Searching for the best hotel deals in town is one topic we have discussed at length on MUO. We still like to put out the information now and again because hotel search engines are essential traveller tools to be used before you pack your suitcase.

Here are ten of the best hotel search engines that fetch you the best deals when you travel.

Google Hotel Finder

We start with the usual suspects and Google with its experimental Google Hotel Finder is one for the top billing. Head over to our directory mention for a brief introduction. Google Hotel Finder could go from an experiment to a full-scale assault on the other hotel and travel websites out there because it brings in a few conveniences. For instance, you can compare hotel prices (the price slider is a big help) and put them in a shortlist and track them over time. Tracking is a big help when you want to grab the best deal in town. You can use filters and the Google map to search out hotels in a selected area; select them by travel time; and pick the ones which are near the urban hot spots.

Bing Travel – Rate Indicator

Bing Travel goes head to head (or is it the other way around) with Google Hotel Finder. The Rate Indicator here is a great help when you are trying to find whether the hotel tariff is a good deal or not. You can also do a historic search for specific dates. It is only available for 30 U.S. cities at present. The Rate Indicator shows yellow, green, and red legends on a Bing Map to indicate the ‘hotness’ of a deal.  The usual Bing Travel search engine though gives you a comparative search with Hotwire, Hotels.com, Travelocity, Expedia, and Priceline. These are few of the top notch travel and hotel websites.

Hotels.com

Hotels.com is one of the most comprehensive hotel booking websites around which covers 140,000 hotels worldwide. It is a one-window solution to all your search and booking needs. It gives you localized information plus great deals and rewards programs. Hotels.com claims that it gives you the cheapest rates and if you find anything cheaper they will match it. Hotels.com also does not charge cancellation fees. Download their free iPad, iPhone, Android app.

Laterooms

This is a Europe and U.K centric site which covers properties worldwide too. Laterooms lists a total of 33,000 properties. Sign-up to receive best deals by email or periodically visit the Special Offers section on the site. The hotel search engine uncovers deals like – Extra special discounts; Added value extras; Free hotel nights; and package deals when you stay for more than one night.

Tripadvisor

Tripadvisor is one of the most well-known search engines for travel and hotel deals. We mentioned it when we saw 5 Review Sites To Help You Find The Perfect Hotel and it certainly deserves another mention here. The site suggests reviews and advice on hotels, resorts, flights, vacation rentals, vacation packages, travel guides, and lots more. One of the features you might use most often is the filter that lets you sort the hotels by the amenities on offer.

Booking.com

Hotel search and booking websites are usually choc-a-bloc with information. I like the relatively uncluttered layout of this hotel search engine which is also aided by the large and clear fonts that are used. You can use the search engine to locate and hotel reservations.  Their tag line says – 187,784 hotels in 163 countries worldwide. So, that’s quite a sweep. Subscribe to the email newsletter for flash deals.

Hotels Combined

Hotels Combined and its hotel search engine too covers the world. The site says that its Verified Reviews (a trademarked service) accepts and quantifies reviews from verified, paying customers only. The hotel search engine compares prices across a bunch of hotel pricing sites. You can view the list when you search for the best hotel by destination.

Hotwire

The discount travel site negotiates the best hotel deals (along with other travel related ones) and presents them to you as Hotwire Hot Rates. You can also use the site’s Tripwatcher tool to watch out for price drops. The results are compared with other sites like Expedia, Kayak, Tripadvisor, and Orbitz. Check out the site’s Planning Tools section for a few more travel aids which help you plan your trip.

Venere

104.000 hotels and listing of other accommodation types in more than 130 countries makes this best hotel search engine holds its own against the best of its ilk. Also includes Bed and Breakfasts and vacation rentals. The site gives you a colorful map-based search tool for finding out the best hotel deal in town.

Roomkey

Six of the largest hotel companies in the world (Choice Hotels International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International and Wyndham Hotel Group) collaborated to start up Roomkey.  The hotel search engine is specifically tailored for their clientele and aims to – offer travelers direct access to a broad network of hotels around the globe, provide accurate and comprehensive information, make it easy for travelers to discover what’s right for them. And in one word, the interface is superb.

These ten hotel search engines are at the forefront of the pack, and there are more of them. Most of the websites in the hotel search category are quite similar…offering a mix of hotel reservations, reviews, and great deals. Here are a few more you can throw into the mix:

• 6 Useful Last-Minute Booking Sites For Your Next Trip
• How To Find & Reserve Right Hotels From Your Android Phone
• 10 Sites For Budget Travel & Backpacking Trips Across The World
• The Best Travel Deals Sites To Save Cash On Your Next Vacation
• The 10 Best Free International Travel Guide Websites

Having a few of these hotel search engines bookmarked helps you to cross-check the best deals and plan your trip with low overheads. Where are you planning to travel to next? Do you use any of these hotel search engines, or do you depend on your travel agent?

Image Credit: Shutterstock

No matter where you want to travel in 2010, preparation is key. You should know what is expecting you, pack the right gear, and bring enough funds to spend an enjoyable vacation. On Amazon or your local book store, you’ll find a huge selection of international travel guides.

To save some money for your trip, skip the expensive guides and begin to research online, where most material is available for free. I have compiled the best free online international travel guides that will provide inspiration and comprehensive information to prepare your trip.

Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet is the biggest commercial online travel websites. Pick a region from the Destinations tab and dive into the introduction. The sidebar on the left provides a menu, the top picks, eventually fast facts, related groups, and possibly blogs.

The menu leads to in-depth information about places in the area, its history, the climate, getting around, and much more. The map opens from the top and all other destinations are marked with a little flag.

If you have found an interesting place that you would like to keep in mind, you can save the destination, provided you are logged in.

Lonely Planet makes it to the top of the list because not only does it cover a vast amount of destinations with comprehensive articles, it’s also easy to navigate, contains stunning pictures, lets users save their personal highlights and they can contribute to the site through participating in various groups, blogs, and more.

Lonely Planet was also mentioned in my article Cool Online Resources to Plan Your Next Vacation, along with Spotted by Locals, InfoHub, and World Travel Guide.

NileGuide

If you enjoy interactive websites that let you compile information your way, and play with the content, don’t miss out on NileGuide!

To “Get Started”, search for your desired destination. The first thing you’ll see is a “Snapshot“. You’ll notice that the “Overview” provides guides to download. All available guides are listed under the respective tab.

To start customizing your own guide, head over to “Things To Do”, “Restaurants“, or “Bars, Clubs & Nightlife” and play with the filters for the types of things you want to see or do. For example you could set your personal preferences, such as outdoors, off the beaten path, or must-see. You can also select neighborhoods and types of activities. If there is something you must do or see, click “Add To List” and it will appear in a little list in the sidebar on the left.

You can organize your trip and produce your own custom guide. Create a schedule, attach items from your list to each day, and share the result with your friends or other users. The most popular guides appear in the Snapshot Overview. However, the best is, you can print your personalized Guide-to-Go or create a PDF from it. Simply click the “Print My Guide To Go” button on the top right, while in the customize section.

A major draw of the site is its speed. It’s rather laggy and thus requires a bit of patience. Also, at this point the destination archive isn’t very big compared to other free online guides. Nevertheless, the flexibility and interactivity it offers is a killer argument in its favor.

Arrival Guides

These free travel guides are maintained by professional journalists. All information is available online, but each guide can be downloaded as a PDF for free. Some guides are available in several different languages, which is a huge plus of this site.

This page lists the continents and the countries featured on the site. When you click on “View destinations >>” next to a country, you will reach a page that lists its destinations and the available guide languages.

Curiously, there are three different download buttons: one for girls, one for boys traveling with girls, and one for boys. I compared a few of them and wasn’t able to spot a difference. Maybe it depends on the destination or it’s for statistical purposes.

Wikitravel

Wikitravel is a user-driven project. At this point the site comprises over 22,000 destination guides and articles maintained by Wikitravellers from all over the world. If you feel inspired, you yourself can update articles and help keep Wikitravel the most complete and reliable worldwide travel guide.

Wikitravel resembles the structure of the well-known Wikipedia, as it is also powered by MediaWiki. From the Main Page you can search for your travel destination, select a region, discover one of the featured destinations, or load a random page from the navigation menu on the lefthand side. In the toolbox, found at the bottom of the sidebar, you can open a printable version for each page.

The basic organization of the articles is similar to what you will find in commercial guide books. Wikitravel’s edge is the wealth of information, the amount of small places covered, and of course the chance to add your own experience and instantly correct mistakes. All for free!

Wikitravel was featured together with Dopplr in an article by Anthony on 3 Must-Check Traveller Websites Before Your Next Trip.

In Your Pocket

In Your Pocket focuses on destinations throughout Europe. Besides providing free online city guides, the site features articles that highlight various topics of interest to travelers, for example where to ski in Eastern Europe, what souvenirs to bring from Slovenia, or a guide to the new Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece.

While all of the information is available online, buttons in the upper right corner of a destination indicate other means of access. Over 50 comprehensive city guides can be downloaded as PDF’s for free. Many of them can also be viewed as iPaper or you can download an Instant (brief overview) PDF.

MakeUseOf has previously published travel information and advice.

If you’re planning a lengthy trip, check out my article on How To Stay Digitally Charged and Connected On The Road. Before you go, also be sure the Create A Free Travel Packing Checklist With Packwhiz. My post about Hello Backpacker introduces a website with travel information tailored to backpackers and Dean wrote A Quick Road Trip Planning Guide For Techno Geeks.

Aibek’s post on 10 Travel Websites That Should Be Bookmarked includes a travel itinerary planner, a global ATM locator, a guide for camping at an airport, and a website concerned with clean bathrooms. Guy wrote about TripSay, a social travel guide that connects you to people that share your interests, in order to find travel recommendations that match your taste.

Are you searching for great deals? James explained on How To Find The Best Hotel Deals Online. David introduced 6 Useful Last-Minute Booking Sites, and John covered Top 5 Sites To Search For Cheap Online Car Rentals.

Are you going to use public transport? Karl wrote about MetrO, the ultimate public transport guide for your phone. Ellie compiled 6 Subway Map Tools To Navigate Your Way Through NYC.

What did we miss?

Image Credits: rolve

Rather than use it to call a taxi to take you back home again, how about installing a free Android app called “Hotels Near Me” which, as the name suggests, locates your position via GPS and then works out where all the hotels are around you.   You can then even book a hotel room through the app itself after viewing photos of the place.

The free app, which can be found and installed via the Android Market, claims to list over 57,000 hotels from all over the world, and in 21 different languages too. In my testing of the app, I found it to be very accurate, responsive and gave me some very good choices.   My only complaint is that you can’t sort the results by factors such as price or smallest / biggest.   You are just handed a list of hotels and you have to browse through them all manually.

So, let’s switch on the app and see what it can do :

As you will see from the screenshot, you need to first switch on your GPS so the app can find out where you are.

When it has found your location, you can either choose hotels near you or you can choose “elsewhere“.  Choosing “elsewhere” will bring up a small text box where you can type a location.   This feature is good for pre-planning the next stage of your trip if you don’t have accommodation booked.   So let’s say that the next day, you are planning to go to California, to San Jose.   Let’s choose “elsewhere” and type in your intended location :

After about a few seconds delay, it brings up possibilities :

As you can see,you can view a score out of 10 as well as the address.   But if you click the “read more” link, then a whole plethora of information opens up – photos of the hotel and/or rooms, booking instructions, phone and fax numbers, hotel policies, check in times, room features and you can check room availability right there and then.

This app is a must-have for frequent travellers but as I said, it would be greatly improved if you could sort the hotels by price.  Having the Sheraton as your second choice is OK if you are travelling on a platinum credit card but not if you’re back-packing it.

What mobile apps do you use to arrange and book your hotel accommodation?   Let us know in the comments.

Share your videos and you can even make some money!

TravelPost

TravelPost gives you unbiased hotel reviews and ratings as they are written by actual visitors. What’s more TravelPost has some information about the traveler as well (like budget and purpose of travel) so that you can compare your needs and the reviewer’s requirements and decide accordingly if the review is from your perspective.

The coverage is pretty good and the site also offers other functionalities like travel news, searching for deals and other such things.

TVtrip and Trivop

TVtrip and Trivop are your videoguides to hotels. If you’ve ever booked a hotel online, only to get there and find out that the images very cleverly showed only the best parts of the hotel, then check out the videoguides (although videos can be misleading as well). This also eliminates a lot of misinterpretation
caused by either lack of expression on the reviewer’s part or misinterpretation on your part in case of text reviews.

The basic workings are similar, locate the place you are traveling to on the Google Maps Mashup or use the search functionality, a list of potential hotels will appear, click on one to view further details :

Tripr

Tripr is a videoguide with a difference. Tripr shows you ‘real’ video reviews, made from a consumer’s point of view, because customers can make a video of the place they stayed at and upload it to Tripr. The concept thus gives a first hand customer perspective on the facilities. What’s more, if you upload a video to Tripr, you can get paid!

When your video results in a booking you will receive a commission for your video! There are some guidelines as to how the video should be shot and what all it should include.

TripAdvisor

Although an all-in-one-place to get advice on your trip, if it’s only hotels you are looking for then you won’t be disappointed at TripAdvisor. It lists the hotels in the city you are looking for. You can then read reviews for the hotels. You can even find lots of information about the destination, restaurants, things to do etc with TripAdvisor.

Do you know of some other sites that offer similar functionalities? Have you used one in the past? Share your experiences and thoughts in the comments.

Insufficient information for your trip?

Try WikiTravel

WikiTravel is a user-powered travel guide. There are about 18,000 travel guides and articles written and edited by regular travellers from around the globe. You can find pretty much anything here. So if you’re looking for relatively non-biased destination reviews definitely check it out.

There is one other emerging website that I want to mention here. Chokti is a YouTube-inspired site where you can find virtual tours of places you are planning to visit. At the moment there are about 1200 video/audio tours there. Mostly submitted by users themselves. While it’s highly unlikely that you’ll find a video tour of some remote village in India here, it does cover most of the major cities. Chokti does not require an account – however if you plan to upload videos, you need to register.

Hotel Reviews

For hotel review, pics, and map locations I recommend TripAdvisor. Not always true and objective, but usually offers enough info to get a basic idea. If photos are not enough and you want a visual preview of the hotel then try TVtrip, Trivop and Tripr.

Lonely on your trip?

Try Dopplr

Dopplr is essentially a virtual travel log. It allows you to add friends, share your travel schedule with them and discover other people with similar travel plans. It includes an action-feed on your profile page that shares all your current travel activity with all your friends. In addition to comparing travel schedules with friends, Dopplr also allows you to link your Dopplr account with Facebook and share travel activity with Facebook buddies.

Another useful feature Dopplr has to offer is picture sharing. It allows you to link your profile to your Flickr account and share travel pictures with friends and family. Registration is absolutely free, and they rarely send you emails so there’s no need to worry about “Great Offers” or “Daily Newsletters”. Check out Dopplr infocommercial below:

Delays on your trip?

Try FlightStats

Weather and air traffic make travelling a pain. With flight stats, you’ll know of any flight delays and weather issues BEFORE you leave for your trip. We have already briefly mentioned it here.

Flight Stats uses a cool map in which all major airports are mapped out and color-coded. The colors represent the Flight Delay Index which is based on weather conditions and data sent out from the airports themselves. Red representing major delays and green representing smooth flying. Upon clicking on the dots, you’ll receive more detailed information about the airport in question, such as the exact temperature and the weather conditions.

A sub-feature of the map is the weather overlay. With this feature activated, it is possible to view cloud conditions overhead and predict beforehand if there will be any delays.

If you usually leave for the airport a hour and a half before your flight, you can glance at the ticker-tape at the top of the webpage that shows minute-by-minute delay updates on major international and domestic flights.

Some other included tools are mobile/email updates, real-time flight tracker, airport information, etc.

Other

Not so long ago Aibek published 10 travel websites that should be bookmarked. Check it out as well, there are a number of really useful tools there. These include ATM locator, Taxi fare estimator, public-transport maps and more.

(By) Anthony is a student, blogger and a distance runner. In his free time, he enjoys running track, and sifting through the web. Drop by his blog at Radicitus, Dude!