Travel

Over the last few years there has been a proliferation of comparison sites on the web. And these sites have really come into their own of late since they can do the hard work for you, for various travel services, allowing you to forgo the lengthy process of hopping from site to site to find the cheapest flights, insurance, hotel deals and car hire options. We've trawled through the web to find the best in show.

If you think a comparison website should be added to the list, email your suggestion to benji.lanyado@guardian.co.uk - and we'll put it to the test. But the perceived glaring omissions are for a reason: sites like Expedia. Thomson. and Travelocity may search for plenty of options in their respective fields, but the comparison sites examine them against what their competitors are churning out. For example, many websites collate thousands of hotel prices - such as Late Rooms. Hotels.com. Skoosh - but Trivago (our pick, below) will compare the results of all of these sites, side by side.

1. Gone are the days when one had to toggle 19 browser windows to work out which airline got you to Barcelona the cheapest. Kayak.com scans the web for low-cost flights, comparing the majority of the world's budget and full-fare airlines. It also has an excellent fare tracker service that allows you to choose your route and wait for the best prices to pop up - alerting you when they have dropped.

2. Skyscanner.net does more or less the same. It has a nice function that allows you to choose the dates that you want to travel, and then it will find the cheapest places you can fly to with its show me anywhere function option.

3. The flightchecker at Moneysavingexpert.com works the other way round, allowing you to choose your destination, and then look for the cheapest dates to travel. Unfortunately, it only searches nine budget airlines in Europe, but covers a lot of ground.

4. Not all airlines and airports are covered by the above sites. To fill in any gaps, and to find obscure airlines and airports all over the world, you may want to do it manually. Flycheapo.com will tell you who flies from where, and destinations you can get to on a budget airline from anywhere in Europe. Who-flies-where.com has a slightly larger scope, and the disastrously organised Attitudetravel.com covers pretty much everywhere you can think of, if you can be bothered to search through it.

1. A lot of people know about sites like Late Rooms and hotelclub.com. but there is now a search tier above them, collating the results of hundreds of hotel websites and operators, including the biggies - Expedia, Skoosh etc. We found three hotel comparison sites to be the best of the bunch, and having plugged them all with dozens of different destinations, Trivago.co.uk came out with the cheapest rooms, just. But in this field we recommend that you try all three.

2. Hotelly.com was a close second, but had two distinctive one-ups on the others. First, it has videos of roughly half of the hotels it lists. Second, it is the only hotel comparison site that specifies whether or not tax has been included in the stated price.

3. Hotelscombined.com is only slightly more expensive, generally, but has its perks too. It allows you to sort results by star-rating, meaning you can scan through the five-stars for the cheapest, then the four-stars, and so on. It also performs well on finding good deals on a specific hotel (a function the others also do) - allowing you to choose, say, The Manhattan Sheraton, and then wait for it to find the cheapest room rates on the web for a specified date.

1. We did a survey of the leading car hire comparison sites, finding their prices for 10 different locations worldwide, and found that Traveljungle.co.uk generally found the cheapest rates.

2. Car-hire-centre.co.uk was next in the pecking order, and was particularly good in immediately comparing storage space, air conditioning and number of doors within the search results.

3. Comparecarhire.co.uk was almost as cheap as the other two, and well worth checking. Annoyingly, it makes you specify your exact pickup location, rather than allowing you just to specify a city.

4. Interestingly, all three companies seemed to regularly spew out Holidayautos.co.uk as the cheapest option.

1. Travelsupermarket.com seems to be the cheapest around, tracking hundreds of different companies to find the best deal. Simply enter the dates of your trip, your age, and it shows you the cheapest. broken down into medical cover, personal liability and other variables. Can also link you to your cheapest annual cover very easily.

2. Squaremouth.co.uk does roughly the same, and is very helpful in explaining the process as you go along. It also allows you to compare two policies side by side. However, if you want to find out the full policy wordings they have to email you the further information.

3. Comparethemarket.com has reacted quickly to the current economic climate, and features a visible indicator as to whether or not a policy covers you for airline insolvency.

1. Comparison websites are, in their nature, best for those looking to build a holiday themselves. But if you want to compare prices on a package, in a rather paltry field there is a clear frontrunner. Travelsupermarket.com's holiday comparison function scans hundreds of operators - including the bigger ones such as Thomson and Thomas Cook- and finds the cheapest options.