Best Travel Websites 2012

Manage Your Vacation: Tripit.com 

Click Factor: Every travel-booking site worth its salt now offers the itinerary-management features that TripIt pioneered, but few include such extras as integrated frequent-flier and loyalty-point trackers (you’ll need to get the Pro version for $49 per year). You can share itineraries with other members and post your itinerary on Facebook. TripIt will also integrate your itinerary with iCal or Google Calendar, as well as dozens of other travel apps, including FlightTrack Pro and Taxi Magic (which helps you with taxi and limo bookings). You can now add and amend plans on the iPhone, iPad, and Android apps.

Drawback: If you change your flight or hotel reservation, you have to manually remove it from the site.

Runners-up: www.worldmate.com, www.tripcase.com, www.kayak.com

Get an Instant Itinerary: mTrip

Click Factor: If you’re traveling to Amsterdam, Chicago, Prague, Vienna, or any of the 28 global cities covered by mTrip, all you have to do is input your travel dates and lodging and what you want to see and do, and the service will instantly calculate a daily, location-appropriate itinerary, complete with reviews, directions, and distances from your hotel. (Each city has its own app for $5.99.) Or just explore your destination with the service’s augmented-reality app, which uses your smartphone’s camera.

Drawback: Reviews of some venues can be scant.

Runners-Up: michelin, zagat

Outsource Your Planning: Zicasso.com

Click Factor: Just fill out an online questionnaire that briefly details the trip you’d like to go on—for example, to take a family of seven to Iguaçú Falls and Patagonia for one week—and within two business days you’ll get price quotes and sample itineraries from up to three travel companies (all vetted by Zicasso). Then simply contact the travel company you like and fine-tune the trip via e-mail or phone. There’s no obligation to purchase, and you pay the travel company directly.

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Search for Flights: Kayak.com

Click Factor: Unlike many booking sites, which often list fares that are no longer available, Kayak searches 200 sources in real time so you'll find actual airfares (including all fees and taxes). The variety of customizable filters—airlines and carriers to frequent-flier consortia and arrival times—is unrivaled. You can also set up a daily fare alert and wait for the price to go down. New this year: the Explore feature, which offers a world-map view of fares, makes it easy to pick a destination.

Drawbacks: It isn’t always easy to find a range of fares, since Kayak only spits out what's available in real time. Also, discount carriers such as Southwest Airlines and easyJet aren’t always included as a rule.

T+L Tip: Book your flight through the airline’s site if Kayak offers you that option—it’ll save you a lot of hassle should you need help from the airline en route.

Runners-Up: Mobissimo, Travelocity

Look for Flights in Europe: Momondo

Click Factor: Momondo scours more than 800 sites including Opodo, Thomas Cook, discount airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet, and even high-speed rail networks like the TGV, and delivers the results in an attractive, multicolored design with innovative filtering options. The new iPhone app searches just as many sources for flights, and lets you scroll through different suppliers with the swipe of your finger.

Drawback: Results for domestic flights in the U.S. are hit or miss.

Runners-Up: Dohop.com, SkyScanner.com

Make Sure You’re Getting the Cheapest Flight: Yapta.com

Click Factor: Every travel-booking site from Orbitz and SideStep to Bing offers fare-tracking updates, but only Yapta does it for a specific flight at a specific time on a specific airline. So if you absolutely have to take the last nonstop flight out of Paris (Air France 008 at 7:10 p.m.), Yapta will send you an e-mail as soon as the price goes down. If you’ve already bought your ticket and the fare drops, the service will let you know if you’re eligible for reimbursement.

Runner-up: bing.com/travel, FareReport.com

Stay on Top of Airfare Deals: Airfarewatchdog.com

Click Factor: Unlike other travel-planning hubs, airfarewatchdog.com’s staff of actual humans searches for and finds the best deals (all bookable with a couple of clicks) and posts them as soon as they go up, making sure to filter out any that are already sold out. Plug in your departure city, and the site will provide an instant list of special deals, along with handy information such as restrictions and minimum-stay requirements. The site also compiles a daily list of the 50 best fares around the world.

Drawback: Deals are only for flights originating in the U.S. and Canada.

T+L Tip: Subscribe to the site’s newsletter and get e-mails announcing new deals as soon as they go live.

Runner-up: smartertravel.com

Compare Flights: Insidetrip.com

Click Factor: Insidetrip.com assigns a rating (1–100) to the overall desirability of a flight based on three hard-to-find-in-one-place criteria: speed (overall travel time; on-time arrival percentage; security-line waits), comfort (legroom; fullness of flight; age of aircraft), and ease (lost-bag rankings; connection time; departure gate location).

Pick the Best Airplane Seat: SeatGuru

Click Factor: Never be trapped in a last-row, non-reclining middle seat on a flight with no Wi-Fi again. Enter an airline and flight number and SeatGuru calls up a detailed airplane plan, indicating seats that are desirable (emergency exits, those with extra legroom, etc.), average, and simply bad (reduced legroom or recline). It also has reviews of different airline services, as well as quick-scan icons for such in-flight amenities as food, entertainment, in-seat power ports, and Wi-Fi.

Drawback: For accurate results, you have to know the exact departure and arrival times, since airlines tend to swap out planes depending on the time of year.

Runners-Up: SeatMaestro.com, SeatPlans.com

Track a Flight: FlightTrack

Click Factor: If you want to know if your or a friend’s plane is delayed, FlightTrack is the best way to get travel updates. Enter your flight number and receive gate information and departure times, real-time flight maps, and a delay forecast based on historical stats. Delayed passengers can also search for alternate flights—and contact the airline right from the app—as well as access seat plans from SeatGuru. It costs $5 extra for FlightTrack Pro, which offers the flight-alert and delay-prediction features.

Runners-up: FlightAware.com, TravelTracker.com, flightstats.com, flightview.com, flightexplorer.com

Make the Most of Your Miles: MileBlaster

Click Factor: This Web-based service, which is optimized for mobile phones, is by far the easiest and most comprehensive way to keep track of all your frequent-flier programs (including elite ones) and make sure you use your miles before they expire. For a one-time app fee of $5.99, you also get up-to-date listings, by program, of current bonus offers, plus a trip calculator, so you can see exactly how many miles you’ll earn.

Runners-Up: Traxo.com, WebFlyer.com (mileagemanager.com), frequentflier.com, traxo.com

Find Your Way Around an Airport: iFly.com

Click Factor: The most comprehensive airport guide online offers advice on what to do while you’re waiting, whether you’re looking for dinner, a manicure, or a quick tour of your locale. It also has parking information, ground delay updates, and hotel listings for nearly 700 airports around the world. Downloadable maps mean you don’t have to worry about accessing plans while roaming internationally.

Runner-Up: GateGuru (app only)

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Search for Flights and Hotel Rooms: Hipmunk

Click Factor: Hipmunk’s intuitive, color-coded bar charts make it easy to scan flights by cost, carrier, length of flight, and itinerary. Results can be filtered by the usual categories (price, number of stops, etc.) and also by “Agony,” which factors in flight length, number of stops, and price. Hipmunk’s site offers a similar approach for finding hotel rooms, delivering results in filterable Google Maps.

Runner-Up: InsideTrip.com

Score a Cut-Rate Room: Priceline.com

Click Factor: The Name Your Own Price feature of this dotcom-era pioneer of travel deals is still the best place to score a luxury room: choose the neighborhood and star ratings you'd prefer, enter the price you’re willing to pay and your credit card information—and then bid away. If your bid is accepted, your credit card is charged and the room is reserved. If it's too low, you won’t be charged and can try again. The same functionality goes for airfares and car rentals.

Drawback: Unless you’re willing to downgrade your request by resetting the filters (e.g., fewer stars), you have to wait 24 hours to bid on the same hotel again.

T+L Tip: Forums like betterbidding.com can tell you what hotels Priceline tends to use in different markets, so you can try selecting certain neighborhoods in a particular city to get the hotel you want.

Runner-up: hotwire.com

Book a Last-Minute Room: HotelTonight.com

Click Factor: Ask any traveler who has been stranded at an airport in the middle of the night: finding a last-minute room can be an expensive hassle, since most hotel reservation services are closed by midnight. This new app can book you a room as late as 2 a.m., often at reduced rates. To make things simple, just three hotel results pop up on any given search. The app is available for 13 cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, and more are being added every month.

Drawback: The service is a mobile-only app, so while you can technically access the site from a computer Web browser, you won’t be able to book.

Find Out What a Hotel is Really Like: TripAdvisor.com

Click Factor: With more than 35 million user-generated reviews—featuring text, guest-uploaded photos, and percentage of positive recommendations—TripAdvisor is a great prebooking resource. A typical hotel profile has lots of options, including reviews (sortable by date, ratings, and even type of traveler), rates, information about other hotels in the same neighborhood, and special discounts. Plus, the site recently partnered withflipkey.com to add a section on vacation rentals.

Drawback: Reviews may include the occasional hotel-generated plant, but a profile system for each user makes such posts easier to filter out.

Runners-up: oyster.com, travelpost.com

Pick the Room You Want: Room 77

Click Factor: Nice views and proximity to (or distance from) the elevator are just two of the criteria you can select on Room 77, which uses official hotel data, visitor reports, and geographic coordinates to find the best accommodations for you. You’ll also find virtual room views via Google Earth and floor plans for thousands of hotels.

Runner-Up: TripKick.com

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Shop Around for the Right Cruise: Cruisecritic.com

Click Factor: Whether you're looking for a cruise that's luxurious, romantic, tailored to families, or fitness-focused, this site will give you the download through comprehensive reviews by editorial contributors and more than 50,000 user-submitted critiques. You'll find extensive information about every cruise ship that’s currently sailing—it even allows you to browse through cabin photos and deck plans before you book. You'll also get alerts on the latest deals and guides to ports around the world.

Runner-up: cruisereviews.com, iCruise.com

Select a Property That's Right for You: Raveable.com

Click Factor: This site aggregates information about and reviews of properties from across the Web—including TripAdvisor, Citysearch, and Yahoo Travel—and then summarizes them into pithy pros and cons. It also ranks properties against other hotels in the same city and provides excerpts from user reviews. You can also search properties based on popular features or keywords—such as hotels with in-room Jacuzzis, free parking, swim-up bars, or a location near, say, the American Girl store.

Drawback: The site only covers domestic properties.

Bid for Your Stay: Luxurylink.com

Click Factor: T+L Vacationist.compartner Luxury Link tops other auction sites when it comes to the breadth and variety of properties, trip categories, and package deals. You can score three nights at the W Barcelona for $939 (normally priced at $2,187) or a 12-night transatlantic Silversea cruise in a Vista Suite for about $9,000 (that’s 60 percent off the list price). Get even better deals with “mystery auctions” that start at a mere $1 and rise in increments of $1 (the only information provided is the country in which the deal is offered and some of the luxury amenities included). If the suspense of an auction is too much, you can also buy set packages for $1,500 or less.

T+L Tip: The fine print varies on each deal—watch out for added fees, taxes, and cancellation costs.

Find Great Values on Luxury Properties: Vacationist

A T+L partnership with travel-auction guruLuxury Link has deals on upscale hotels around the world. Recent sales at Mexico’s Villa Zihuatanejo and the Elounda Mare Hotel, in Greece, offered rooms for less than $175, a 25 percent savings from listed rates. Membership, which you request via e-mail, is free, and the site posts two seven-day-long sales per week.

Find a Luxury Villa: Homeaway.com

Click Factor: The site has more than 230,000 properties, many of them high-end—some rentals are by owner, others by property managers. The reach is global, with listings available on six continents. Check out HomeAway’s sister sites, vrbo.com (for more U.S.–based rentals by owners only) andvacationrentals.com (for deals on beach houses, ski chalets, and other leisure properties). All three sites are covered by HomeAway’s Carefree Rental Guarantee up to $1,000 for free (additional coverage available for $49).

Runner-up: flipkey.com

Score a Private Room or Apartment: AirBnB

Click Factor: Now in 181 countries, Airbnb offers 110,000 owner-rented apartments, houses, and rooms—often for less than you’d pay for a hotel. Each property gets a slideshow, and both rooms (and guests) are reviewed by users. If for any reason you’re not pleased, you can get your money back, since payment isn’t made to the host for 24 hours after you check in.

T+L Tip: Rate hosts after each stay—it will raise the status of your profile and make you a more attractive candidate.

Runners-Up: iStopover.com, Roomorama.com

Arrange a Last-Minute Affordable Rental: AirBnB.com

Click Factor: Not only do you get images, amenities lists, guest reviews, and information about the hosts but AirBnB also provides a user-friendly search mechanism (cities, dates, property type) to help you find exactly what you’re looking for. At press time, AirBnB had apartments in 6,757 cities in 156 countries, with more being added every day. Since you’re paying by credit card, your payment doesn’t go to the hosts until 24 hours after you’ve checked in and approved of the space. Deals are impressive: a recent search yielded $52 for a night in a large studio for two, with high-speed Wi-Fi and use of two bicycles, in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district.

Drawback: Some hosts request nonrefundable deposits, which are handled outside of AirBnB, so check reviews before you send any money in advance.

T+L Tip: Make sure you see lots of pictures and read reviews before you book—if you have a question, use the messaging system to get more information directly from a prospective host.

Runners-up: vrbo.com, craigslist.org

Find a Place for the Whole Family: HomeAway

Click Factor: Focused on privately owned vacation rental properties, HomeAway—along with its sister sites VRBO and VacationRentals—is a great first stop for group travelers. The more than 250,000 properties on offer are particularly strong in popular destinations such as Cape Cod and Paris.

Drawback: City listings are uneven—a search for apartments in Tokyo yielded only 11 results.

T+L Tip: HomeAway’s Carefree Rental Guarantee protects you if the property is double-booked or drastically different from what was advertised.

Runner-Up: FlipKey.com

Swap for a Stylish House: LuxeHomeSwap.com

Click Factor: A worldwide house-swapping site that’s aimed at the design set, Luxe Home Swap has everything from one-bedroom apartments to sprawling houses. Looking for a two-bedroom apartment next to the Tate Modern in London? No problem. How about four bedrooms in a village near Lucca, Italy? For a membership fee of $159, it could be yours for a week.

T+L Tip: A lot of the listings are second homes, so you don’t necessarily have to arrange a simultaneous swap.

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Tip Properly: GlobeTipping

Click Factor: Do you know how much to give a hotel porter in Tuvalu or a waiter in Bermuda? Don’t worry: it’s optional, according to this app’s tipping advice for more than 200 countries, from Afghanistan to Zambia, which make it the most comprehensive of the global tip calculators. Speaking of which, the app includes one, which will factor in tips by percentage and divide the overall bill by number of diners.

Drawback: Specific information for different types of services—housekeeping, spas, taxis, and the like—is uneven.

Get Turn-By-Turn Directions: Google Maps

Click Factor: Create a route traveling by car, foot, bike, or public transportation—all of which can be sent to others via e-mail or text message via your desktop. On the app, you can also zoom in on your directions on either a road map or with a satellite view. Maps show graphic overlays for traffic, and Wikipedia entries of specific locations.

Drawback: On Android phones, the app works best with GPS turned on, which can run down your battery in as little as two hours.

Runners-Up: Bing.com/maps, MapQuest

Find a Local Business: Yelp.com

Click Factor: The original word-of-mouth user-generated review site for everything from local restaurants and spas to nearby ATM’s, hardware stores, and pharmacies, Yelp now has more than 12 million write-ups to offer travelers. While international coverage was previously a weak point, in the past year Yelp has launched sites in Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, and the U.K.—so, if you speak French, you can search and evaluate potential dinner options in Nice, Bordeaux, or Paris.

Drawback: Since Yelp relies on user reviews, listings can be out of date. Be sure to call first.

Runner-up: where.com

Speak Like a Local: Rosetta Stone

Click Factor: The renowned Rosetta Stone language-learning system is now fully online and even has an iPhone app so you can practice your phrases in more than 30 languages (Arabic, French, Russian, Turkish, etc.) while waiting in an interminable security line at the airport. Rosetta’s format skips formal grammar lessons in favor of computer-game-like repetition, in which you hear questions and answer them by clicking on pictures and responding, conversationally, into the mic.

Drawback: Starting at $179, this system isn’t cheap, and you need headphones and a mic to make it work.

Runner-Up: LiveMocha.com, Google Translate

Post Your Videos: Vimeo.com

Click Factor: Everyone’s a director on video-sharing site Vimeo, and a famous one at that. You create a profile—the basic version is free, but a more advanced option with unlimited albums costs $60 per year—which features videos on your home page, plus includes comments from your friends as well as stats about you. You can also choose to have Vimeo updates appear in your Facebook news feed.

Create a Photo and Video Blog: Posterous.com

Click Factor: A supercool, brand-new, ridiculously easy option for blogging neophytes, Posterous lets you post photos or videos without registering simply by e-mailing them topost@posterous.com. The site will send you a URL by return e-mail, which you can then circulate to your friends, who also won’t need to register to view your post. If you opt to use the “autopost” function, the site will automatically upload photos directly to Facebook or Flickr, make posts into Twitter updates, or paste them onto existing personal blogs.

Source: www.travelandleisure.com