Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Frommers.com: The Complete Travel Resource
For an excellent travel-planning resource, we highly recommend
Frommers.com (www.frommers.com). We're a little biased, of course,
but we guarantee that you'll find the travel tips, reviews, monthly vaca-
tion giveaways, and online-booking capabilities thoroughly indispensa-
ble. Among the special features are our popular
Message Boards,
where
Frommer's readers post queries and share advice (sometimes even our
authors show up to answer questions);
Frommers.com Newsletter,
for
the latest travel bargains and insider travel secrets; and
Frommer's Des-
tinations Section,
where you'll get expert travel tips, hotel and dining
recommendations, and advice on the sights to see for more than 3,000
destinations around the globe. When your research is done, the
Online
Reservations System
(www.frommers.com/book_a_trip) takes you to
Frommer's preferred online partners for booking your vacation at
affordable prices.
Sign up for weekly e-mail alerts at air-
line websites or check megasites that
compile comprehensive lists of last-
minute specials, such as
Smarter
Living
(smarterliving.com). For last-
minute trips,
site59.com
in the U.S.
and
lastminute.com
in Europe often
have better deals than the major-label
sites.
If you're willing to give up some
control over your flight details, use an
opaque fare service
like
Priceline
(www.priceline.com; www.priceline.
co.uk for Europeans) or
Hotwire
(www.hotwire.com). Both offer rock-
bottom prices in exchange for travel
on a “mystery airline” at a mysterious
time of day, often with a mysterious
change of planes en route. The mys-
tery airlines are all major, well-known
carriers—but your chances of getting
a 6am or 11pm flight are pretty high.
Hotwire tells you flight prices before
you buy; Priceline usually has better
deals than Hotwire, but you have to
play their “name our price” game. If
you're new at this, the helpful folks at
BiddingForTravel
(www.biddingfor
travel.com) do a good job of demysti-
fying Priceline's prices. Priceline and
Hotwire are great for flights within
North America and between the U.S.
and Europe. But for flights to other
parts of the world, consolidators will
almost always beat their fares.
For much more about airfares and
savvy air-travel tips and advice, pick
up a copy of
Frommer's Fly Safe, Fly
Smart
(Wiley Publishing, Inc.).
SURFING FOR HOTELS
Shopping online for hotels is much
easier in the U.S., Canada, and certain
parts of Europe than it is in the rest of
the world, but Australian hotels—
even the small ones—are pretty Inter-
net savvy, as are B&Bs. Of the “big
three” sites,
Expedia
may be the best
choice, thanks to its long list of special
deals.
Travelocity
runs a close second.
Hotel specialist sites
hotels.com
and
hoteldiscounts.com
are also reliable.
An excellent free program,
TravelAxe
(www.travelaxe.net), can help you
search multiple hotel sites at once.
SURFING FOR RENTAL CARS
For booking rental cars online, the
best deals are usually found at rental-
car company websites, although all the
major online travel agencies also offer
rental-car reservations services. Price-
line and Hotwire work well for rental
