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), voted Best Travel Site by
PC Magazine.
We're a
little biased, of course, but we guarantee that you'll find the travel tips,
reviews, monthly vacation giveaways, bookstore, and online-booking capa-
bilities to be thoroughly indispensable. Special features include our popular
Destinations
section, where you can access expert travel tips, hotel and din-
ing recommendations, and advice on the sights to see in more than 3,500
destinations around the globe; the
Frommers.com Newsletter,
with the lat-
est deals, travel trends, and money-saving secrets; and our
Travel Talk
area
featuring
Message Boards,
where Frommer's readers post queries and share
advice, and where our authors sometimes show up to answer questions.
Once you finish your research, the
Book a Trip
area can lead you to From-
mer's preferred online partners' websites, where you can book your vaca-
tion at affordable prices.
SURFING FOR RENTAL CARS
For booking rental cars online, the best
deals are usually found at rental-car com-
pany websites, although all the major
online travel agencies also offer rental-car
reservations services. Priceline and Hotwire
work well for rental cars, too; the only
“mystery” is which major rental company
you get, and for most travelers the differ-
ence between Hertz, Avis, and Budget is
negligible.
TRAVEL BLOGS &
TRAVELOGUES
To read a few blogs about Eastern Europe
try www.easterneuropeblog.com. Other
blogs include:
• www.gridskipper.com
• www.salon.com/wanderlust
• www.travelblog.com
• www.travelblog.org
• www.worldhum.com
• www.writtenroad.com
9 The 21st-Century Traveler
INTERNET ACCESS AWAY
FROM HOME
WITHOUT YOUR OWN
COMPUTER
To find cybercafes in your destination
check
www.cybercaptive.com
and
www.
cybercafe.com
.
Aside from formal cybercafes, most
youth hostels
and
public libraries
have
Internet access. Avoid
hotel business cen-
ters
unless you're willing to pay exorbitant
rates. However, some of the better hotels
have Wi-Fi throughout or at least in the
lobby, as do some coffee shops and bars.
In Eastern Europe, you'll find that the
connection at Internet cafes can range
from fabulous to extremely slow. The best
connections are in cities and better hotels,
as mentioned above.
Most major airports now have
Internet
kiosks
scattered throughout their gates.
These give you basic Web access for a per-
minute fee that's usually higher than
cybercafe prices but very convenient.
WITH YOUR OWN COMPUTER
More and more hotels, cafes, and retailers
are signing on as Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity)
“hotspots.” Mac owners have their own
networking technology: Apple AirPort.
