Travel

#10 Travel Web Sites Worth Bookmarking - The New York Times

By Seth Kugel October 9, 2012 6:16 pm October 9, 2012 6:16 pm

People managed to travel quite well before the Internet came along, although how they did it is now shrouded in mystery. There are so many Web sites to help you plan trips and book trips and fantasize about trips and (best of all) save money on trips that the difficulty is not finding a site that will help you but choosing from among the bounty.

It’s been a while since I updated the bookmarks you’ll find next to the articles on the Frugal Traveler blog page, so I’ve decided to add a bunch more, ranging from the indispensable to the just-for-fun. Here is a selection of 10 that you should consider bookmarking.

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The result may not be perfect, but it sure is helpful if you’re obsessed with one dish or simply like the very rational idea of determining where you’ll eat by the meal you want rather than by the chef who will cook it or the neighborhood it’s cooked in. Go ahead, try it with a dish you like in a city you know. Sure, you may not specifically agree with its “choices” for, say, the best cookie in New York City — 1. Oatmeal raisin from Levain; 2. Chocolate chip from Jacques Torres; 3. Macaroon from the Meatball Shop — but you have to admit, not bad for a computer.

Let’s say you’re somewhere in Europe (or planning to be), and you want to see where you can go from there for very low cost. You plug in your approximate date of departure, about how many days you want to stay, and voilà: there’s a list of the cheapest flights available. (Not all fees are included — you won’t find out the exact cost until you go to the airlines’ Web sites to book.)

When I tested the site, pretending to be driven insane by foggy, rainy London and wanting to go anywhere cheaply for a long weekend two weeks ahead, I ended up with a 38-euro (or $48) round trip on Ryanair to Nîmes in the south of France. When I actually went to Ryanair to book, the cost was £35 (or $55), including fees, and I assume the final cost (with a luggage charge, perhaps) might be a bit more. But still, a good deal.

I’m generally dubious of sites that claim they can plan your trip for you. But for a quick and dirty agenda with a few useful extras, stay.com is not bad at all.

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Here’s what you do: Choose one of more than 100 destinations, from Aix-en-Provence to Marrakesh to Lake Tahoe. Then go through their listings of top attractions, museums, shopping, restaurants and the like, clicking on whatever appeals to you. Those choices magically turn into a personalized itinerary that you can either turn into a pdf file and print or, better yet, send to your smartphone, where with the Stay.com app you can use it — and the city map that comes with it — even when you’re offline (meaning no international roaming charges).

And you’re not limited to the places you’ve initially chosen: you can add from their lists (and, theoretically, from your friends’ suggestions) on the run as well. Sure, guidebook apps might be more in depth, but stay.com is free and easy.