Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
SINGLE TRAVELERS
Many people prefer traveling alone,
and for independent travelers, solo
journeys offer infinite opportunities to
make friends and meet locals. Unfor-
tunately, if you like resorts, tours, or
cruises, you're likely to get hit with a
“single supplement” to the base price.
Single travelers can avoid these supple-
ments, of course, by agreeing to room
with other single travelers on the trip.
One Australian resort that will fix you
up with a same-sex roommate if you're
traveling alone is Contiki Great Kep-
pel Island Resort (
&
1800/245 658
in Australia, or 07/4939 5044; www.
contikiresorts.com), off the Queens-
land coast (p. 331).
An even better idea is to find a
compatible roommate before you go
from one of the many roommate loca-
tor agencies.
Travel Buddies Singles
Travel Club
(
&
800/998-9099;
www.travelbuddiesworldwide.com),
based in Canada, runs small, intimate,
single-friendly group trips to a range
of destinations including Australia
and will match you with a roommate
free of charge and save you the cost of
single supplements.
TravelChums
(
&
212/787-2621;
www.travelchums.
com) is an Internet-only travel-com-
panion matching service with ele-
ments of an online personals-type site,
hosted by the respected New
York-based Shaw Guides travel serv-
ice. Many reputable tour companies
offer singles-only trips.
Backroads
(
&
800/462-2848;
www.backroads.
com) offers more than 160 active trips
to 30 destinations worldwide, includ-
ing Australia.
For more information, check out
Eleanor Berman's
Traveling Solo:
Advice and Ideas for More Than 250
Great Vacations
(Globe Pequot), a
guide with advice on traveling alone,
whether on your own or on a group
tour. Or turn to the
Travel Alone and
Love It
website (www.travelaloneand
loveit.com), designed by former flight
attendant Sharon Wingler, the author
of the topic of the same name. Her site
is full of tips for single travelers.
9 Planning Your Trip Online
SURFING FOR AIRFARES
The “big three” online travel agen-
cies—
Expedia.com, Travelocity.com,
and
Orbitz.com
—sell most of the air
tickets bought on the Internet. (Cana-
dian travelers should try expedia.ca
and Travelocity.ca; U.K. residents can
go for expedia.co.uk and opodo.co.
uk.) Each has different business deals
with the airlines and may offer differ-
ent fares on the same flights, so it's wise
to shop around. Expedia and Traveloc-
ity will also send you
e-mail notifica-
tion
when a cheap fare becomes
available to your favorite destination.
Of the smaller travel agency websites,
SideStep
(www.sidestep.com) has got-
ten the best reviews from Frommer's
authors. It's a browser add-on that pur-
ports to “search 140 sites at once,” but
in reality only beats competitors' fares
as often as other sites do.
Also remember to check
airline
websites.
Even with major airlines,
you can often shave a few bucks from
a fare by booking directly through the
airline and avoiding a travel agency's
transaction fee. But you'll get these
discounts only by
booking online:
Most airlines now offer online-only
fares that even their phone agents
know nothing about. For the websites
of airlines that fly to and from Aus-
tralia, go to “Getting There,” later in
this chapter.
Great
last-minute deals
are avail-
able through free weekly e-mail serv-
ices provided directly by the airlines.
Most of these are announced on Tues-
day or Wednesday and must be pur-
chased online. Most are only valid for
travel that weekend, but some can be
booked weeks or months in advance.
