Travel

We offer you a selection of links and reviews for the best travel websites the internet as to offer, use it every time you need to book hotels online and compare prices and special deals

Another year of innovation and refinement as travel websites continue to become more niche, focussed and useful

It is not a definitive list so sorry if your favourite site is not included.

But it is a recognition of sites that have shown real innovation during and which have launched or improved their offerings to become truly worthy of being added to a favourites list.

We still invite your comments and other recommendations

PLANNING TRAVEL

Tripit.com - Pedantic travel planners will love this site, which customises a travel itinerary and has some useful tools - read the review

Yapta.com - A great tool for travel bargain hunters, although a bit too much of a US bias - read the review

Kayak.co.uk - A general travel but natty US site that has launched here - with a new hotel review facility - read the review

Door2tour.com - An unglamorous subject, but this is a flashy website selling coach trips - read the review

Foundem.com - The latest contender to be the Holy Grail of flight websites is put through its paces - read the review

Welove2ski.com - A new kid on the wintersports scene this winter, but we know the Ed and he knows his snow

Whydontyou.com - An elite travel agency has launched a holidays website for the non-members - read the review

Blacktomato.co.uk - From nowhere to everyone's favourite top-breaks-with-ideas-and-style site

Ze-bus.com - A shocking pink website with a good dose of Gallic humour, which will appeal to backpackers and surfers in France - read the review

Travelsupermarket.co.uk - The goliath of travel added a new function, a B B search - read the review

STATravelTools - A clock that counts down to your holiday is among the free widgets to add to your blog or desktop with this site - read the review

NETWORKING

Trustedplaces.com - A site that learns your tastes and recommends hotels and restaurants - read the review

TripAdvisor Traveller Network - The hotel review site dabbles with social networking. Ginny McGrath is impressed - read the review

Iloho.com - A travel community website that's launching airline reviews - read the review

Mylifeoftravel.com - Another networking site in travel but one that shows big promise. And it's UK-based too

Bringsome.com - Exotic tastes and homesick cravings are catered for with this community 'shop and swap' site - read the review

Realtravel.com - If you like to meticulously plan and record your journeys, this is an attractive and free place to do it

Wayn.com - The world s biggest travel community, with more than 8m members, this was its big year to date

MORE MULTIMEDIA

Talkshoe.com - If you've got the time to sift through the garbage, there's some gems among these travel podcasts - read the review

Travelistic.com - A site dedicated to hosting travel videos is a good place to start your trip planning - read the review

Foulerton.com - A minnow in the travel blogosphere, but a good example of how it should be done - read the review

Cruisebruise.com - Misadventures on the high seas with this alternative cruising website - read the review

Travolution.blogspot.com - the most useful list of travel-related blogs around?

EXTRAS

Multimap.co.uk - Mark Frary praises the new look site, with new functions that are 'a leap forward' - read the review

Excess4carhire.com - A site that makes car hire charges more transparent can only be good news - read the review

Simplyparking.com - Another comparison site, and this one does what it says on the tin, comparing airport parking prices with reviews

Vroomvroomvroom.co.uk - good new site comparing car rental prices

TravelTurtle - A new travel health website that covers jabs, bugs and drugs - read the review

SLEEP AND SHOP

Itravelishop - An excellent shopping guide and hotel review site we use regularly

I-escape.com - One of the original style hotel sites goes from strength to strength, adding an Argentina section this winter

First-floor.it - A minnow of a site about Italian B Bs, but we're won over by its cute design and fun, informative chat - read the review

Gridskipper.com - an excellent urban travel site. Probably the best city style guide on the web

Gayfriendlyrooms.com - There's a few teething troubles with this young site, but the idea is sound - read the review

Haystack.lonelyplanet.com - Ginny McGrath finds some help with that eternal search for the right hotel - read the review

Hostelz.com - Views of your fellow travellers of hostels on this handy, simple and effective site. Very useful

YHA.org.uk - A new site in 2007 for this hugely growing sector of travel, youth hostels

BabyFriendlyBoltholes - There are other family travel advice sites but this was the freshest and most useful to emerge in 2007

Walesinstyle.com - A slick and intuitive site which has everything to plan a chic weekend break in Wales - read the review

FUN

About.com/travel - Ginny McGrath recommends an encyclopedic site that's highly addictive - read the review

Coolhunter.com - Eye candy, great fun, stunning images - recent features have been on a Swiss ski chalet and best outdoor hotel pools

Google Maps - A new feature offers street level views of US cities and is causing a stir among bloggers - read the review

Planyourinvasion.co.uk - An attractive design, and a site that backs up style with substance - read the review

Heritagepubs.org.uk - A passionate listing of the country's finest historic pubs - read the review

Passportstamp.com - A bit of fun, but be warned, this site can get very competitive - read the review

AND SITES TO WATCH IN 2008

WorldReviewer.com - Another social networking site in travel which claims it will have 100 experts. Promising start

CruiseCritic.co.uk - The US-site site has spun off a British version and is looking for an editor. Bright prospects

Travelmag.co.uk - There will be a host of travel writing sites launching in 2008. This, from Jack Barker, is one of them 49. Travelintelligence.net - The travel writing, hotel review and booking site has a new editor and is about to get a huge facelift

Gowander.com - Just launched: a new social networking site from one of the best independent travel magazines in the UK

For airfare, lodging and car rentals, we identify which links are best for three different types of traveler. So whether you're pressed for time, looking for the best deal or traveling internationally, you'll find a site to fit your needs. We also identify the best sources to find bargains on cruises and vacation packages.

Airfares

TIME-PRESSED TRAVELERKayak.com fetches fares (plus hotel rates and other travel products, if you ask) from more than 140 sources. Click on the best deal, and Kayak.com will send you to a site where you can buy the ticket. If your itinerary is flexible, you can boost your chances of finding a deal by searching for dates up to three days before and after your ideal travel dates. (One flaw: While Kayak.com offers international flights, we've found other sites offer better international selections.)

Fares for Southwest and ATA aren't shown on Kayak.com and most other Web sites. But at Southwest.com. you can check fares for both Southwest and its partner airline ATA. Use this site as a backstop search if Kayak.com doesn't return a low fare.

BEST-DEAL TRAVELERFarecast.com predicts whether fares on most domestic routes will go up or down. Enter your itinerary and the site will say if you should buy your ticket now -- or if an even better fare is probably on the way. To make its forecasts, the site analyzes past fare trends in airline databases and other factors. Farecast also offers predictions for hotel rates in 30 cities.

From time to time, airlines will offer unbelievably low fares on selected flights or itineraries. These "fire sale" fares, "blooper fares" and "price war" fares are unpredictable. In our experience, Airfare Watchdog posts these bargains faster than other Web sites. To take advantage of these time-sensitive flukes, you must book them right away. This site specializes in deals for flights departing from hundreds of cities and includes fares from Southwest, JetBlue and small airlines you may never have heard of.

INTERNATIONAL TRAVELERLowesTravel.com offers international tickets on more than 60 airlines and generally a broader selection than rival sites. (The site also offers rental cars and hotel reservations.)

When flying overseas, you'll be sitting in your airline seat for an extended time. Make sure you pick the best seat by reading reviews of seat quality at SeatGuru.com .

Traveling to Europe? Note that trains are often the fastest and cheapest way to travel within and between European countries. Our favorite English-language Web site for checking timetables and booking one-way, round-trip and multi-stop tickets on European train lines is RailEurope .

FREQUENT FLIERWebFlyer is the most useful site for getting the best seat or upgrade for the miles you've earned. See how your miles convert between programs, learn about changes to your frequent flier program or discover how to max out the value of your mileage awards when you redeem them for merchandise or services.

Lodging

TIME-PRESSED TRAVELERTripAdvisor is the most comprehensive and easy-to-use listing of professional and amateur reviews of hotels in the U.S. and overseas, with about 10 million reviews. Its photos of the property and maps of the location are uniquely useful. TripAdvisor doesn't sell rooms, but it lets you compare and book rates sold by Web travel agencies, such as Expedia.com, Orbitz.com and Hotels.com.

BEST-DEAL TRAVELERPriceline.com offers the best bargains for luxury hotel lodging. You submit a bid on a room after specifying a star class, the dates of your stay and a neighborhood in a metro area. Bids of less than $100 a night on luxury lodgings are often successful. (The site also sells airline tickets and rental cars this way.) There are three catches, though: Priceline doesn't disclose the name of the hotel you're booking until you buy; it doesn't refund your money if you cancel; and it may book you in a hotel at a slight remove from the attractions most central to you. One more hitch: We don't recommend booking a hotel in an overseas city without knowing its precise location beforehand, so look to other sites to book a room abroad.

Priceline's rates for four-star hotels are usually the best values available from online travel sites. Yet you can boost the chances that you'll submit the lowest possible winning bid by checking the message boards at Biddingfortravel.com. where recent Priceline users note their successful and unsuccessful bids.

Priceline and TripAdvisor don't offer bed-and-breakfast getaways. To find B B's offering discounted rates, sign up for free weekly e-mails from Bedandbreakfast.com. Every Wednesday you'll receive a list of B Bs offering discounts of typically 20% or more off regular rates for the upcoming weekend in the city, state or region you want to visit.

Consider an alternative to hotels: Condo-apartment rentals. Vacation rentals generally offer more room and amenities for the same price as hotel rooms. Plus, their kitchens can spare you from having to dine out for every meal. The best selection of rental lodgings we've found is at HomeAway.com

INTERNATIONAL TRAVELERLateRooms.com emphasizes last-minute bargains at hotels abroad. You know the name of the hotel before you pay, and rates are quoted in the local currency. The site offers a currency-conversion calculator to help you figure the prices.

Here's a tip: When you pay your hotel room bill on checkout, beware if the clerk offers to convert your bill into U.S. dollars. Resist this offer because hotels usually offer less-favorable exchange rates than ATMs or your credit card. What's worse, if your credit card charges you a fee (typically 1% of the bill) for currency conversion, your credit card company will likely still require you to pay the currency-conversion charge -- even if the hotel has done its own currency conversion. In essence, you'll be double charged.

Car Rentals

TIME-PRESSED TRAVELEROrbitz fetches car rental rates and displays them in a matrix that is uniquely easy-to-understand. The site also discloses total pricing, including all taxes and fees, unlike many rival sites. The site also sells other travel products, such as plane tickets and hotel rooms).

BEST-DEAL TRAVELERHotwire has the best deals for domestic car rentals offered by Avis, Budget and Hertz. Hotwire lets you specify the dates, type of car and pick-up location. Then it fetches rates. You'll find out which company is offering your nonrefundable rate after you've paid. But at least you know the rental will be with one of the nation's three best-known rental car companies. (Hotwire also sells hotel rooms, airline tickets and other travel products in the same blind-booking format.)

INTERNATIONAL TRAVELERAuto Europe is a rental-car rate wholesaler that specializes in pre-paid international rentals. It returned better rates than other online booking sites (for comparable vehicles) when we recently searched for cars in England, Greece, Ireland and Spain. Plus, this company staffs its customer-service hotlines (toll-free internationally) 24-hours a day.

Be wary that the rental-car chains -- separate from Auto Europe -- may attempt to tack on bogus charges. You may not be expecting additional charges on your credit card because you have already prepaid through Auto Europe. But you should eye your credit-card bill after an overseas trip. If unnecessary charges appear, Auto Europe will assist you in disputing them. (You can also face this problem when you book directly with the rental-car company, particularly if the company is not headquartered in the United States.)

If a hassle-free trip is worth paying a few extra dollars to you, we recommend you book with an American name-brand car company, such as Avis or Hertz. (You may book either through AutoEurope or directly through the company.) Foreign-owned car rental companies often bungle the reservations of American travelers, either by not having the requested cars available on arrival or by adding on surprise charges to the final tab, according to our anecdotal staff experiences and reports from other media.

When traveling overseas, considering paying a few dollars more a day to rent a device that offers driving directions using voice prompts. For example, Hertz has wide coverage in Europe and offers a GPS driving module for about $12 that will give you voice-over, turn-by-turn directions to your destination. (See a list of available countries .)

Cruises

CruiseCompete offers discounts of up to 25% off standard cruise rates. At the site, dozens of travel agencies vie to give you the lowest prices for dates and ports you specify, whether you're booking well in advance or at the eleventh hour.

Cruisemates is the most useful cruise-review site. We especially like its advice columns, which are written for people of different ages and interests.

Quick vacation packages

Lastminute.com (formerly Site59.com) does the best job of putting together last-minute vacation packages. It offers the easiest way to book a trip as early as 14 days before you go or as late as three hours before departure on domestic trips. (Tip: When we've looked for packages for major holiday weekends, we've found deals here as early as 17 days before departure.)

Luxury Link offers discounted package stays in online auctions. You must, however, be flexible about your travel dates: You pick the dates from a limited range only after you pay.

Other helpful resources

Travel insurance. Buying travel insurance from Web agencies or providers, such as cruise lines, is usually a crummy deal because of price markups and restrictions on how the policy claims can be filed. The best value policies we've found are those sold directly by the leading travel insurance company, Travel Guard .

Airport parking. To save money at airport parking lots, visit the aptly named AirportDiscountParking.com. which will direct you to the bargain lots.

National parks. For a value vacation, consider a national park. You'll discover tips on how to stretch your dollars on your next stay by visiting the US Parks site.