The following is a list of travel resources I have found to be incredibly useful while planning a trip or while on a trip. The list is surely missing many other great resources. Feel free to submit additional resources via the comment form to let your fellow travelers know about other great resources. I will add the best sites to the list.
Travel Guide Books
Lonely Planet – Huge selection of destinations, good background information such as history, culture and language.
Moon – Not the biggest selection but I was very impressed with Moon’s Panama guidebook. The author is also very approachable and helpful.
Fodor’s – Focused more on mid to higher end travel, especially accommodations.
Frommer’s – One of the most well-known travel guide books.
Let’s Go – The self-professed leader in budget travel.
Rough Guide – Initially budget-focused but now covers entire range of travel.
Footprint – UK-based guide book best known for its extensive coverage of South America.
Time Out – Another guide book that is generally well-reviewed. Less focused on hotels and budget travel.
Eyewitness Guides – Less geared to the budget traveler but comprehensive information about things to do.
Getting There & Away
Kayak – flexible flight comparison engine with intuitive user interface. Also does hotels and car rentals.
Skyscanner – great search, especially to find cheap flights with discount airlines in Europe.
Vayama – good search engine but, unlike Kayak, flights are only priced in USD.
Rideshare – find other travelers driving from point A to B in Europe and bum a ride. I have used the German site a lot, UK site is coming soon.
FlightStats – track flight status and airport delays before your departure.
Accommodation
Hotwire – For major cities in the world, Hotwire is a great way to get huge deals on hotels.
Hostelworld – a large database of hostels and cheaper hotels for the budget traveler. Many helpful community reviews.
MyTripGuru – shameless plug, but the hotel search aggregates tons of hotel search engines to find hotels by price, user rating, stars, etc…
Couchsurfing – a service where members offer a couch on which to crash for a day or two for free. Works best if you offer your couch to fellow travelers as well.
TripAdvisor – the most comprehensive collection of user reviews on hotels. Take them with a grain of salt though.
Travel Inspiration
National Geographic Photo of the Day – Awe-inspiring travel photos every day that are often nothing short of amazing.
Flickr Travel Photos – A collection of user-submitted travel shots from around the world.
StumbleUpon – Stumble across travel related sites that other people have deemed interesting.
Google Maps – What better way to get inspiration than to travel the world by your fingertips? Google Maps now supports Earth View (aka Google Earth), which requires a browser plugin.
BBC GoodFood – Relive your trip or get a taste of what is to come by cooking up a cultural feast.
NY Times Travel – Well known and well-written travel section of the New York Times.
Before You Go
Visa HQ – a helpful guide to visa requirements from and to any country in the world.
FXtop Currency Converter – not the prettiest site, but most countries are represented and historical rates are also available.
US Travel Advisory – the Department of State Travel website lists current travel advisories around the world.
Country Information – the same DOS website that lists helpful country information such as customs, driving, crime, etc…
CDC – Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Find out what vaccinations you need or about health issues at your destination.
Time Zone Check – get the local time using this interactive map.
Weather Underground – accurate weather forecasts with good coverage around the world – even small towns.
Wikipedia – learn about the history, culture and other useful information about your destination.
Electric Power – Learn what plugs and voltage your destination country uses.
Language & Culture
Michel Thomas – Learn Spanish, French, Italian or German from the master himself. These courses teach a new language amazingly well.
TravLang – decent collection of useful words and phrases in many languages. Includes sound bites.
Local customs – I don’t know of any specific websites that cover this extensively, but Google does a pretty good job on this important topic.
Travel Community
Travel Industry on Twitter – the most comprehensive list of people connected to the travel industry who use Twitter.
Travel Twibe – another Twitter list of travelers (and travel industry insiders).
Thorn Tree travel forum – Lonely Planet’s travel forum is full of passionate travelers eager to trade travel advice.
Travel Gear
Backcountry – A huge selection of outdoor and travel gear with helpful user reviews. The outlet shop often has tremendous bargains. Check retailmenot for coupon codes.
REI – another good online shop (with retail outlets in the US) for outdoor gear.
Barrabes – Europe’s answer to Backcountry. Higher prices but good selection of technical gear. Shipping throughout Europe is reasonable.
Mountain Equipment Co-op – Canada’s first stop for outdoor gear. You need to pay a one time fee of 10 CDN to join the co-op to buy here but it is worth it.
Practical Travel Gear – a nice blog by renowned travel writer Tim Leffel about travel gear and packing for travel.
On the Road
Dropbox – access important files via the web, Mac, PC or iPhone. All files are stored securely in a remote location. First 2GB are free.
Skype – The best way for communicating with friends and family as well as domestic calls. Requires a client, such as PC, Mac or iPhone.
iPhone – see related post about iPhone apps to help when you are traveling.
Online Conversion – convert units from anything to anything.
Country Codes – Find out about the country dialing code and other useful information.
