Travel and the web
I read this slate piece on a guy who tried to use Wikitravel as his sole travel guide to Thailand. I think it’s a pretty interesting piece, although I think it was also a little misguided. He says initially that he wants to see how useful the interwebbing was for travel, but later refines it to be just wikitravel. When the wiki fails, he finds other sites that pick up the slack, but still calls it a failure, because Wikitravel didn’t come through for some things. Confining yourself to one site as a resource on the world wide tubes is a completely contrived exercise, it’s not like carrying more than 1 guide book where size and bulk become an issue, if you are on the web, you are on the whole web - those tubes are all interconnected.
But that made me start to think about travelling and the web. I’ve had a few ideas on some travel based sites I want to make, but those are various pipe dreams. I use the web a ton for travel resources, I still carry a book, because I don’t want to bring myself to a cyber cafe everytime I need to know something, but I can see the days when more ubiquitous access in many parts of the world will make that much less of an issue. But even so, the web is extremely handy, pre-trip for travel. I find myself using a couple sites over and over.
Obviously, I use Expedia for flight reservations and sometimes hotel reservations. I’ll use Travelocity and the airline pages on occasion, but Expedia tends to have at least the same prices as those guys and their site just works a lot better, if you ask me. The search and selection process feels a lot more intuitive and refined than on the other two sites. And now I get Thank You points, so that’s even more better.
I also use TripAdvisor a lot. This site combines a lot of user generated content with a great directory of hotels. It’s easy to find a pretty comprehensive list of hotels there and most tend to have at least a few user ratings on them - you get a sense pretty quickly if the hotel is rundown, noisy, delightful or what have you. Tells you the features of the hotels and gives you a quick lookup on a bunch of sites for pricing information. It’s definitely a good double check on any hotels you’ve chosen.
As a vegan, it’s always good to scope out the restaurant scene ahead of time. I often end up on the Vegetarian Resource Group’s travel page, or Happy Cow or VegDining.com. A few printout sheets from these sites, typically accompanies me when travelling.
Those are probably the individual sites that I go to most. But a ton of quality time is spent on google and google maps, checking out key sites, particular events/things I may want to see and do, hotel websites and all sorts of other odds and ends. I haven’t really spent much time with WikiTravel, but the Slate piece and a friend’s recommendation probably will have me checking it out a little in more detail next trip.
While I still wouldn’t travel anywhere good without a guide, I wouldn’t take a guide w/out any web research either. I’ve had some moderately to very unsatisfying guide experiences with all the brands (Let’s Go, Lonely Planet, Footprint, Rough Guide, etc..), which can be very hit and miss and you tend not to find out if it’s a miss until you’re there. I think there will soon arise a sweet spot of web sites where there will be the mix of professional editorial content, directory service and user generated submissions, corrections and ratings. Not that I’ve thought about exactly what that site would be or anything… :)
What sites do you use?
April 11th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Interesting! I almost always find Expedia and Travelocity really expensive. I tend to use Orbitz, mobissimo, and kayak. And ita (http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/prego) is the bomb for researching flights, though you can’t book flights there (alas).
Travelzoo and Airfare Watchdog also rock.
April 11th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Huh, I haven’t had good luck with Orbitz, but I admit I have only tried it a couple times. I must revisit, same with Travelzoo.
And I haven’t looked at all into the others you mention! You’re my new travel guru. :) Thanks a lot for the tips!
April 12th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Naah, I’m not travel-obsessed or anything… *laugh*
I usually check all of them, plus the airline’s own sites (Delta and American, at least, now usually save the best fares for their sites…).
Travelzoo is more specials/fare notices (like Airfare Watchdog), but still useful. I find Orbitz sometimes useful (It will let you do flights from two different airlines, which some of the others like Kayak won’t), and sometimes not.