The 25 Best Travel Sites

I’m traveling soon. What are some websites that can help me plan my trip?

If you’re moving across the country and letting someone else drive the moving truck, it might be an awesome time to pack up the travel bags and head out on an exciting adventure. How much fun would it be to visit fun (or exciting, informational, beautiful… whatever makes you happy) vacation spots along the way!?  If planning the perfect adventure sounds like a great idea, here are 25 of the best travel sites around. They’ll get you moving in the right direction.

1. Kayak.com – At Kayak, you can search over 400 airlines worldwide and compare hundreds of travel sites at once. They also have more than 100,000 vacation deals worldwide. If you have flexible travel dates, then you can better your chances of finding a good deal. Use the “Explore” tool and enter in your flight budget, then see where you can go for that amount of money! Very cool.
2. Hipmunk.com – Named USA Today’s 2013 Best Travel Website, Hipmunk boasts that it’s the fastest, easiest way to search for flights and hotels. Its mobile app has a unique display that makes it easy to visually compare your options. Plus, you have to admit that the “hip” pilot chipmunk on their website is pretty cute!
3. TripAdvisor – With a name like TripAdvisor, you can’t go wrong. I like using this travel website to read hotel reviews, pick out new restaurants to try, and find out what I can do or see nearby. The “real” feel of the reviews give the website a breath of fresh air that is sometimes hard to find among travel websites.
4. Trivago.com – I kept seeing a commercial for the Trivago website, so I decided to check it out. What I found was a very helpful site for booking hotels. With more than 670,000 hotels from 191 different travel websites to choose from, you should have no problem finding the right hotel for your trip.
5. Travelocity.com – On Travelocity, you can do just about anything related to travel. Feel free to book a flight, hotel, car, cruise, activities, or an entire vacation! There’s always some kind of deal happening on this site, so if you’re a deal hunter like me, bookmark the travel deals tab now!
6. Bing Travel – On Bing Travel, you can search flights and hotels, but there’s something really cool that Bing offers for its flight search – Price Predictor.  This tool will advise you on if you should buy now or wait till later. Of course, it’s your decision on whether or not you follow the advice. Good luck!
7. Priceline.com – Similar to Travelocity, Priceline offers searches for hotels, flights, cars, cruises, vacation packages, and more. A neat feature on this site it the Name Your Own Price tool. Just enter in your city, dates, and how many rooms, then name your own price. Then preview the offer and decide if it’s what you want to pay! Easy!
8. Yapta.com – This site’s main goal is to save you money, and who doesn’t like to do that? Yapta sends you real-time alerts to your phone when the price for your flight drops. Nice! You can even take advantage of a refund if the price of your flight drops after you book! Even better. In a world where every penny counts, this travel website is a must-use.
9. Trippy.com – This invite-only social travel site basically lets your friends plan your vacation for you! Through Trippy, you ask your friends for recommendations on what to do, see, and where to stay in your desired location, and based on their feedback, you can make an actual itinerary for your trip and book your hotel stay and activities.
10. Gogobot.com – With Gogobot, you can plan your dream vacation with hotel reviews and prices, restaurant reviews, and even explore fun things to do at your destination. My favorite part is that if you download their app, you can take digital postcards to send to your friends!
11. SeatGuru.com – If you fly a lot, you’ll really appreciate SeatGuru. This is one of the best travel sites because it gives you advice on where to sit, lets you view photos, and finds out what seats have the most leg room for you. Very helpful for getting the most out of your flight.
12. AirfareWatchdog.com – The Dealhounds on AirfareWatchdog are on the constantly looking for the best price for you to fly. And if you’re a user of this site, you’ll be pleased to know that this site covers some airlines that the other fare websites don’t, like Southwest and Allegiant. They even have a great blogwith lots of insider tips.
13. HomeExchange.com – With HomeExchange, you can swap your home with another traveler and basically stay at your desired destination for free. This website has the largest membership of home swappers and there are more than 46,000 listings in 153 countries. The Silver membership is their best value and is only $119.40 per year.
14. Couchsurfing.org – Travel the world…by couch! At Couchsurfing, you can do just that. Connect with more than 6 million people in more than 100,000 cities that are offering to share their home with you while you travel. If you’re up for a unique way to travel, this is it.
15. Hotels.com – Search for the perfect night’s sleep from over 160,000 hotels in more than 60 countries at Hotels.com. The site is great for both the last-minute traveler and the advance planner. They also offer Price Match Guarantee and a Welcome Rewards loyalty program where if you collect 10 nights, you get 1 night free.
16. CruiseCompete.com – Instead of searching for cruise deals, you can let the deals come to you with CruiseCompete. Travel agencies will compete to offer you the best deal. All you do is choose a cruise, create an account, request and compare quotes, then contact the agents you’re interested in booking with. Click here to start your cruise search.
17. Bedandbreakfast.com – Is a Bed and Breakfast your idea of a great getaway? Then make your way to Bedandbreakfast.com. Enter your destination (or search by map) to find the B&B to fit your needs. There are more than 4,000 B&Bs to choose from and 210,000 customer reviews to give you a good idea of what to expect.
18. FlightAware.com – I like FlightAware because of the Live Flight Tracking tool. It’s really helpful when a friend or family member is flying and you want to make sure they arrive safely and on-time at their destination. And if you don’t have the flight #, it’s ok. You can simply enter in the departure and arrival city to find the flight you’re looking for.
19. AvoidDelays.com – Get live airport delay updates from AvoidDelays and so much more, like advice from air traffic controllers, tips and tricks for avoiding delays, and “Top 10” information about the most delayed airports in the nation.
20. Dohop.com – Flights, hotels, and cars. That’s dohop! They make it super easy to find one, both, or all three for your trip. Plus, dohop finds you multiple bookings to choose from so that you can save money. It’s really a great idea!
21. TravelPod.com – It can be difficult to keep all your adventures in one place, but with TravelPod, you can! They offer free travel blogs to capture and share your travel experiences. You can print your blog as a book or share it online via Facebook or Twitter! Plus, TravelPod has its own app so you can blog on the go!
22. LonelyPlanet – This site is one of my favorite travel sites because it’s got just about everything you need to know about where you’re going. The “Pinterest” style layout makes LonelyPlanet easy to navigate, too. Click here to select your destination (you can even choose Antarctica if you dare!)
23. HomeAway.com – This site makes it easy to find great vacation rental properties nearby or in your desired location. There are more than 495,000 rentals to choose from on HomeAway, so the possibilities are endless!
24. Hostelz.com – With more than 55,000 listings in over 9,000 cities, you can compare prices for hostels across the world at Hostelz.com. It’s actually the largest hostel database on the web. Going the hostel route for your travel means even more opportunities to meet other travelers and swap stories! Give it a try.
25. Lastminute.com – When you don’t have time to spare, click on over to Lastminute to find deals that are about to expire. You can search for hotels, cars, cruises, vacations, and activities – the whole nine yards! If you need a quick idea on what to do, check out their vacation theme index here.

And that’s the list of the best travel sites! We hope you can use one of these sites to plan a trip of a lifetime! If you have some travel sites to add to our list, leave us a comment below! I’m sure that other Box Ox Moving‘s blog readers will enjoy checking them out, too!