Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
SURFING FOR HOTELS
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 pro-
gram,
TravelAxe
(www.travelaxe.net),
can help you search multiple hotel
sites at once.
10 The 21st-Century Traveler
INTERNET ACCESS AWAY
FROM HOME
Travelers have any number of ways to
check their e-mail and access the
Internet on the road. Of course, using
your own laptop—or even a PDA
(personal digital assistant) or elec-
tronic organizer with a modem—gives
you the most flexibility. But even if
you don't have a computer, you can
still access your e-mail and even your
office computer from cybercafes.
WITHOUT YOUR OWN
COMPUTER
It's hard nowadays to find a city that
doesn't
have a few cybercafes. Although
there's no definitive directory for
cybercafes—these are independent
businesses, after all—three places to
look are
www.cybercaptive.com
,
www.
netcafeguide.com
, and
www.cyber
cafe.com
.
Aside from formal cybercafes, most
public libraries
across the country
offer Internet access free or for a small
charge.
Hotels
that cater to business
travelers often have
in-room data-
ports
and
business centers,
but the
charges can be exorbitant. Also, most
youth hostels
nowadays have at least
one computer where you can access
the Internet.
To retrieve your e-mail, ask your
Internet Service Provider (ISP)
if it
has a web-based interface tied to your
existing e-mail account. If your ISP
doesn't have such an interface, you can
use the free
mail2web
service (www.
mail2web.com) to view your home
e-mail. For more flexibility, you may
want to open a free, web-based e-mail
account with
Yahoo! Mail
(mail.
yahoo.com). (Microsoft's Hotmail is
another popular option, but Hotmail
has severe spam problems.) Your home
ISP may be able to forward your
e-mail to the web-based account
automatically.
WITH YOUR OWN
COMPUTER
Major
Internet Service Providers
(ISP)
have local access numbers
around the world, allowing you to go
online by simply placing a local call.
Check your ISP's website or call its toll-
free number and ask how you can use
your current account away from home.
Wherever you go, bring a
connec-
tion kit
of the right power and phone
adapters, a spare phone cord, and a
spare Ethernet network cable.
Most business-class hotels through-
out the world offer dataports for lap-
top modems, and a few thousand
hotels in the U.S. and Europe now
offer high-speed Internet access using
an Ethernet network cable. You'll have
to bring your own cables either way, so
call your hotel in advance
to find out
what the options are.
Many business-class hotels in the
U.S. also offer a form of computer-
free web browsing through the room
TV set. We've successfully checked
Yahoo! Mail, but not Hotmail, on
these systems.
If you have an 802.11b/
Wi-fi
card
for your computer, several commercial
companies have made wireless service
available in airports, hotel lobbies, and
coffee shops, primarily in the U.S.
T-Mobile Hotspot
(www.t-mobile.
com/hotspot) serves up wireless con-
nections at more than 1,000 Starbucks
coffee shops nationwide.
Boingo
(www.boingo.com) and
Wayport
