Share My Site Blog - A review of the best websites

Travel: All I want to do is have some fun - World’s Best Bars

http://www.worldsbestbars.com

If you are into bar hopping on an international level or even at a local level in your city, the World’s Best Bars is your site.  Of course you have to be over 21 (at least in United States) to legally drink and you have to be over 18 to enter the site.  It has a top 100 list of the world’s best bars as rated by visitors or registered users.  You can view their 100 list of the world’s best bars, each bar listed has a profile along with pictures.  There are comments and ratings from other users who have visited the bar.  I’m not surprised that a bar in New York City has made the top 100 since the city also has the best night clubs (at least in the U.S.)  The list does not include any Tokyo bars which is surprising since its another hot spot for sophisticated international playboys and playgirls.

They also have lists of top rated bars sorted by city and a profile of each one.  Each city has a “bar of the moment” since being trendy is a time dependent phenomenon determined by a group whose as fickle as the weather.

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Travel: Travel Search Engine - Mobissimo

http://www.mobissimo.com

Mobissimo is another travel website search engine that searches through various sites (157) to get the lowest price on airfare, lodging, car rentals, and activities. At first I confused it with Mossimo which is an apparel brand. Its similar to Kayak, Sidestep, and any other travel search engine. I haven’t really used Mobissimo that much compared to Sidestep and Kayak but it seems to be similar in what it does. The activities feature does not look like its fully functional. They also have a one box search which means you don’t have to deal with selecting items on the search form. Its just perfect for some us when we feel a little lazy or pressed for time. You just enter it in this format:

las vegas to seattle jan 10-20

Its another source to compare prices for various travel needs so that you can get the best price.

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Travel: BudgetTravel

http://www.budgettravel.com

BudgetTravel is a website that gives advice on traveling on a budget.  Its the companion site to the Budget Travel magazine, its a slick and professional looking site.  Its a good site to get advice and to find out about places that are not well known.  Since there’s some corporate backing *ahem, money too* behind this site, it should be reputable reference for your travel questions and interests.  The site is a wealth of information covering many areas such as little known hotels/restaurants that are real finds.  My favorite article is on hotel chains in other countries that are not well known to Americans. This can save some money in your wallet since you have a wider selection of hotels that are decent without having to always stick with Marriott and the other US Brand name places.  For example, there’s a budget hotel chain called Etap Hotel that is based in France which gives fairly reasonable rates.  The article gives an example of a sample rate of $59 to stay in Paris at one of the Etap Hotel chains.

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Travel: Put on your shoes and grab your backpack - Let’s Go

http://www.letsgo.com

Let’s Go is a website targeted for young traveler’s on a budget. It gives travel advice, podtours, travel booking for airfare and hostels, and a community to share your travel experiences. The podtours is an interesting concept, its a guided audio tour of selected destinations that you can download and listen to. They also sell travel guides since they probably need to make some money like everyone else. However, the site has a lot of free information so its a good resource in itself. I also really like their suggested travel itineraries for various travel destinations. There can be multiple itineraries for a travel destination.  You just need to pick the one that fits how long you plan to travel.  Each itinerary provides a high level map, a breakdown of what to do at each location on the map, and the estimated days to spend on each activity/location.

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Travel: Becoming a smarter traveler - SmarterTravel

http://www.smartertravel.com

So what’s your travel IQ?  If you want to raise it a few points, this site is the place to go to hone your travel planning and budgeting skills.  It contains advice, travel tools, highlights on travel deals, and travel guides.  I personally like the deal detective feature and the advice columns where there are useful and not necessarily widely known travel tidbits.  An interesting one I read today involves a reader whose a graduate student asking where could she go with only $1200 for her travel budget (total for food, airfare, lodging, and meals).  She wanted to travel internationally to Europe, South America or Asia.  At that point, I thought well if she wants to do that, she probably could go for a few days and there’s not a whole lot of places in Europe that she could go to.  Well, I was wrong, it turns out there’s multiple vacation options available to her.  My favorite one was a 6 night stay in Paris for $975 which includes airfare, lodging, continental breakfast, and taxes.

It covers travel interests for a wide range of travelers such as traveling with kids/family, adventure seekers, hidden travel gems, travelers with frequent flyer miles/points, and many more.

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Travel: Sleeping on stranger’s coaches - CoachSurfing

http://www.couchsurfing.com

CoachSurfing provides people who are traveling on the cheap or people who like a more “local” flavor of the place they are traveling to, a way to get lodging for cheap. Its a network to connect travelers with people who are willing to host them in their house for a fee. I heard about this months ago on some news program which profiled the site. There were two female travelers who used CoachSurfing to find someone who was willing to let them crash on their couch. The female travelers did not know the person and only exchanged some emails to know a little more about each other before they stayed at the person’s place.  I thought it was an unusual idea but then again, I don’t get out much.

I have not personally used the services offered by this site so I can’t comment on how well it works. If you are adventurous, looking to save some money, and willing to take some risks, CoachSurfing could work out. Just make sure you bring your surfboard when you surf those coaches.

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Travel: Personal Travel Consultant - Tripbase

http://www.tripbase.com

Tripbase provides suggestions for possible travel destinations based on criteria you pick. Its currently in the alpha stage meaning it does not have all the features in place. Although it does not have all the features, its still worth checking out as its a pretty interesting concept. You pick your travel requirements and criteria based on several predefined areas. They have several sliding scales like nightlife, nature, shopping, dining, and attractions where you select how important it is to you on the scale. If you have more travel criteria such as it has to fall within a budget, date, weather, and various other categories, you can enter that in. Once you have all your travel criteria set, you submit it and it generates a list of destinations which fit your personal travel preferences. When you select one of the recommended destinations, it gives you the following details:

• Cost per day to vacation here
• Population
• Detailed description
• Graphical table of the weather conditions throughout the year on a monthly basis
• Things to do
• Articles on traveling to the destination
• Photos
• Links to getting airfare, car rental, or lodging

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Travel: Lonely Planet

http://www.lonelyplanet.com

Lonely Planet provides published travel guides and its companion website also serves as a useful online guide for travel.  Its similar to Fodors Guide for travel. Lonely Planet has its own flavor and take on travel destinations.  It highlights cultural nuances, celebrations, and events that you might not get from other travel sites.  For example, just looking at the site today, I didn’t know you could surf at Yemen and there is a musical festival called Sarawak in Malaysia.  You don’t necessarily have to buy their travel guides to get decent travel information, their site contains a wealth of information on your destination of choice.  It provides background information on the weather, best times to visit, health & safety, culture, getting around, and etc.  It contains images of the destination and blue lists which are user driven forums which provide insider travel information.

The planet might be lonely but with the wealth of cultural and travel experiences profiled in Lonely Planet, its certainly not a lonely place for human beings.

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Travel: Around the World in 80 days? - Virtual Tourist

http://www.virtualtourist.com

Virtual Tourist gives you reviews from other registered users on travel destinations. Its a popular website which is similar in its purpose as TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor has a better looking site than Virtual Tourist but nevertheless it may have more reviews especially in topics as things to do. Virtual Tourist has reviews on restaurants, things to do, nightlife, shopping transportation, photos, and tips for various travel destinations. According to the site, they cover 2.2 million destinations as far of as Timbuktu. They also have a forum for travel deals which I can’t really say much about since I haven’t used the information there but the editors at Virtual Tourist do pick the best ones so that you don’t have to wade through hundreds of forum postings. Its largely powered by the registered user community which is very active and passionate about traveling.

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Travel: Travel Social Networking - 43places

http://www.43places.com

I’m glad I stumbled on this site, its a social networking travel site where you share your travel experiences or your experiences living in a certain place. This is a keeper especially for people bitten by the travel bug or locked up in a cubicle with no where to go and no windows. When I did a search for Seychelles, there were 355 people who want to go there…count me in..356. So what did I see when I got to a page about Seychelles?

• There are tagging descriptions to let me know it has beaches and its a honeymoon spot
• There were beautiful photographs posted about this island
• People who share their experiences and knowledge about Seychelles (Be sure to check out the giant love nuts as mentioned by one of the comments)
• Questions about Seychelles such as finding accommodations, things to do, etc
• Where it shows up on the lists of the best lists, there’s quite a few for Seychelles

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Travel: How about a private pool? - VRBO

www.vrbo.com

VRBO stands for Vacation Rentals By Owner. It’s similar to VacationHomeRentals.com but has been around for longer and has more listings. The database search facilities are not very user friendly, but by the sheer volume of listings you wont mind hunting through to find what you’re looking for. In the end you’re looking for a nice place to stay with a kitchen, a place to do laundry, and perhaps a private pool. Again, make sure to call and talk to a real person before you book.

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Travel: Why pay for a hotel? - VacationHomeRentals

www.vacationhomerentals.com

When you have a large party, typically you end up having to book two or more hotel rooms. That can add up quickly, especially if you’re going for a week or more. If you plan ahead you can save quite a bit, plus get a kitchen, a place to do laundry, and friendly personal service to top it off. Often these vacation properties are managed directly by the owners and they give it their personal touch and attention.

VacationHomeRentals.com posts ads for vacation properties for a small fee charged to the property lister. For you and me, it’s free. I like it when the availability is posted directly on the site. It’s quite annoying having to contact them by email and wait for a response. The more pictures the better, but more important are pictures of the actual place, especially a picture of each bed they claim to have.

Unfortunately it’s hard to get good independent reviews of these properties. There’s no way to tell if the reviews provided are truly independent or just the owner’s posting. But there’s no substitute for calling and talking to a real person when booking a place. It’s an absolute must. It’s amazing how much you can tell from listening to someone’s voice.

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Travel: Crystal ball for airfare prices - Farecast

http://www.farecast.com/

Farecast is an airfare price prediction site. Its the fortune teller of airfares and if you look at the bottom of the page, you’ll see its on several top website lists of the popular magazine sites such as PCWorld, Popular Science, Time, and Businessweek. If you decide to buy, you can purchase through the farecast site. According to the site, the predictions are 74.5% accurate. Besides providing airfare predictions, it also provides historical charts of the airfare prices.

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Travel: Personal airfare shopper - airfarewatchdog

http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/

Airfarewatchdog is a site that will monitor for the lowest airfares and it will alert you when it finds one. If you’re pressed for time, passively looking, or want another search going in the background while you actively look for the lowest fare, this travel site is for you. According to the site, there are real breathing homosapiens that are searching for a lower fare for you as opposed to computer program. This way airlines such as Southwest and JetBlue will be included in the search since other travel sites may not include them.

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Travel: Does the hotel have bugs? - Tripadvisor

www.tripadvisor.com

Worried about where you will be sleeping at night on your honeymoon?  Make sure to check tripadvisor before you book your hotel.  Chances are someone else has been to the hotel and posted their comments on tripadvisor.  Sometimes you can even see real pictures of the actual rooms, instead of the photofinished versions posted by the hotel.  A word of warning.  I stayed at a hotel which claimed to be remodeled after a storm only to find that it had bugs.  Don’t fall for the first comment. Try to get a general trend from a few comments posted on tripadvisor for that hotel.  Besides, how would the guest staying there know that the remodelling was because of the storm?  And once you complete your trip, don’t forget to return to tripadvisor to post your own comments.

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Travel: How low can you go? - Sidestep

www.sidestep.com

Sidestep is another favorite travel aggregator site of mine. It’s a competitor to Kayak. I like it better than Kayak, even though Kayak has the charts - see Kayak posting for more on this. Sidestep gives you the same results as Kayak, at least for airlines from what I’ve seen. So I have no good reason for liking Sidestep other than I like the orange buttons. I’ve also used it for finding hotels. Don’t forget to verify your hotels using tripadvisor.com - see the posting on tripadvisor.

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Travel: for Cheap - Kayak

www.kayak.com

No, its not an actual Inuit or Eskimo boat or canoe for nature lovers to become one with the river. Kayak is a travel aggregator site that searches through multiple airlines and travel sites to give you the lowest prices on airfare, cruises, and car rentals. The coolest feature on kayak is their charts. They show you the price history for the same search you entered over the last 90 days. So you can see the trend for that airfare - whether it’s going up or down. Kayak has a “new” Matrix view, but this has been on sidestep for some time. If you are flexible about your dates of travel, kayak has a graph showing exactly where you can find the lowest fare based on departure date.

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