But, let’s say it’s not your thing. Where can you find travel recommendations from people like you? Sure you could ask your friends, yet their travel experiences will be somewhat limited. What about having a site that matches your travel tastes with other people with similar interests?

That’s the niche the Finland-based TripSay is going after. I’d say they’re doing a pretty darn good job of it. I found this site using StumbleUpon, since I seldom travel or look at travel sites. The design intrigued me. It’s clean, kind of Web 2.0 with nice controls and a super intuitive interface. So, I started to play with it.

On the left-hand side of the screen, you’ll see the icons above. Pretty self-explanatory aren’t they? Although I don’t know why an orange heart is better than a pink one. Wouldn’t red be more obvious? At first I didn’t know what the Dislike button was supposed to be. Was it a blue boob or a blue bum? A blue bum made more sense, since one of the places I put the symbol on smells like bum. Yes, I just put that in an article. Journalism at its finest, folks.

In case you were wondering, it was Toronto. Let the flames begin! The cloud with the snore Z’ds are for the places you dream of going to.

TripSay wants you to tag at least 5 places before continuing. Now, keep in mind, you do this even before you sign up. That’s smart. It gets you to use the site completely risk free – you don’t even need to give them your e-mail address. That earned a degree of trust from me right away.

After that, you just click on the Proceed button to see your results:

I found what it returned to me to be a bit surprising! These weren’t places that I normally would have considered going, or even looked up. However, once I read the travel recommendations and reviews and the travel profiles of the people that TripSay said were similar to me, I started to really get into it all! Here’s the number one travel recommendation that it had for me:

I don’t know how to pronounce it, but it sounded cool. At first, when I saw a graveyard, I thought this must be some sort of morose joke.  But the more I looked into Oaxaca, the more I realized how rich in culture and history it is. It’s not the super-resort of other Mexican places like Puerto Vallarta or the overcrowded metropolises that I despise like Mexico City.

At this point, I signed up for the free membership to the site. For the next few hours I played with it more and added more places I’ve liked, disliked or dreamed of going to. I found that there is a Groups section to the site. Within these groups, you’ll find people with similar life interests to you. From there, you can view their travel recommendations and get an idea of even more places to visit. I like the fact that there is a group for people that travel with children. That often makes things a bit more…interesting when travelling.

Once you set up a profile of yourself, you can add specific interests to your profile to get even more accurate results. For me it was things like relaxing, history, culture, arts, reading, etc. The auto-suggest feature does come up with some funny results as you start typing though. I started putting history in but I misspelled it as histr. Here’s what it suggested:

I really should have chosen histrionic personality disorder to see what would be recommended. Probably Bellevue Hospital. On second thought, it does look pretty cool.

The Me as a traveller control is a great idea too. Just a simple slider control to find where your balance is on some aspects of travelling. Even as someone who loves history and would love to travel Europe for 6 months or so, I do have a fairly tight budget. I’m also not multilingual. I’m more sesquilingual – one and half languages. French being the half. Oddly enough, I can pick out conversational themes in most Romantic languages as well as German. As long as they are speaking slow enough. Travel sports like waterskiing and such aren’t my thing either. I’m more of a museum guy.

You can always continue on adding places that you’ve been to and liked, or disliked.  Since TripSay utilizes Google Maps, you can zoom right down to pretty much street level. At this point, you can even recommend a particular restaurant or attraction.

Here’s the zoom-in on Vancouver B.C., Canada with my favourited places. We weren’t there for more than a day, but I’d highly recommend it as a destination for anyone, not just museumnistas like me.

Add to this whole mix the fact that there is no advertising, or trying to get you to book trips through them, the experience is an excellent one. I guarantee that this site will go into heavy rotation on my bookmarks.

Do you have any expereinces with TripSay that you’d like to share? Just got some great travel recommendations? We’d love to read them in the comments below!

Image Credit: Kerry Vaughan

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How do we use technology to make our driving safer or improve our driving instead of putting us at greater risk for accidents? First of all, MakeUseOf has a Cars Directory which covers gas price sites, trip cost sites, vehicle pricing sites, car wallpaper sites and GPS apps sites. Most of these sites do not directly help with safer driving tips, except one.  This is Risky Roads, which was reviewed here.

Risky Roads

This site is a Google Maps mashup that shows the fatal accident concentration in your selected area. The site is free and doesn’t require registration. How does it improve your driving? Once you review the hotspots for accidents in your area, you can commit to driving especially carefully in these areas. Most hotspots in my area are intersections, and I know the ones that I drive through regularly, so I make absolutely sure I’m not distracted when I’m in these areas. I pay closer attention to driving defensively.

Most fatal accidents happen within 25 miles of the victim’s home. That means we get in a comfort zone when driving in familiar territory. This site demonstrates that our comfort zone can be a dangerous place.

Safe Driving Test

A few years ago, you may have seen the Drive for Life program on television. This program included a National Safe Driving Test which played a scenario, asked a question and then gave you a few seconds to answer. The program has not been shown for several years, and their website has not been updated recently, but it is still up and running and provides some very good free safer driving tips, including clips from the show.

You can still purchase copies of the DVD of the television program as well. I really like the Test Your Wheel Personality survey. This is a free, no registration required, multiple choice quiz which helps rate your stress, aggression and driving style. Once submitted, you are provided safer driving tips to improve your personal driving habits to help avoid accidents.

Many locales provide Traveler Information Systems. In the United States, these are collectively known as the “511” system. You can simply dial 511 from your phone to access information. Many states and cities also provide an array of online resources as part of their 511 system. These may include listings of traffic backups due to accidents or general congestion, construction zones and times, weather issues, travel times, estimated speeds on major roads, and some even have viewable traffic cameras.

511

Many 511 websites utilize mapping to provide an overview of your location, with a customizable map to allow you to toggle the parameters on and off. The 511 system is a good tool for trip planning, but it also can help improve your driving by helping you avoid areas where congestion and agitated drivers are likely to be. If you are not in the environment, it is less likely the aggression will rub off on you and you may have a stress free ride home. A few seconds to check 511 before leaving the office may save you a stressful hour in traffic. A list of current and active 511 locations can be found here.

Drive Safe with Uncle Bob

Defensive and safe driving requires instruction. The DMV book teaches the rules, but who teaches defensive driving skills without selling you or your company a program? Check out Road Trip America’s Drive Safe with Uncle Bob. “Uncle Bob” lists seventy rules for defensive driving. Each tip is listed with a link to a full length article. Check out Rule Number 5 which suggests four things that every driver should do that could eliminate all traffic fatalities.

Safercar

Finally, make it a regular part of your routine to check your vehicle at Safercar to see if it is the subject of a recall or defect investigation. Keeping your car in tip top shape and ensuring there are no inherent problems can keep you safe on the road.

Check out these other MUO articles for information regarding other sites to help keep your car running well:

- CarComplaints: Common Car Mechanical Problems Shared By Car Owners
- 10 Of The Best Sites To Keep Your Car Running At Top Speed
- CarBibles: Comprehensive Auto Maintenance Guide

Do you know of any other websites?

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• TripSay Brings Travel Recommendations From People Like You (6)
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• Top 5 Airline Flight Tracking Websites (12)

Buses add an additional layer of transportation goodness that allows one to see buildings and parks without walking long distances on crowded sidewalks or deal with the oppressive heat of NYC summers.

Here are 6 great tools with NYC subway maps to help you navigate your way around NYC using the web and free applications.

Have a Windows Mobile phone? Try Metro, a personal favorite of mine. The interface is easy to use, the results are accurate, and you can get directions for over 300 cities, including New York City.

The NYC version offers directions to and from over 700 stations, tourist attractions and every subway line. It is also available in multiple languages, which makes it a great choice for international travelers.

HopStop is a great free website with accurate and comprehensive directions throughout the New York region. Need to use the subways but want to minimize the walking time to your destination? Then HopStop is for you.

It offers the ability to select whether you want more street walking over transfers, subway only, bus and subway directions, no regional rail and more. The features HopStop’s search algorithms offer make it worth visiting the site.

You can also get a free HopStop app for your iPhone, use HopStop via SMS or access the HopStop website from your Blackberry or PDA.

MTA Mobile is a text-only version of the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s website, which gives you access to NYC subway maps, service notices and schedules from your smartphone or web-enabled device. All you have to do to access the site is go to MTA.Info from a mobile device. The site will automatically format itself for your device.

Trips123 looks a lot like HopStop on the surface, but it has some cool features that HopStop lacks – such as live traffic updates.

I also like the Planned Events page, which makes it easy to find out about directions and service diversions for scheduled events at the Meadowlands, Yankee Stadium and other destinations within the region. Their links section is really second to none, with links to every transit provider in the region, so you can stay up to date with schedules and service offerings.

Are you curious to know what traffic is like on a Saturday afternoon on 5th Avenue and 23rd Street? Pull up Trips123’s live traffic cameras and check out the speeding taxis, walking pedestrians and buses as they get to their destinations!

Only for the iPod, Nano and iPods that feature video, Zsubway is a free set of photos of the entire NYC subway system map. You can easily upload the photos to your iPod using iTunes and use them where ever you go. I like Zsubway because it isn’t as obvious that I’m lost as if I was using a paper map, and I can use it underground, where cell phone signals don’t work. Sorted by line, you can quickly find your way using this handy map system.

Using the familiar interface of Google Maps, Google Transit makes it easy to find transit directions in NYC. Type in your origination and destination addresses and press ‘Get Directions‘. You’ll get 3 proposed sets of directions, along with a Google map, so you can use Google Streetview to make sure you know what the subway station and your destination will look like. The map is easy to print and read if you are accustomed to Google Maps for driving directions.

Any suggestions? Let’s hear it in the comments!

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• MetrO – Ultimate Public Transport Guide for Your Phone (3)
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Sometimes however, it’s just not that simple, especially if you’re trying to rent a car last-minute. Vehicles may be sold out, rental office locations have lousy business hours, and rates don’t match one another. Before you know it, their websites will start giving you the runaround, requiring you to change the pick-up or drop-off times and limiting your choice of cars to whatever is available.

How about a more user-friendly and faster way to search for cheap online car rentals? Yeah, that’s more like it. Avoid the frustration and hassle altogether with these websites.

CarRentals

CarRentals is one of the best car rental aggregators on the Web to find cheap online car rentals. Simply select a location, a pick-up and drop-off date, and the website will display a sizable number of results complete with prices, vendors, distance, car type, and location.

With accurate and competitive listings, CarRentals allows users to compare rates from virtually every car rental company under the sun. Learn more about the website on MakeUseOf’s Directory.

SideStep

SideStep’s car search provides definitive rental results and the ability to compare prices with other sites. The discount travel website, which was acquired by the similar Kayak, indexes hundreds of global travel services, allowing users to find the best possible deals.

SideStep’s straightforward page design and layout makes it one of the easiest ways to search for cheap online car rentals.

Yahoo! Travel

Yahoo! also has its own search engine for finding the car rental you’re looking for. Just enter in your destination, car type, pick-up and drop-off dates, and you’re all set with results displayed on an easy-to-read grid of the various rental companies and their prices.

The website also features a best deals and discounts page for rental cars and other useful tools for your travels.

Car Rental Express

Unlike the other websites, Car Rental Express (CRX) provides search results from only independent car rental agencies, not the big ones. The website covers over 1,500 locations worldwide and 300 agencies.

CRX also features a comparison guide, offering data such as history, services, and policies of each rental car agency. Be sure to also check out the website’s rental tips page for more helpful information.

Expedia

The Internet-based travel agency Expedia has a rental car search engine that’s worth trying out. Results from the website’s preferred vendors are displayed with the rates and in-depth car information, like make/model and capacity.

Feel free to try out other travel websites like Orbitz, Hotwire, Travelocity, or Priceline, but the results are more or less the same.

For all you travelers out there, check out 6 Useful Last-Minute Booking Sites for Your Next Trip and the 10 travel Websites That Should Be Bookmarked.

How do you go about finding the best deal for your rental car? Let us know in the comments.

Image Credit : Car Rental Chennai

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• TripSay Brings Travel Recommendations From People Like You (6)
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This severely limits your abilities to change your plans or make an educated decision on how you want to handle things.

When I am flying, it’s mostly for work and I need to be where I need to be when they need me there – dig? So a tool like FlightCaster is invaluable to me. You can check it out by going to FlightCaster.com.

Once you are there you can search for your specific flight number or for a specific route. The best part about FlightCaster is that they make flight delay predictions based on scientific data. It works on the notion that if flights before your flight are delayed that will trickle down to you. They also have access to past problems and other information that let them create algorithms that magically tell them if the flight is going to be delayed or not.

According to their blog, flights are delayed all the time. Check out this data:

June Stats

Some informative (or at least interesting) stats on airport flight delays for June 2009.

Raw data from the Department of Transportation (crunched by FlightCaster):

-Most delayed flights (everyday flights, in average time late):

1) American Eagle 4823, Boston – New York LaGuardia

2) Delta 147, Newark – Atlanta

3) Comair (Delta Express) 6662, Charlotte – JFK

4) Mesa (United Express) 7281, Washington Dulles – Austin

5) Jetblue 547, Newark – West Palm Beach

-Least delayed major route: Las Vegas to Kansas City (averaged 2 minutes late all month)

-Most delayed major route: Miami to JFK, averaged 48 minutes late in June

Pretty mind blowing huh? Let’s see how FlightCaster works and how it can help learn what the FAA doesn’t want you to know!

Go ahead and type in a flight number and airline and you will get a page that looks similar to this (hopefully you won’t see red!)

There will be a big red or green box announcing if your plane will or will not be delayed.  Then they go on to give you the percentages of what will happen. Awesome for a betting man! (Does that make anyone else think of that episode of Friends?)

Below that will be the mitigating factors in the answer. You can see the break down below. They are Other delays, airport status for departure and arriving airports, official airline status, departing weather and arriving weather.

And now lets check on my friend’s flight today…

Awesome it seems that there is an 85% chance it will be on time! Woot.

You might be also interested in Top 5 Airline Flight Tracking Websites that Dave covered earlier. There are also a few similar websites listed under flights section on MakeUseOf Directory.

How do your keep up with airport flight delays? When your flight is delayed what do you do? Wait or reschedule? Let us know in the comments!

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• Top 5 Airline Flight Tracking Websites (12)
• 6 Sites To Make Flying A Whole Lot Easier (15)
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Wanting to experience life as it was lived by the footloose heroes above is sending thousands on the road today who will have their movements and moments chronicled on the world wide web.

When you’re starting to plan a trip today, it’s not as easy as it was for Sal Paradise in the 1940s. You can’t simply board a greyhound and expect everything to go great. Planning and further planning are necessary to get from A to B. In this article, I will provide you with a road trip planning guide for the technology enthusiast by showing you the top web apps available for the backpacker, adventurer or holidaymaker.

Yahoo Trip Planner

This is a tool for road trip planning that will get most of the nitty gritty work done for you such as finding hotels, things to do, where to eat and it will even give you suggestions of where to go. The planner can be found here. When you first go to the trip planner, to your right you’ll see ‘Create a Trip’. Click on this button. You will be asked to sign in with your Yahoo ID. If you do not have one you can register here.

When on the ‘Create a Trip’ page, enter in the location to which you want to travel. This could be a country, area, city or town.

Then, you’ll be asked for information about your trip such as dates and scheduled activities such as tours and outdoor pursuits. If you’re not sure about where to stay then enter the city you’re visiting into the destination bar. This will return tons of hotels, facilities and things to do in the area, which are constantly updated with event plans and new hotels, restaurants etc…

The trip planner also has a Journal to keep your friends and family informed. Here, you can write about your experiences on the open road. Your family (who undoubtedly will subscribe to your journal) will be able to keep track of what’s going on with you, look at your photos and comment on them. Think of this as a kind of travel Twitter come blog.

MapQuest

Okay, so now you’ve got your ideas formulated into an envelope full of timetables, bus tickets, hotel reservations and your trusty passport. What’s next on your road trip planning to-do list? Well now, you have to know where to go. While the average internet user in you will automatically point you to Google Maps, I’d suggest using MapQuest as it is more tailored to the traveler who has a geeky side with a touch of organizational OCD.

Their maps are just as detailed as Google’s but give better information for those on-foot and in a car. For example, while you’re driving at cruising speed you may as well instruct Johnny in the seat next to you to pop open the Mac Book and see what’s to come. Along the top of the map window which is on the homepage of MapQuest you’ll see buttons like ’Gas Prices’ and ’Traffic’ that will inform you of the situation that lies ahead, such as low or high gas prices and traffic conditions ranging from ‘Normal’ to the dreaded ‘Road Closed’.

How about the best restaurants or what’s going on in the city? Each major urban centre will have a star beside its name. Click on that star and MapQuest will give you all the current news on what’s happening in that city.

Quest Map is also available on your iPhone. To find it, the best thing to do is open up the Apple App Store and type MapQuest into the search bar. It is much the same as the web version with most of the same functions so I shan’t repeat myself.

Rand Mac Nally

This useful road trip planning website will give you the best info for the city you’re heading off to. Sure, the Yahoo! Trip Planner and Map Quest will give you small bursts of what’s hot in a city but Rand Mac Nally will condense the whole city and all of its thousands of energy pockets into a few articles that Johnny can read aloud whilst cruising along.

As you can see from the screenshot, there are loads of sub-categories for each city and along the left hand side; there are several options for any kind of traveler. Each city has a huge article detailing its history, cultural monuments and sights.

Rand Mac Nally is less of a planning tool and more of an idea mill from where I’m standing. Before traveling to a city, you can see what’s going on and some facts about the place like weather, population and the local culture and customs. It’s a perfect road trip planning guide.

My final advice for the tech savvy traveler in this article is to be prepared for failure. Often, while out on the road where the internet still comes via a phone line, relying totally on your Mac or iPhone for travel advice and suggestions is a silly move. The best thing (and perhaps the essence of travel itself) is to talk to the locals, see what’s going on and get the inside scoop. While it’s almost blasphemous to say on a website such as this one but the internet isn’t perfect.

On the other side of that coin however, making a journal entry on Yahoo! about how you were stranded offline for three days is interesting and makes for a great experience. Here are my Top Five Tech Travel Tips:

1. Always have spare batteries

2. Carry different plug converters for different regions

3. Charge your equipment at any chance you get – in cafés, hotels, anywhere there is a plug. Free electricity!

4. Download Google Maps for your Cell Phone. This can literally be a lifesaver. Read my article on how to do it here.

5. Tweet – loads!

Any other tips?

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• Take Google Maps Offline & Get Maps You Can Print using Google Maps Buddy (16)
• Cool Online Resources to Plan Your Next Vacation (11)
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It would be totally awesome if you could somehow take the map along. Google offers a print option but you can only print what you are able to fit on the screen which is hardly the solution you are looking for if you want to get a map of the entire city at the desired zoom level.

You can save the map as image files and go through the pain of stitching them together in Paint or Photoshop. Or you can spare yourself some trouble and get Google Maps to work offline with Google Map Buddy, which does everything for you in a click.

It doesn’t require any installation, just extract the zip file, run the executable and you are good to go.

Using the Google Map Buddy interface you can browse to the Google Maps site you want. Search for or navigate to the location you wish to create the map for. You can zoom in or out so that you can see the entire region for which you want to create the map. Let’s say you want to create a map for the city of Paris with all the major roads, landmarks and public transit stations.

Such details are visible when you are zoomed in pretty close, in which case you cannot fit all of Paris on your screen. So Google Map Buddy allows you to zoom out to a level where you can see the entire Paris on your screen (don’t worry if you can’t see the details at this zoom level) and specify the area you want to create the map for.

Now click the draw button, and draw a rectangle encompassing the entire Paris at your current zoom level. You don’t need to zoom to the desired level of detail because Google Map Buddy lets you specify the zoom level of the map that it will create. So you can zoom out to fit the required region on the screen, and then specify a higher zoom level inside the application’s toolbar to get a more detailed final map.

Once you have specified the details, hit create map and the application gets to work. It downloads the required tiles and stores them all on your hard disk. Once it has downloaded all the images it then stitches them together to create a complete detailed map according to your needs.

It can take quite some time to download and stitch all the images, so you would have to be patient while it is working. It would be nice if the application displayed a progress bar or current activity information to let the user know what it is up to.

After all the downloading and stitching together has finished, your map is viewable as a image file. You can scroll and zoom inside the map image just like any other image file that doesn’t fit completely on your screen. Put it on a USB drive, your iPod, your mobile phone (or maybe print it) to take it along. The tiles that it used to stitch together the map are also available just in case you need them, you can keep them or delete as you wish.

Do you know of any similar application you use with Google Maps? Let us know about it in the comments.

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• A Quick Road Trip Planning Guide For Techno Geeks (3)
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Before you get all busy preparing, take a moment to recall what went wrong on your last vacation. Did you pack well?

Forgetting an important item at home is one of the most annoying things to happen when you leave for a vacation. And why do we forget to pack things? Because we don’t work with lists or we make a list in a hurry without external suggestions. I bet it has happened to you before — it has certainly happened to me.

Packwhiz is a packing list generator. The best is, you can sign in using your Google account!

Once signed in, you can instantly generate your first free travel packing checklist. Give it a name and set the parameter that will define your list, i.e. is your destination domestic or international, what type of accommodation and transportation are you going to use, what will you be doing, and what type of weather is to be expected.

Click “Generate” to create a standard list or “Start from scratch” if you prefer to go from an empty list.

If you went with “Generate”, you will see a long list of items on the following page. They are sorted into various categories, such as Toiletries and Personal Care, Documents and Money, Gadgets, Food and Drink, Medicine and more. The more parameters you check, the more thorough the list will be.

Basically, that’s your list and it’s done, unless you edit it. So, you need to go through your list and check all the items that you DO NOT need, then delete them. Of course, you can entirely personalize your list i.e. remove, edit and add items.

To edit an item, simply click on it and a menu will open. You can change the item name, category or add a description.

Items can be added by clicking on the “new item” link at the bottom of each category. If you don’t like the way items are sorted, you can simply drag and drop them around.

Once you’re done, you can publish your list and share the URL or simply go back to your lists, create a new list or edit another one.

Personally, I think generating the list could be slightly more intuitive. I looked at the newly generated list and started checking all items I wanted to keep on my list. That was wrong, the list was already done. So I used the Feedback to give them my thoughts on how they could make removing a ton of items much easier. I found that the Feedback system is one of the best I have ever seen. Check it out, it’s super!

Packwhiz was launched earlier this year, so it’s brand new and there are a few things that need to be ironed out. But for now, it’s very uncomplicated to use and creates thorough, free travel packing checklists that are easy to edit and customize. Unfortunately, they didn’t yet integrate a print option.

For many more helpful tools and websites to improve your next vacation, check out the following posts. They include tips on planning your trip, locating ATMs or public toilets, tracking down metro connections, finding travel companions, surviving airports and flights, and tons more.

• 10 Travel Websites that should be Bookmarked by Aibek
• 3 Must-check Traveller Websites before your Next Trip by Anthony
• 6 Sites To Make Flying A Whole Lot Easier by David
• Top 5 Airline FLight Tracking Websites by Dave
• Cool Online Resources to Plan Your Next Vacation by Tina (me)
• Tavel The World with Hello Backpacker by Tina (me)
• How To Stay Digitally Charged and Connected On The Road by Tina (me)

Is there anything you own multiple times because you forgot to pack it? Confess! You’re not alone.

Image credits: woodsy

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• Travel The World with Hello Backpacker (4)
• Share Your Trips With EveryTrail (8)
• How To Stay Digitally Charged and Connected On The Road (4)
• Cool Online Resources to Plan Your Next Vacation (11)
• A Quick Road Trip Planning Guide For Techno Geeks (3)

Preparation

Before you head out for your trip, give yourself at least a week to acquire everything you will need to take with you.

Make a list with online traveling packing list and work on it. That means, take some time to think of what you may need. Imagine what you’ll be doing and let the list grow.

If there is something you still need to buy, do so immediately.

Put whatever you decide to take into a box and pack all of it, don’t toss anything away at the last minute unless you’re 100% sure that you won’t need it.

What To Take

Think of devices and their accessories, such as batteries, chargers, adaptors, cables, memory cards etc.

Also, take some extra digital storage space with you, so that you can backup photos and videos. This could be a USB stick, a small hard drive or an additional memory card.

Definitely bring a card reader!

If you don’t want to rely on a computer for charging your devices, get a USB-to-power plug adaptor and actually take it with you. Depending on where you go, you may also need a power plug adaptor.

Make sure you have all your login information with you. It can be easy to forget URLs, usernames and passwords when it’s all saved on your local computer. Creating a USB stick with portable software (e.g. Firefox and/or Thunderbird) may also be a good idea and make you a bit more independent, in case you’re not taking your laptop. Aibek created a list of 100 Portable Apps for your USB Stick (Windows and Mac).

On The Road

If you decided to bring your computer, you will have little trouble finding internet access. Across Northern America and Europe, lots of places offer free or very cheap WiFi. Even most hostels offer it now.

David wrote an article compiling 5 Wi-Fi Hotspot Finders To Find Free Wi-Fi Spots Near You. You might want to make use of these tools before you head out onto the road, though.

If you don’t bring your laptop, you will have to hunt down the best and cheapest options to go online. In North America, I found that libraries are always a good bet. They offer high speed internet on very well maintained compuers. Many towns libraries offer free 15-minute internet and you can sign up as a one time patron to receive 1 hour of free internet. In Europe, Internet Cafes are a standard and you may try libraries as well.

Sharing

When coming back from a trip, everyone will ask you what it was like. Now, it can be not only tiring but also quite time consuming to share your stories with everyone individually. You should consider sharing your experiences while you’re on the road.

What is working very well for me is Flickr. I use it as a sort of low maintenance blog. I upload my photos, add a title and use the description to share what I’ve been doing. To keep it all a bit more organized, I created a set. So after I upload and describe the photos, I add them to the set, where I can also define the order in which I want them to be viewed. This is my “Flickr Travel Diary“.

You can also upload videos to Flickr. I set up a YouTube channel to collect my videos. But what you do is up to you.

What did you find useful to stay charged and connected while traveling? Your input on the matter is very much appreciated!

Picture credits: jana_koll, erkinsahin, Brando, brO.

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• Travel The World with Hello Backpacker (4)
• Share Your Trips With EveryTrail (8)
• Create A Free Travel Packing Checklist With Packwhiz (2)
• Cool Online Resources to Plan Your Next Vacation (11)
• A Quick Road Trip Planning Guide For Techno Geeks (3)

To instantly share my whereabouts, detours, experiences and some photos with family and friends, I was looking for a one-in-all tool that could easily be updated while I’m on the road.

What I found was a website called EveryTrail. The original idea for it is to provide outdoor fans with a platform where they can manage and share their tour data or browse the tours of others to find inspiration. For me it will serve as a small travel diary.

The way it works is straightforward. There are three steps to creating a record of your own trip. First you can upload a GPS file or hand draw your trip on the map. Next you add details about the trip including title, date, type of activity, location, trip story, tips for others, and edit the statistics and the map view that will be shown.

Finally, you can add your photos. If both your camera and the GPS device were set to the same time, the photos will be automatically placed on the right spot of your route, based on their date and time setting. If that is not the case you can manually place them yourself.

Once it’s all done it will look something like the following example, depending on which information you included.

Top left: summary with trip story to the right.

Middle left: map with photos to the right. You can also switch to see the full map or the stats instead of the photos.

Bottom: strip of all trail photos. Here you can initiate a sort of slide show and photos next to the map will cycle through the respective trail positions. Below the photo strip are the tags and GPS data downloads, joined by comments to the right. At the very bottom you’ll find share options and a picture summary.

You don’t have to be a member of the site to enjoy exploring. There are over sixty thousand trips to be discovered. You can search the public trips by location, activity, keyword, trip date, all-time or recent popularity, and follow in the footsteps of previous hikers, geocachers, backpackers, skaters, drivers…

Aren’t detailed maps, GPS devices and the developments they have brought us a blessing for the outdoor lovers? On the other hand, true adventurers will find it ever more challenging to discover the unexplored. Are you encouraged to follow the trails they have left for us?

Picture credits: arinas74

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• Cool Online Resources to Plan Your Next Vacation (11)
• Travel The World with Hello Backpacker (4)
• How To Stay Digitally Charged and Connected On The Road (4)
• Create A Free Travel Packing Checklist With Packwhiz (2)
• A Quick Road Trip Planning Guide For Techno Geeks (3)

The internet makes it easy to find out about various destinations, great deals, attractions, local customs and curiosities that might otherwise have escaped your attention or become an unpleasant surprise. But there is almost too much information to make up one’s mind. So where should you start?

Here is a small selection of websites that will hopefully help you filter for the best available deals and sights.

Spotted by Locals

Spotted by Locals covers 20 European cities and promises that you will experience cities like a local.

The articles are short and cover everything from art & culture, bars and music, to relaxing, shopping and theaters. The attractions of each city can be browsed by category or area / district.

New spotters are hand selected by existing contributors and a face to face meeting is a must before you can write for Spotted by Locals, representing your own city. They are currently looking for new spotters, maybe that would be you?

trivago

On trivago you can compare prices for hotels, browse the site for attractions, reviews and photos.

When comparing hotel prices in a given city on a specific date, you’ll be presented with a list of hotels on the right. To the left you can refine your search, for example by reducing the price range on a meter bar. When switching from Hotel to Attractions you’ll see a list of attractions for that very city and in the sidebar you can filter for bars, restaurants, museums etc. or pick specific places from the “browse box”, where all available attractions are pulled together and listed kind of like in a tag cloud.

The site operates based on member contributions. Each review is accompanied by a detailed rating and eventually photos. So whenever you return from a trip with novel experiences and great discoveries, this is where you can show off your travel expertise.

InfoHub

InfoHub describes itself as “the ultimate source for out-of-the-ordinary and inspiring travel ideas” and I must say they have a point.

This speciality travel guide is indeed a great resource for finding all sorts of professionally organized tours around the globe. Of course these offers are not free, but using the site and looking for options is totally free and absolutely recommended.

You can browse by country or popular vacations, such as eco tourism, hiking & trekking, photography & videography, scuba diving or sports. A more detailed selection is available in the quick vacation search or you simply search the site for keywords.

World Travel Guide

Although this page loaded a bit slow when I tested it, it appeared to be the most thorough, informative and easy to use travel guide site for locations around the world.

First you pick a destination from the map, and then you select the type of guide you’re looking for to the right. Your options are country, city, airport, attraction, cruise and weather guides.

If there is anything you need to know about a destination, like key facts, public holidays, climate, top things to see & do, getting around by air, water, rail or on the road, this is where your inquisitiveness will be served with details, details and more details, packed in excellent articles, decorated with nice photos.

Lonely Planet

When embarking on an exciting vacation, how could anyone miss out on the Lonely Planet?  This is the ultimate and meanwhile mainstream information resource to help you plan your trip.

The archives are huge and you’ll find tons of useful information, reviews, beautiful photos, and recommendations. Like on trivago you can search for hotels, but also for hostels and within the Travel Services you can find out about available insurances, tours, car & rail, view travel checklists (tips & tricks included) and much more.

As a signed up member of the site you can contribute to discussions in the forum. The forums are what really make the Lonely Planet homepage most unique. Here you can discuss your experiences, expectations or find company for your next adventure tour.

Although the Lonely Planet appears to cover it all, I found that World Travel Guide was more easy to use for tracking down information and InfoHub provided a much better selection of available trips. The point is, different sites are good for different purposes and each site has its pros and cons.

So are you serious about booking your vacation now? Last year Varun wrote about 5 Review Sites to Help You Find The Perfect Hotel and recently David covered 6 Useful Last-Minute Booking Sites For Your Next Trip.

Which resources do you turn to for the perfect trip?

Picture credits: Zela

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• Share Your Trips With EveryTrail (8)
• A Quick Road Trip Planning Guide For Techno Geeks (3)
• 5 Review Sites To Help You Find The Perfect Hotel (18)
• Travel The World with Hello Backpacker (4)
• How To Stay Digitally Charged and Connected On The Road (4)

But it turned out that he had a 5 year travel plan. Now doesn’t that makes sense? I found it hilarious!

So did you already pick your travel destinations for the year 2009? Need some help planning your trip? Want to go backpacking?

Hello Backpacker

You may want to look into the Hello Backpacker website to help you pick your travel destination and plan your world trip.

The site is set up into five different categories – get inspired, plan your trip, on the road, back home, and discuss. Let me guide you through each of them.

The travel videos contain material from the most famous cities, historical and natural sights. If you have any videos you would like to share you can submit them to the site.

The rest of that section still needs some work as it doesn’t contain a lot of material, so let’s move on to the next one because that is where it gets interesting.

In the backpacker’s toolbox you can download a free 99 page PDF file that contains checklists, templates, FAQs and lots of advice to prepare you for your trip. A must have!

In the crowd recommendations section you can pick your travel destinations and see where other people who picked those destinations tend to visit.

In the next step you can compare price levels between those countries. Or you can go to that section directly and choose from different ways of doing that.

The power plugs section provides information about voltage, frequency and plugs used in different countries. That’s critical information if you’re going to carry an electric device that requires recharging.

On the road you may know some country-specific gestures to keep out of trouble. But frankly, there are the same four gestures for every country and either they are using an de-escalated F** U sign or they fail to show the actual one. Very puzzling.

The currency card for currency conversions is more helpful, although you can never be sure how up to date it is. The currency converter tool may be better, at least it was already updated in 2009.

The conclusion of this section is the emergency card that you can create for yourself. It’s something you should really carry with you all the time, just in case. The one below is of course just an example. We all know you don’t call Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris will call you!

Once you’re back home you can update your travel map with all the places you want to see, don’t want to see or already have seen.

The profiling section is a small test of 10 questions that will tell you what kind of traveler you are. It totally failed me though since all the right answers were lacking and I had to pick the one I found least repellent. I actually don’t imagine myself shopping in New York and didn’t drink any latte in London (who can afford that anyways).

This leaves us with the last category.

Check out the forum to share your experiences and maybe you have some blog awards for the site, so that this section won’t be so sadly empty?

We have covered other websites useful to travelers in the past, for example:

- 10 Travel Websites That Should Be Bookmarked by Aibek
- 5 Review Sites To Help You Find The Perfect Hotel by Varun
- 6 Useful Last-Minute Booking Sites For Your Next Trip by David
- 6 Sites To Make Flying A Whole Lot Easier by David

How do you organize your trips and where will you go this year?

Picture credits: barunpatro

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• Share Your Trips With EveryTrail (8)
• How To Stay Digitally Charged and Connected On The Road (4)
• Create A Free Travel Packing Checklist With Packwhiz (2)
• Cool Online Resources to Plan Your Next Vacation (11)
• A Quick Road Trip Planning Guide For Techno Geeks (3)

Time spent getting a ticket and waiting for your flight (which is often many, many hours) can be miserable, but it doesn’t have to be. Using these five tools, you’ll be able to make your time in the airport a little more bearable, and maybe even a little shorter.

A disclaimer: as I’m in the US, I can’t vouch for all of these tips working anywhere else. Most of them should, but some sites and policies are different outside the US.

1. Book It

Instead of using the airline sites, try using Tripeedo. Tripeedo’s an easy way to search most of the major airlines for tickets, as well as some of the best bargain sites like Kayak, Travelocity, and Orbitz.

Finding a flight’s as easy as typing where you’re coming from and going to, and Tripeedo does all the searching for you. You won’t buy your ticket from Tripeedo, but it’ll put you on the page you want to see – unlike most airline sites.

For more, check out Tripeedo’s directory listing.

2. Check Your Flight

If your flight’s going to be delayed, it’s often going to happen well before you even get to the airport. Luckily, there are several ways to check your flight status before you even leave.

You can check your airline’s website, but the status page is usually hard to find. Instead, try Googling your airline and flight number, like “Delta flight 365″ for a quick status check at the top of your search results.

If you want to know much more about your flight, try FlightAware. You’ll get a map of the flight’s path, with how far away it is, how fast it’s going, and a whole bunch of other useless but fun information.

3. Check In Faster

Most airlines these days allow for online check-in. That means you avoid the long lines, the obnoxious people, and the terror of almost missing your flight when the attendant is inhumanly slow.

Go online, check in and print your boarding pass, and head straight to the gate. In just a few minutes of research, I found that American Airlines, United, Continental, Delta, Alaska Air, Frontier Air, Southwest and Spirit Airlines all offer online check in – and that’s just the first page of Google! To find your airline’s site, Google “online check in” plus your airline, and you’ll be good to go.

4. Fly Through Security

Airport security’s a pain, but there’s just no way around it. You can, however, make the process go a whole lot faster by following some critical steps. Wired Magazine created a how-to Wiki called “Fly Through Airport Security.”

Among the useful tips are things like checking the TSA website to find out the average wait times, and only using two bins for your stuff. Got a great tip? You can add it to the Wiki right on the Wired site.

5. Find An Outlet

Outlets are a precious commodity in the airport. Though I recommend to always bring a power strip, or at least a power splitter, to the airport when you travel, I nearly always forget to do so.

Thanks to my failure of a memory, I rely on the Air Power Wiki. The Wiki is a guide to airports all over the world, letting you know where to look for a free outlet. It’s often updated, and you can even update it yourself- either way, it’s a killer way to find a power source anywhere. Best of all, the outlets are often in places I wouldn’t think to look otherwise, like this one in Dublin: “At the Gate Clock bar: turn left in the main bar door, look for tables on the left: the table just past the elevator has a pair of sockets near it on the bar side.”

6. Find Wi-Fi

You’re through security, ready to get on your flight – and your flight gets delayed for 8 hours. Problem? Not if you know where to look! Free or cheap Wi-Fi is out there, just waiting to be found.

Before you leave for the airport, check a couple of these sites to find out your Internet situation. First, try the list of “Free wifi airports” compiled by SmallBusiness that tells you which airports, and where in those airports, you’ll find free Wi-Fi. If you can’t find free, find cheap. TravelPost has a guide to 219 US airports with Wireless locations, types and prices for each one. For the most complete list, though without prices, try weather.com’s “Airports with Wi-Fi” list. You’ll be able to see just about every location in every American airport that will offer you Wi-Fi, free or otherwise.

Armed with a boarding pass, the right amount of time, the right security tips, Wi-Fi and a power source, the airport won’t seem like such a hassle anymore. Flight’s delayed for 3 days? Who cares, you’ve got Wi-Fi! Just don’t steal my outlet.

Photos: Travelin’ Librarian, alist, catcubed, futureshape

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• 10 Travel Websites that should be Bookmarked (19)
• Top 5 Airline Flight Tracking Websites (12)
• Help Predict Airport Flight Delays & Save Time With Flightcaster (0)
• 6 Useful Last-Minute Booking Sites For Your Next Trip (4)
• 6 Amazing Web Communities for Exchanging Favors (7)

With a bit of know-how, and the willingness to put in the leg work (or mouse work, if you will), you can find incredible deals on travel of all kinds – from airlines to hotels to rental cars. Companies realize they’re better off selling at a smaller profit than not filling the empty spaces. It’s better for an airline to fill every seat on a plane that’s going to fly anyway, even if some of the tickets sell at a smaller return.

There are several last minute booking sites out there that know that, and use the companies’ desperation to your advantage. If you’re looking to book a flight, hotel, cruise, or any other type of travel in the near future, try starting with these last minute travel sites.

First, though, a disclaimer: these are all last-minute deals. If you’re set on a particular place on a particular date, these sites are risky. If you can afford to be a bit more flexible though, and run with the great deals that come up (a really fun way to travel), these sites are for you.

LastMinute

LastMinute promises you up to 70% discount on your travel. You can book flights, hotels, cars, or whole packages anywhere from three weeks to three hours in advance. If you want to, book the ticket, pack, and go.

LastMinute also offers sections for “this weekend,” “next weekend,” and “under $250″ for those looking for cheap vacations. There’s a ton of stuff on there, most of it within the United States and Caribbean. If you’re looking to get out of town as fast as possible, and don’t care much where you go, LastMinute.com’s a great place to start.

TravelZoo

TravelZoo definitely wins my award for the ugliest site to look at that’s actually useful. It has many of the same features as LastMinute, and also offers an incredibly useful email subscription list. Sign on to the list, and TravelZoo will send you their Top 20 of the Week, pulling together the Top 20 last minute travel bargains of the week from around the Internet. It’s a popular list, with editions for the US and around the world, and offers great deals of all shapes and sizes.

Airfare Watchdog

I like Airfare Watchdog because it does things a bit differently: all you’ve got to do is plug in the airport you want to fly in to or out of, and you’ll see the cheapest other halves – either the airport you’ll fly out of or into.

For instance, I plugged in leaving from New York’s Kennedy Airport, and got a list of the cheapest last minute flights leaving from that airport, as well as how far in advance you can book them. There are sections for domestic and international flights, and a huge list is compiled.

Fun fact: I can fly from JFK to Akron, OH, round trip for $144. Not a bad deal. There’s also a list of “Fares of the Day” that will help you find the cheapest flights you can possibly find, anywhere in the world.

SideStep Deals

SideStep is primarily a booking site like Orbitz or Priceline, but it has a large and useful “Deals” section. It works something like a Google for cheap travel, in that SideStep doesn’t have the deals itself, but instead points you to the best deals around the Web.

There are flight deals, cruise deals, hotel deals, themed vacations (skiing, golf, etc.) and a number of other ways to save money. As always, most of the deals are for last-minute vacations, but it’s a huge repository of links to deals around the Web, sorted well and presented easily for you.

It’ll require some more browsing, because you usually can’t buy directly from SideStep, but it’s certainly a good place to start, as it includes a huge number of other sites trying to find you deals.

Vacations to Go

If you want to go on a cruise, check out Vacations to Go. They get the deals from cruise lines that no one else gets, based on the notion that cruise companies want to sell every last spot, even at huge bargains. It requires a sign-up, but it opens the doors to huge deals that no one else can see.

Since Vacations to go is a bit more exclusive, there’s likely to be less competition for great deals, but it’s also not the limitless resource some of the others are. Also, check the site often: cruises are rarely available more than a week in the 90-Day Ticker, but you can book further in advance with the “Find a Bargain” feature.

Luxury Link

Luxury Link is a high-risk, high-reward way to travel. It’s essentially an eBay for vacations, in that you can bid on the vacation you’d like to attend, and the highest bidder gets the vacation. In addition, there are vacations you can “Buy Now,” and skip the auction process.

The real deals are going to be found through the auctions, which feature everything from cruises to flights to hotels, in destinations all over the world. This is great if you know generally what you want to do, and can play the auctioning game for a while before you go. Their prices are higher, but so is the quality of the destinations.

If you want to go to a particular place, do a particular thing, and at a particular time, don’t use these sites. If you’re a “travel by the seat of your pants” kind of person, looking for a fun, economic way to travel, try one or many of these different websites, and see where they take you.

When you’re looking to travel, where do you go? How do you book vacations?

Photo: terriseesthings

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• 5 Review Sites To Help You Find The Perfect Hotel (18)
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• A Quick Road Trip Planning Guide For Techno Geeks (3)
• TripSay Brings Travel Recommendations From People Like You (6)
• Travel The World with Hello Backpacker (4)

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.

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• Cool Online Resources to Plan Your Next Vacation (11)
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• 6 Useful Last-Minute Booking Sites For Your Next Trip (4)
• Travel The World with Hello Backpacker (4)
• Share Your Trips With EveryTrail (8)

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!

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• Top 5 Airline Flight Tracking Websites (12)
• Help Predict Airport Flight Delays & Save Time With Flightcaster (0)
• 6 Sites To Make Flying A Whole Lot Easier (15)
• 5 Review Sites To Help You Find The Perfect Hotel (18)
• 10 Travel Websites that should be Bookmarked (19)

Here are a few websites which can make tracking flight information easy, if not downright fun and interesting!

1. FBOWeb.com

This website mother of all airline tracking websites.

Not only does it show the usual information: departure time, estimated arrival time, progress bar, and automatically updating map; but it also integrates in nicely with Google Earth!

This map updates in real time, and has the airline flight’s location and altitude coordinates.

As an added bonus, this website includes links that would satisfy any airplane nerd’s fantasies. Air Traffic Control (ATC) live audio feeds are a click away.

2. FlightStats.com

A close second is Flightstats.com. This site includes a ton of information about flight tracking and other travel information like airport delays and travel tips.

Another cool thing that flightstats.com has are widgets, facebook applications, and RSS feeds for airport delays.

3. FlightView.com

This service includes brightly colored maps as well as automatically updated information on scheduled and estimated arrival times.

4. FlightAware.com

Although this site is more bare-bones than some of the rest, it includes all of the required information in an easy to read format. It also has links to airport information which could come in handy for amateur pilots or other airport junkies.

5. FlyteComm.com

Besides taking the booby prize for their domain name, this site also includes the basic information you need. It might be good if you are using a mobile browser to track a flight or if you are at the airport and need the down and dirty information on the flight you are waiting on.

BONUS: Google

Typing the airline and flight number as a google search gives you one of those information boxes at the top of the search results page.

Hopefully the above sites will satisfy your itch for airline flight status information!

(By) Dave is an IT Manager by day and technology consultant by night. He is interested in all things internet, but especially interested in system administration, network security, history, and backpacking. He lives near Philadelphia with his family. See his blog at www.systembash.com.

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(1) Couch Surfing / Hospitality Club – These two are completely independent communities, however the idea behind both projects is very similar, thus they share spot #1. Check out video below for a quick intro.

Couch Surfing

Sign up for Couch Surfing if you would like to meet and interact with people around the world. The motivation of this community is to share whatever you have with others – your expertise, a bit of company, dinner, a cup of tea or your couch or guest bed. As a member you can set up a profile in which you write about yourself and describe what you have to offer. People interested in meeting you or surfing your couch can contact you through your profile. Within the community you can join groups for special interests, for example to hear about meetings or get togethers in your area. Once you met someone through the site you can leave a reference on their profile and become their friend. I have been a member of Couch Surfing for almost two years, hosted several dozen people, gave them a tour through my city, had meals and went out with them. I was hosted by two people and I can tell you, it’s such an incredible feeling to be welcome and treated like family by a stranger far away from home. The only negative experiences I made were with people who didn’t show up or canceled last minute. Other than that everyone was at least nice, but most people I met were awesome.

Hospitality Club

Now that you know about Couch Surfing, there is not much left to say about Hospitality Club. It’s the same, but different. Many avid Couch Surfers are also members of Hospitality Club and vice versa. I like to keep it simple and decided for the site that looked cooler and seemed more easy to use. For example Hospitality Club urges guests to share their personal information including passport number with their hosts and encourages hosts to check the passport of arriving guests. While this is a good precaution, it somehow turned me off. I’m not a control freak, I like to be a bit naive and trust in common sense and humanity. Couch Surfing just seemed more like I would fit in there.

(2) FreeCycle

The Freecycle Network™ is a nonprofit movement, dedicated to the free exchange of anything people want to part with. Furniture, electronic devices, toys, clothes, anything. It’s subdivided into individual local groups, located across the globe. These groups are basically Yahoo Groups that are utilizing the eMail list feature. You may post OFFERED as well as WANTED items to the public list and anyone who is interested or can help out will contact you directly. The groups are moderated by local volunteers. To sign up search for your community or browse all existing groups. If you find that there is no group in your area, you can start one and add it to the Freecycle Network™. Currently the network consists of 4,233 groups with a total of 4,444,000 members.

(3) FON

FON is the world’s largest WiFi community. FON members, also known as Foneros, share their WiFi connection with others for free. In return, when they leave their home base, they can use the WiFi connection provided by other Foneros for free. If you do not wish to share your WiFi for free, you could even make a little money. However, this would exclude you from using FON Spots for free.

With FON Maps you can check whether or not a FON Spot is available in your area. The image below shows a random selection from a residential area in Germany’s capital Berlin. Every yellow face represents one available access point.



(4) GeoCaching

GeoCaching is the modern form of treasure hunting using the internet, geographical data and a GPS device (although you could manage to do it without the gadget). You can hide a treasure (cache) yourself, then log onto the site and share the location. Or you can look for caches hidden in your area and begin searching for them.

(5) BookCrossing

BookCrossing has been around for a long time. It’s an adventure for people who love to read and share. Share your favorite book with a lucky stranger. Sign up with BookCrossing, receive an ID and printout explaining what BookCrossing is, paste it in your book and then set it free – anywhere. You can leave the book on a bench in a park or lay it on someone’s care in the parking lot or drop it in a mailbox. If you’re lucky the recipient will log into the BookCrossing website, report the book with the ID they found inside and leave a comment about how they liked it.

(6) PostCrossing

PostCrossing may sound like BookCrossing, but the two have little more than a similar name in common. PostCrossing is about receiving postcards from around the world. Signing up requires sharing your postal address. The next step is to request an address and mail this person a postcard. To verify that your postcard was sent and received, the recipient will submit the ID you noted onto your card to the site. Next you’re in the queue to receiving a postcard from a random stranger somewhere on this planet. I’ve tried it, it really works!

Isn’t it amazing what possibilities the internet has opened up and how we can connect through it? What are your thoughts on these communities and which pages did I miss? Please share!

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Here are a bunch of websites that are diverse, interesting and even just quirky for anyone that is planning a trip or is simply a travel-addict.

MetrO – Public Transport Guide for your mobile phone

Métro is a free worldwide public transport guide can be used on the web and on most existing smart phones. Download the program for over 250 cities wordlwide and have an easy subway, bus and tram station guide rite on your phone. It lets you calculate travel time, major landmarks (in major cities), shortest distances and of-course travel direction between any stations.

Highlights include:

• - directions and information to major tourist attractions (in selected cities)
• - download maps to your phone for selected cities.
• - easy public transport search function between stops.
• - and lots more

In case you need a printable Metro map for a city you’re about to visit, also check out SubwayMap in MUO directory.

TripIt – Travel Itinerary planner

TripIt is a handy itinerary planner for those going on an independent trip. Simply forward your individual booking confirmations, reservation emails etc. TripIt recognizes these emails and creates a master itinerary that puts together all the individual pieces, provides extra information where appropriate (maps, weather information etc), enables the user to add notes and ultimately share and collaborate on this master itinerary with others.

For more details and a review see ‘TripIt: Travel Itinerary Planner and Organizer‘

ATMLocator – Global ATM locator

A free service from VISA that lets you instantly locate ATM cash machines in your vicinity. Simply select country and city name, enter pincode (optional) and get address details and map for each ATM. Also access it while on the move from any web-enabled device. Over 170 countries covered.

CyroFinders – Real-time worldwide flight arrival and departure information

Get real-time information on flight arrival and departures for all major airports in the world. View airport location on a map, check weather information, and more.

Yapta – Flight-ticket price tracker

Yapta is neat service that allows users to track the price of the flight-ticket that they want to purchase or have already purchased . For people yet to buy a ticket, Yapta allows you to purchase the ticket when prices drop. If you have already bought a ticket, Yapta still allows you to track and see if prices drop. Many airlines have policies that allow for travelers to get refunds/vouchers (of the price difference) if the price of the ticket that they have purchased drops.

See full features list @ Yapta: Get Refund on Flight Tickets

AirlineMeals – Huge directory of airline meals from around the world

Fascinating user-contributed database of airline meals (over 5000 images of airline meals). Users submit photographs, rate, provide meal details (airline, class of travel, flight details etc) for each meal. Browse meals by airline, peak into crew meals, special meals, meals from the past (1970’s, 80’s), behind the scene images, airport lounge meals etc.

SleepingInAirports – Guide for camping overnight or a few hours in an airport

Ever needed to camp overnight in an airport either out of low funds or simply bad flight connections? This is the perfect website for such a situation. Browse and read through brief overview of the airport along with user-submitted review on safety, facility, photos (where available), etc. A must for solo or women travelers who may have to experience such a situation. I personally have used it a couple of times when I had to camp overnight at airports ranging from Paris- Charles de Gaulle to Hamburg International airport and wanted to make sure that the airport even allows people to camp over.

SeatGuru – Extensive guide on airplane seating, in-flight amenities etc.

Provides detailed information or a seat map (best to worst seats on the plane), amenities (power chords, bathrooms, tv’s) for different aircraft models of over 40 different major commercial airlines. Simply select the airline followed by the aircraft model, and you are provided with general information on the airline (website, frequent flier partners etc) along with a seat map (you get a map of the seating structure of the plane- the best seats, what amenities are available on which seats etc).

TheBathroomDiaries- “Search the globe for a clean bathroom”

Submit, rate and search through over 12000 bathrooms across the globe, read about the world’s best-rated bathrooms etc. It gets even better, you can access the website rite from your cell phone. For readers based in the US, see MizPee.

Did we miss something? Let us know in comments. Enjoy!

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Métro is a free worldwide public transport guide that always sits on your PDA (Palm, PocketPC, Smartphone…). It is a small database application that allows you to download different cities metro information. And it is totally search-able.

From Metro’s homepage:

Metro finds your way in public transport systems in more than 350 cities around the world (Paris, New York, London, Tokyo, any city with a subway & many more!). FREE, FAST & ACCURATE.

No, your mobile won’t be screaming at you to catch the train across the platform because of a sick passenger up ahead. It will not automagically get you to your destination faster – BUT you can manually use it to search for alternate routes when you are in a jam, calculate travel time, or lookup directions in hundreds of cities worldwide. And that’s what it is all about right? Free tools to get something done.

I have never seen a free mobile app with such a wide range of device support. This thing is available in almost EVERY language and for almost EVERY platform. Metro gets loaded up on almost any Palm, Windows Mobile or Symbian operating system (Now with iPhone support here).

Once you download the correct version for you device copy over any data files you think you will need. On first launch the application asks you to choose your database.

You are now ready to search. You can find how to get from one stop to another, major landmarks to stops or other landmarks, shortest distance, least transfers etc… In other words this program is a life saver. When I was in Paris it was awesome. I couldn’t pronounce a lot of the street names let alone speak the language to have someone help me out – so I whipped out my larger then life 2003 HP Ipaq and was finding my way around in no time.

Additional features include:

• Directions and information to major tourist attractions (in selected cities)
• Download and take only the cities you need.
• Easy station search.
• Really complete line & station lists: 575 stops in London, 785 in New-York, 1600 in Tokyo, 1526 in Paris, and so on.

To sum up, The AdmiN gives Metro 4 thumbs up… That is both of mine and my wifes! I have become very dependent on it and do not know how I would cope without it.

Enjoy! And I wish all of you MUO readers out there for this year to be better then last and for all of your geeky dreams to come true!

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NOTE: These sites are pre-dominantly US sites although it may be possible to register a non-US address. Check each site for details.

BookMooch – give away your books and get points in return. Use those points to ask for free books from other users. The more expensive / rare the book, the more points involved.

Tauschticket – a German language equivalent of BookMooch and a site that both my girlfriend and I use frequently. Highly recommended if you live in Germany.

File-Swap – I’m not sure if this one really fits in this category as you can’t choose what you get. If you upload a file to the website, you can get a random file back. I suppose it’s fun if you upload something that is not valuable.

Paperback Swap – another book swapping website, same as Bookmooch and Tauschticket.

Swaptree – a place to swap books, music, DVD’s and video games.

SwitchPlanet – swap (or trade) used DVDs, CDs, Video Games and Books. They idea behind SwitchPlanet is to provide a quick way to trade stuff you have to get the stuff you want.

Itamos – swap your home when going on holiday. Why stay in a hotel or guest house when you can sit in someone’s apartment instead while they sit in yours? Not one for me personally but I know other people who would love to do something like this.

BarterPalace – despite its name, BarterPalace allows users to either sell items or barter them. Still worth a look though. This one looks like exclusively USA listings only.

Trade Games Now – trade used computer games.

Do you have any favourite swap / barter sites that you want to share? Let us know about them in the comments!

Mark O’Neill is a freelance writer, proofreader, editor and blogger. Check out his blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

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