The Internet gives travellers everything they need to plan and book a trip, whether it be a family vacation, a luxury cruise, a birdwatching experience in Costa Rica or simply a quick weekend getaway. Choosing the "best" travel website comes down to a personal decision and depends on the traveller's needs, budget and penchant for exploration. Here are five travel websites that should fulfill the unique needs of five types of travelers.
Lonely Planet offers a travel guide and a website, and both feature global destinations. Lonely Planet caters to all tourists and travelers but historically, its appeal has been to youth and eco-conscious travelers. The site is packed with in-depth information about various locales in a National Geographic-style format with photos and localized features. The website features a step-by-step Trip Planner and booking to spots all over the world. Accommodations includes hostels and travel info includes volunteer trips such as teaching English overseas. This is one of the better-designed travel sites out there, making online navigation a breeze.
Travelocity has been in operation since 1996 and is an all-in-one travel site. In addition to package deals, Travelocity offers a "Low Price Guarantee" and a "Customer Bill of Rights" to users. This is a busy site and a challenge to negotiate. Updated Travel Info alerts, a multitude of special offers and searches are all included. Enter your departure and destination, dates of travel, and booking desires (flight, hotel, car) and Travelocity yields pages of results. Bookings can be made months in advance. Last minute deals, cruises and green travel are also available.
In addition to booking features, TripAdvisor offers advice and reviews from travelers, making this information its special focus. Its "Rants & Raves" column gives the lowdown on hotels and vacation spots by individuals who have experienced them firsthand. TripAdvisor is heavy on the information end of travel but website visitors can book flights and reserve accommodations. A newsletter, a list of partner sites like BookingBuddy and SeatGuru along with a Top Ten lists are all features of this website.
Promoting itself as "The local guide for the global traveller," WhatsonWhen needs to be included in this list for its healthy event listings for cities and countries around the world. WhatsonWhen has a drop down list of ten event categories, including Weird & Wonderful, Arts, Gay & Lesbian, Science and Knowledge, Sports & Outdoor and Kids & Family. Pick a time frame and find out what's happening where. No bookings here - just loads of great planning information.
Make Like Miles - This game-style website won the 2008 Best Travel Web Site Award from the Web Marketing Association. While not an actual travel site, Make Like Miles is a fun, interactive site which provides information on collecting reward miles through the Canadian Airmiles Reward Miles program. Users play a game similar to Concentration to win extra reward miles for merchandise and travel.