need to perform separate checks at Expedia and Travelocity to see if either has special deals. And time permitting, try Yahoo and then Mobissimo just in case."

Activity Search at Travel Destinations

SideStep Launches Activity Search, by Brian Smith, SeachDay (May 2) -- Going somewhere? Want to know what activities (tours, entertainment etc) are available? Several travel search services have offered this - Expedia, Travelocity, but this review says SideStep is much better.

Andrew Goodman at Traffick.com tried it and found content wanting. In Search, "Truly Useful" Gets the Nod. (May 4)

Travel Search Engine Farechase

Yahoo's FareChase: The Stealth Disruptor? by Brian Smith, SearchDay (Apr 27)

FareChase has been a small player as a travel search engine, but with the new integration with Yahoo Search it is poised to become much better known and to bring much more business to travel search engines. The article describes the strengths of FareChase / Yahoo Travel -- "All the travel search engines have the same basic flight search functionality—sorting, filtering, amenities, etc. The power of FareChase comes from the integration of hotel search with other Yahoo! properties."

Yahoo Travel

Yahoo improves travel planning via search and maps, Eric Auchard, Reuters via Yahoo News (APr 11)

"Using Yahoo's central search site, consumers can receive instant airfare and hotel price comparisons, satellite overview maps and user reviews of restaurants and tourist destinations, features that previously existed in different corners of the Yahoo network or elsewhere across the Web."

A travel related search in Yahoo.com might bring up information from Yahoo Travel. It works for compare hotels in las vegas but bombs on Lisbon, Toronto, and Kauai. It's better on flights to toronto.

Yahoo's travel site - http://travel.yahoo.com/ - has the Yahoo Trip Planner, blogs for travel logs, and comparison shopping through Yahoo's own FareChase systemas well as the low-fare databases of CheapTickets and Orbitz.

Compare Hotel Prices

Search Party Launches New Hotel Price Search Engine -- "First Site to Compare Total Cost of Hotel Stay - Helps Online Travelers Easily Compare Nightly Rates, Taxes and Booking Fees, and Cancellation Policies", PRNewsire via Marketwatch (Apr 5)

" Search Party allows consumers to easily search and compare nightly room rates, taxes and booking fees, and cancellation policies for more than 40,000 U.S. hotels, across most major hotel brands and leading online travel sites, including Orbitz, Lodging.com, One Travel, Reserve Travel, LastMinuteTravel.com and many others."

Forbes' pick of travel sites

Top 13 Travel Sites, by Sophia Banay, Forbes.com via Wired (Apr 3) - Online travel planning is one of the largest categories in e-commerce. In 2005, 79 million people in the United States used the Internet to make travel plans. The top three services are Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity.

Forbes has rated thirteen online travel sites according to "aesthetic appeal, user friendliness and usefulness."

- Breezenet.com for car rentals at airports
- Concierge.com from CondeNast for articles
- FlyerTalk.com for the frequent point flyer
- Gridskipper.com, a urban travel guide
- Hotelchatter - hotel reviews
- IgoUgo.com - travel guides and journals
- Kayak.com - flight listings
- Mytripjournal.com - personal travel blog
- Priceline.com - for bidding on trips
- Seatguru.com - seating maps on airplanes
- SIte59.com - last minute bookings
- Travelzoo.com - cheap fares for the flexible
- Vijaydandapani.com - meant for industry professionals

BookingBuddy for Travel Deals

BookingBuddy.com to Deliver Great Travel Deals via RSS Feeds -- New Service Expands Reach and Provides Further Convenience for Users -- PRNewswire via Marketwatch (Mar 7)

BookingBuddy is a comparison travel shopper. Subscribers can get an RSS feed that brings together great deals from hundreds of travel partners.

""BookingBuddy's RSS feeds are useful for the average Internet user who regularly visits multiple travel sites in search of great travel deals," said Krista Pappas, senior vice president of Smarter Living, Inc., parent company of BookingBuddy. "Now, BookingBuddy visitors can simply click on the RSS link on the site and have travel deals directly sent to them. By viewing the feeds through an RSS reader, like My Yahoo!, Bloglines and Feedster, travelers eliminate the need to search multiple sites for the best deal. "

There are two feeds at present: Top Travel deals for flights, hotels, vacation packages; and Domestic Air (where domestic likely means the United States).

BookingBuddy does have travel information for Canadians - airport listings, flights, hotels.

Kayak Trip Ideas

Kayak.com Becomes First Travel Site to Combine User-Generated Content With Fare Availability -- With One Click, Consumers Can Create and Share 'Trip Ideas' and Then Easily Search for Relevant Flights, PR Newswire via Marketwatch (Mar 2)

Kayak.com launched " "Trip Ideas", a community-based forum that encourages users to create and share travel destination "wish lists" with other users">

Air Travel Tips

Stuck in the middle with who? by Rafe Needleman, CNet (Feb 15) -- Check out the plane before you book your ticket, Needleman describes several web sites that will give you the information you need.

+ Seatguru.com helps with seating

+ AirLiners has pictures.

+ Air Introductions is about social networking while flying

Airfare in the US

Great if you need a flight in the United States - New Airfare Search Engine on Google Maps - Searches multiple airports and destinations simultaneously for the ultimate lowest fare to the top 50 U.S. destinations Where can I go, and what's the cheapest way to get there?, PRNewswire via Marketwatch (Feb 9)

"Click on "My Airport Map" on http://www.farecompare.com, and a map of the U.S. displays the lowest fares from both major and regional airports nearest you to the top 50 destinations across the country. To get from New York to Cincinnati, you can fly American Airlines for $299*. Or, you can fly from Hartford, CT to Columbus, OH on Northwest Airlines for just $118. The map shows all these options in an easily readable format."

RSS feeds for travel info

There's a Popular New Code for Deals: RSS by Bob Tedeschi, New York Times (Jan 26) - Use a personalized page at Yahoo, MSN, or Google to track information on deals from travel sites such as Orbitz, Travelocity, Sidestep, Kayak, and others. The information comes as an RSS feed.

Fare watcher at Kayak

Kayak.com Becomes First Meta-Search Site to Launch Fare Watch and Instant Messenger Functionality PRNewswire via Yahoo (January 26)

Kayak.com introduced Fare Watch and KayakBot. Kayak.com's Fare Watch. Users can "track an unlimited number of trip itineraries and receive email notification when the fare meets or beats a traveler's specified price. KayakBot provides travelers with flight, hotel, rental car and flight status search capabilities from the convenience of AOL Instant Messenger".

Find Flights Through Dohop

Dohop Search Engine Compares 667 Airlines at ResearchBuzz (Jan 2) -- calls the DoHop search engine for best flights and connections as "unsettling smooth" and intelligent.

Selecting travel points and dates is very easy, and the search across 667 airlines is fast, but it is slow to show price (in fact, I stopped waiting.) There is a forum for reporting bugs and making suggestions.

Travel Research

Pack Your Blogs by Ivor Tossell, Globe Technology (Jan 4) - names five ways for planning travel over the Internet.

+ Trip Advisor - user testimonials - a great way to find out what others thought of hotels and places.
+ Travel weblogs - Real Travel (realtravel.com) and TravelPod (travelpod.com)
+ WikiTravel where you can add and edit pages or just read others people's.
+ Maps of course, especially Google Earth. Article also recommends Wayfaring where you can see mashups people have done on places; for example, the Seattle Dumpster Diving Guide. Nearly all of the maps are for places in the US.
+ Virtual travel agencies at Yahoo and Expedia where you can plan your trip.

No single one-stop travel site is best

Consumer Reports: Don't Trust Any Single Travel Search Engine By Antone Gonsalves, TechNews (Dec 21) Study looked at 11 sites and found that none was a good all round resource. Sites included AOL Pinpoint Travel, BookingBuddy, Cheapflights, ITA Software, Kayak, Mobissimo, Pricegrabber, QIXO, SideStep, Travelzoo and Yahoo FareChase.

See Consumer Reports WebWatch press release for link to the report.

AOL and Yahoo into Travel

The Online Travel Landscape Is Getting Crowded by Bob Tedeschi, New York Times (Nov

Yahoo and AOL are building up their travel services, and Google may do the same.

"The latest evidence came late last month when Yahoo began testing new features in its travel section. The most noteworthy, Mr. Harteveldt said, was Yahoo's Trip Planner tool, which allows people to create, store and print virtual trip folders and post them in a public database for others to view. Among other things, travelers may post articles, hotel and restaurant picks and reviews - from Yahoo or outside Web sites - and photos from their own files or from those on Yahoo's online picture-sharing service, Flickr."

While Yahoo has Trip Planner and Farechase, AOL offers PinPointTravel.com (based on Kayak.com) and the AOL CityGuides for the US.

Trains and Buses in Europe

Travel Databases for Europe: Lots of Trains and Some Planes SEW Blog (Oct 17) - recommends Die Bahn for finding train and bus schedules in Europe. Describes how to use it and has other tips.

Checking Flights

Accessing Flight Info on the Web SEW Blog (Oct 28) Yahoo, Google, and Ask Jeeves can all give the status of flights in the US and Canada, but other sites listed in this blog entry can give much more such as FlightView which shows a map and the plane's location.

Yahoo Trip Planner

Plan a Trip in a Single Search with Yahoo! Travel Trip Planner Yahoo Blog (Oct 26) - Yahoo Travel has a new tool for people with the travel bug. Trip Planner helps you do the research for hotels, restaurants, and entertainment and then save the file. I don't think it will cut into Fodor's business - you still need to do the research for tourist attractions, and it's not clear how to look for best prices (or if you can).

Maporama Travel Itineraries

MAPORAMA INTERNATIONAL UNVEILS ITS NEW ITINERARY ENGINE AND ITS EXCLUSIVE FUNCTIONALITIES (Oct 20) - Maporama, an excellent services for maps and directions, has announced a "new itinerary engine". "This new itinerary engine, automatically available on the entire base of data servers of Maporama International, is available for the totality of Maporama International’s customers and for the entire range of products and services of Maporama International." ... "The principle of the itinerary engine is simple: from a departure address and an arrival address, or from longitude/latitude coordinates, Maporama International’s servers calculate an optimized itinerary, respecting several constraints: the shortest or the more rapid itinerary, a pedestrian or car itinerary, a multimodal itinerary…"

Travel Picks

A sampling of new travel Web sites by Darren M. Green, Chicago Tribune (registration) (Oct 16)

Picks were:

+ Budget Travel Online www.budgettravelonline.com from Frommer
+ Kayak Www.kayak.com has car-rental search.
+ Marriott Golf's "Rounds and Rooms" online golf resort and tee time reservation system
+ Offical travel guide Www.officialtravelguide.com - tends to link to "convention-and-visitor-bureau Web site for that location"
+ Google Earth for flying virtually everywhere.

The Next Bus

Real-Time Transportation Finders by Gary Price, SearchDay (Aug 8) - Mainly features NextBus.com as a way to find out when the next bus will arrive in some states in the US. NextBus has real-time maps.

But there is also MyBus.org for King County / Seattle, Washington and also Trimet for Portland, Oregon.

Travel Search Tips

Online Travel: Smarter Search Options "Travel sites can help you snag a great deal. Just don't get taken for a ride." by Anne Kandra, PC WOrld (Aug 2005) - recommends starting with the big three - Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity because they are good a delivering targeted results.

Two Travel Sites

Péter's Digital Reference Shelf for July 2005 reviews Lonely Planet Online and SideStep.

Lonely Planet is a clear favourite - it has won 6 Webby awards over the years. "The site is well-designed in its simplicity", good for browsing and searching.

SideStep is a metasearch engine for deals. Peter Jasco found it fairly good at finding flights globally and at good rates. It wasn't as impressive for hotels. Concluded that "SideStep is an appealing tool for finding better travel deals."

Health Info for Travellers

Health Information for International Travel - The "Yellow Book" - prepared by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The Yellow Book is published every two years by CDC as a reference for those who advise international travelers of health risks. The Yellow Book is written primarily for health care providers, although others might find it useful."

You can build a custom report from the content that is online. See the very wide choice in topics at this page for Customize the Yellow Book.

Thomson Local for the UK

Planning a trip to the UK? Thomsonlocal.com might be handy. It's a local search engine for the UK: has leisure, travel, motoring, shopping.

Reviewed at NetImperative - New look for ThomsonLocal.com (June 17)

Hand Picked Sites

Always fun to see other people's picks of useful sites especially if they are about travel or amusement or tips for using the Internet. Here is Sree Sreenivasan's list at Poynter Online - New to Me, Tracking useful sites. He keeps a blog with new items too at SreeTips.

Best of his list for me were:

30 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do on the Internet - The Web is learning new tricks every day. These surprising sites and services will help you solve problems and save time--and one might even make you a star. PCWorld (May 2005)

FlightArrivals.com with arrival and departure information for all commercial airline flights in Canada and the United States. For U.S. airports there is also airport status for weather and traffic management reports.

Tourism New Brunswick

Tourism Web site juiced for travel rush By: Brian Eaton, IT World Canada (14 Jun 2005)

"A complete overhaul of New Brunswick’s Department of Tourism and Parks Web site is expected to attract visitors to the site – and the province."

Let's help them out - Tourism New Brunswick is at http://www.tourismnewbrunswick.ca/

Great opening paragraph -- "Incredible Natural Wonders... Sun-Soaked Beaches... a unique mosaic Culture... an unforgettable Authentic Experience... and best of all, a distinctive four-season travel destination with real value. Welcome to the Wonder of New Brunswick!".

Love the concept of "four-season travel".

London Guide

Navigating London By Chris Sherman, SearchDay (May 31) - Chris Sherman has created a wonderful guide to London, England with maps, planners, public transit.

Kayak through About.com

About.com and Kayak.com Announce Multiyear Travel Search Agreement - About.com Visitors to Benefit From Kayak.com's Comprehensive Travel Inventory - PRNewswire via CBS Marketwatch [registration] (May 26)

"Under the agreement, Kayak.com will provide easy access to its innovative travel search engine to visitors to the About.com Travel and Cities and Towns channels. More than 22 million consumers visit About.com each month to access 23 content channels"

Kayak.com is a comparison travel shopping site "created by co-founders of Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity".

About.com has 475 guides to topics across 23 channels. Information is geared to consumer interests.

No evidence of the agreement at About.com at the moment but presumably it will become easier to search for flights and accommodation directly from an About.com travel guide.

Anti-jetlag diet

What every traveller needs - a diet that fights jet lag. Get yours at http://www.antijetlagdiet.com/. Has many FAQs.

Travel Plans

Making Travel Plans - The Best Sites for Research and Reservations - by Roberta Roberti, LinkUp Digital (May 2) - Four starting points for researching a destination (TripAdvisor is one), and several services for doing the booking.

Kayak for Travel

Travel Site Review: Kayak.com - by Patricia Robertson, Globe and Mail (Apr 20) -- Kayak.com does flights, hotels, and cars.

"While this isn't the most innovative player in on-line travel, it does offer a dizzying array of flights and hotel options through a well-crafted, easy-to-use search engine. Just watch out for pricing in U.S. dollars."

Travel Search Engines

Travel search engines: New routes to deals -- Consumer Reports.org (March 2005) -- reports on two new travel search engines, Kayak and Mobissimo as well as Sidestep and compared to Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity.

Did save money with the three search engines compared to the "big three" but found there were some drawbacks. Concluded -- "Travel search engines are no doubt a great new tool for bargain-hunters. For now, the best way to use the sites is to add them to your comparison-shopping mix."

Incredible Virtual Montreal

MadeinMTL is an incredible tourist site about the City of Montreal. This is a virtual guide that is absolutely gorgeous in its execution with maps, text, slide shows, itinerary builders, videos. Put aside 30 minutes or so to enjoy the site and the subject. Use the We Recommend to get started and select one of the Activities. For example, under Fresh Air there is The Alleys of Miles End, a fascinating tour that includes a visit to a bagel shop.

See this description of the award winning site: A visit to a virtual Montreal By Jim Regan | csmonitor.com (Mar 28)

Not to be missed.

Yahoo Travel Canada

When Did This Happen? Yahoo Knows Where Koreatown Is... ...in Toronto. (Mar 24) -- Andrew Goodman has discovered that Yahoo Travel knows Toronto - it even knows restaurants in neighbourhoods.

Yahoo has other Canadian places -- see Yahoo Travel - Canada

Comparing US Travel Sites

Major Travel Sites Face Credibility Crunch -- An Examination of Booking First-Class Tickets Online -- a report prepared by Consumer Reports WebWatch (Mar 1) -- WebWatch tested six sites for US travel: Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, and the Web sites of American Airlines, Continental Airlines and Delta Airlines. The testers noted that "fare jumping" happened frequently. Some services missing or incorrect labeling information for the airlines’ classes of service.

Pinpoint Travel

AOL Launches Pinpoint Travel By Chris Sherman, SearchDay (Mar 21) -- Pinpoint Travel is a new meta travel engine from AOL and is powered by Kayak. It searches online travel agencies and travel provider sites, "including over 100 web sites, 550 airlines and 85,000 hotels" - but only for travel in the United States.

"Pinpoint Travel currently searches for flights and hotels in the continental U.S., but the company plans to aggressively expand both the number of travel products and locations searched over the coming months, offering searches for cars, cruises and ultimately packages that combine the best deals from multiple providers."

Tours.com - A True Travel Portal

Tours.com helps you search for tours and vacations. Select a destination and the type of travel - anything from adventure to yacht charters - to get a list of tour operators.

Other search tools cover transportation by water (barges, yachts, ferries, cruises), and rail. There are destination guides, travel guides (under maps), lists of online booking services (Kayak, Expedia etc), and visitor's bureaus and loads more. International and Canadian coverage is very good, although the travel agents and touring companies are mainly U.S operators and services such as TicketMaster tend to be for events in the U.S.

Internet Travel Search Engine Tours.com Now Offers Worldwide Travel Agent Search, Capabilities Press release (Feb 15)

Kayak.com

Kayak.com Launches Consumer Online Travel Site; Company Announces New Content, Features, and Distribution Partner; Plus, Kayak.com to Award Winter Getaways for Registered Users Business Wire (Feb 7)

From the press release -- "Kayak.com is the first travel search engine to integrate user-created reviews and ratings and other relevant travel information with real-time prices and availability. The site accesses over 100 online travel sites with just one click, providing prices and itineraries for more than 550 airlines and 85,000 hotels."

As with any of these travel tools, you need to know a fair amount about airlines and hotels to know whether the travel search engine is finding the best combinations. I did a simple flight search from one city to another knowing that there are non-stop flights. Kayak didn't show them.

Maporama Covers France

Planning a trip to France? Take Maporama on your PDA or cell phone. Maporama now covers 100% of roads in France. "100% of the French road network is now covered with all criteria necessary for navigation (name and types of roads, building number, points of interest etc.) for the 36.500 cities and villages."

NEW FULLY ATTRIBUTED COVERAGE OF 100% OF THE FRENCH ROAD NETWORK! Press Release (Jan 25)

Saand.com

SAAND.COM By JUDITH PEREIRA, Globe Technology (Jan 22) - reviews Saand.com, a search engine for finding accommodation in places with sun and sand - Caribbean, Hawaii, and Latin America. Has many search options but needs more properties. Hawaii is limited to a few choices on the Big Island. Caribbean has only 6 islands - no Barbados, no St Lucia!

Travelocity Adds Features

Travelocity has created a new tool set for travellers looking for deals on flights - Flight Navigator -- " Flight Navigator gives consumers unheard-of-until-now information such as: fare and seat availability, flight and fare details/offers, as well as numerous options for saving money by comparing dates and airports - all in addition to Travelocity's already great flight deals." Features seem to be available at travelocity.ca also. However, never trust just one flight finder - Travelocity may not list all the flights available or show the best prices.

Press release has one of the longest titles ever written -- Travelocity's Flight Navigator Guides Travelers to Information Never Before Offered Online; Industry-First Tools from Number of Seats Left to Fare Notes Give Travelers More Control During Their Flight Shopping and Buying Experience CBS Marketwatch [registration] (Jan 24)

TravelOffers.ca for Canadians

Hoping for some time in the sun this March break? Canadians have a new tool to use to find best travel offers in TravelOffers.ca . It looks for "the best deals on flights, vacations, and other travel products from various providers and we present them through an unbiased guide of amazing travel specials". Looks pretty good for picking up airline seat sales and vacation packages. There is a newsletter featuring the top deals. If you like it, tell your friends.

Travel Search Engines

Upstarts Try to Make Name in Online Travel by MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP via Yahoo News (Nov 27) - Travel taking off on the Internet. Forrester Research estimates "that 29.4 million U.S. households will use the Internet to book travel in this calendar year, spending $53 billion in the process". Expedia, Travelocity and Orvitz have 16% of online traffic. But there are other "travel aggregators" such as Mobissimo, SideStep, Cheapflights, Qixo (charges subscribers to use its service), Kayak and Farechase (now owned by Yahoo).

Travel Search Engines

A Hitwise report found that the big travel engine sites aren't as well used as we might think.

"Highly Hyped But Still Grounded: Travel Search Engines

Despite recent press coverage, several of the largest travel search engines - including www.sidestep.com, www.mobissimo.com, yahoo.farechase.com, www.cheapflights.com, www.qixo.com, and www.farechase.com - only accounted for 0.45 percent of total visits to the travel category in October 2004."

Consumer WebWatch Report on Travel Services

A Cross-Border Examination of 20 Travel Web Sites Selling International Airline Tickets in the United States and Six Western European Countries Research Report from Consumer WebWatch (Nov 12)

Of interest:

- Expedia and Travelocity country versions aren't all the same - they have their own inventory of flights and deals.
- Americans might get better deals using a European travel site.
- Many people have experienced "fare jumping" at Travelocity, Orvitz, and Expedia during the search / booking process.

Travel Services ONline

Search engines get more specifics by Laura Bly, Virtual Voyager. USA Today (Nov 19) One in four travellers feels overwhelmed by travel information on the web according to Forrester Research. What will we all do with the plethora now? New entrants - Kayak, Yahoo FareChase, Mobissimo.

"SideStep, Kayak, Mobissimo and Yahoo's FareChase rely on technology to gather prices from multiple sources and display the results simultaneously. Another crop of competitors, including Smarter Living's BookingBuddy, Travelzoo .com's SuperSearch, TripAdvisor's QuickCheck and OneTime .com, require travelers to do more of the work by choosing which sites they want to search, then scrolling through the results on the providers' own sites."

But do you really get good deals?

Article lists pros and cons of 7 services.

Chasing Travel Prices

Chasing The Travel-Search Rainbow By Erin Joyce, Internetnews.com (Sept 29) The Web is getting crowded with travel sites. Article mentions several travel sites that look for best prices including Yahoo's FareChase.

FareChase

FareChase is Yahoo's new travel search engine, just released in beta. Mind, it won't work with Netscape or Mozilla - must have IE and even that is problematic. It has options for searching for flights, hotel rooms (for stays of less than 30 days), and car rentals. It is said to search 150 travel web sites.

Yahoo Tests Travel Search Engine by Matt Hicks. eWeek (Sep 7) Comments that FareChase has not been well loved by the travel providers. Will Yahoo gain their trust?

Wait times at US airports

Transportation Security Administration in the United States keeps track of wait times at security checkpoints at US airports. TSA Wait Times ( http://waittime.tsa.dhs.gov/index.html ). Select airport, day of departure and time of flight to find out the average wait times. Can link to particular airport to get information on current conditions. (mentioned in FITA's Really Useful Sites )

Loyalty low for Travel sites

Study: Consumer loyalty evades travel sites CNet (Aug 25) "Travelers who shop online don't expect airline and hospitality companies to provide "best deals" on their own, and they check an average of 2.5 sources before settling on a buy, according to a new study from Jupiter Research. "

Yahoo adding to travel

Yahoo buys travel company By Stefanie Olsen CNET News.com (Aug 6) - Yahoo bought FareChase, a New York online travel company. "With FareChase, which provides tools for consumers and travel agents to find information on hotels, cars and flights, Yahoo will be able to build more robust consumer travel services without tapping third parties." Yahoo Travel itself is a repackaging of Travelocity.

Travel and Leisure

Travel and Leisure site is companion to the print magazine and part of the American Express Publishing group. It has just published its list of the World's Best in hotels, destinations, and transportation (cruise ships, rental cars, airlines). Quebec City, Montreal, Vancouver and Victoria made it to the list of top 10 cities in North America (no Toronto). There are lots of lists for around the world.

TravelZoo Super Search

TravelZoo Super Search is an all-in-one type of tool for finding flights and hotels. Enter the place and dates and TravelZoo will recommend a number of sites for you to search - one by one. It's very much geared to travel in the United States.

Reviewed in ResearchBuzz -- Travelzoo Launches Travel Meta-Search (July 13)

Restaurant Reviews - USA

Click and Eat on the Road By BOB TEDESCHI New York Times (May 23)

Make dinner reservations over the Internet in restaurants across the United States or at least get a review of the restaurant. This articles mentions several web sites:

- "OpenTable.com, a San Francisco-based Web site that offers free reservations at more than 1,800 restaurants in roughly 50 American cities."

- RestaurantRow.com - but you must be a paying member.

- Zagat.com has reviews for 30,000 places in 68 cities. Also Gayot.com.

- addyourown.com - reviews by amateurs

- CitySearch.com has information about restaurants and entertainment in 16 cities and partial coverage in another 23.

RailEurope.com

Raileurope.com puts travellers on right track By PETER NOWAK Globe and Mail Update (May 15, 2004) RailEurope.com -- "The site exists primarily to sell rail passes, which is a good thing if you're planning to see more than one city. But it also doubles as an excellent research resource, with a comprehensive database of routes and schedules."

Destination Guides

New York Times has destination guides to all parts of the world that includes access to feature articles, news, deals and discounts. weather and more. NYT Travel - look for Destinations.

Travel sites vs human agents

Have Agent, Will Travel by Rod Nordland. Newsweek - says "the Internet is still a long way from replacing a good, smart travel agent". Expertise is essential on complex itineraries - and personal relationships do count.

Airplane seats

Website Review: Seatguru.com By ADAM BISBY Globe and Mail Update (March 12) SeatGuru.com helps you pick the best seat on the airplane - as long as it's a US carrier.

SideStep for discounts

SideStep Launches New Hotel Search Service PR Newswire via CBS Marketwatch (March 9) - "SideStep, Inc. (www.sidestep.com), the travel search engine, today introduced SideStep Hotels (www.sidestephotels.com), a new Web-based version of its popular hotel search offering." Sidestep doesn't have the range of offerings Expedia and Travelocity have, but reviewers like it. (See Design Your Own Discount Getaway at SideStep.) The new SideStepHotels is shakey - can recognize non-US cities but can't find listings. Give it 2 or 3 weeks to clear away technical problems.

Family Travel

REVIEW: Family travel websites By ADAM BISBY. Globe Technology (March 9) - describes five sites that can help in planning the family vacation.

Best Hotels

"Best Hotels on the Web 2003" just released by TripAdvisor (Feb 26, 2004) -- "TripAdvisor, the leading travel research site, announced today the results of a year-long study of the most popular hotels on the web for 2003. Using its Hotel Popularity Index, TripAdvisor's "Best Hotels on the Web - 2003" award ranks the top hotel in major cities worldwide, based on the quantity and quality of information found on the web for more than 100,000 hotels in over 14,000 cities." See Best Hotels on the Web 2003

Tourism Sites

Tourism Offices Get Web Savvy By BOB TEDESCHI. NY Times (Feb 22) -- Forget the colour brochures. Tourism bureaus are on the Web. Start with the Tourism Offices Worldwide Directory published by Brian Lucas in Winnipeg. Many countries will have pages written for the American tourist.

Picking Seats on Planes

Online advisors help assess your air-travel options By Brad Foss, Associated Press in USA Today (Feb 3) - "Travel experts recommend two easy-to-use Web sites, seatguru.com and seatexpert.com, for details about the best and worst seats, and some in between, on every type of aircraft flown by large carriers. "

Real Time Flight Information

Checking the Flight Line By Alan Cohen PC Magazine (Nov 19) "FlightView system provides live status reports on the progress of 5,000 flights an hour." Gary Price at Resourceshelf also recommends FlightTracker at CheapTickets.

Last Minute

New York Times has some tips for people who decide at the last minute to take a holiday.

Most Popular Travel Vehicle: a Whim by Bart Estabrook. New York Times (Nov 30)

Sites mentioned were --

"Site59.com, 11thHourVacations.com, Hotwire.com and LastMinuteTravel.com are among the Internet sites that appeal to vacationers who decide to get away on the spur of the moment. Even the carriage-trade tour company Abercrombie & Kent (www.abercrombiekent.com) has recently started a Signature series of vacations designed for spontaneous journeys to places like the Galapagos, China and Botswana."

Cruises

Bob Tedeschi at the New York Times covers cruises in Web Research, Stem to Stern (Sept 28). He recommends CruiseCritic.com as a source of information (easy to find a cruise) and for its impartial reviews and feedback. Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz offer cruises and information about them as well - Expedia and Travelocity include virtual tours. There are more - all with cruise in the domain name -- cruise.com, cruise411.com, cruiseonly.com, icruise.com.

Travel Sites

Which Travel Site Is Best? by Christina Valhouli. Forbes.com -- reports on online travel industry and comments on 10 travel web sites. Click through a description of each with pros and cons working from 10 to 1. Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity took the top 3 spots.