| Other Sections of Fodor's |
| Links on Fodor's main page (and at the top of most Fodor's pages) |
| lead to sections for Hotels, Restaurants, Travel Wire, Talk, Booking, |
| and Bookstore. Fodor's does a good job of integrating this variety of |
| content and provides multiple ways to get to a specific bit of informa- |
| tion. If you start with the Destinations section for a particular city, you |
| will find subsections for hotels, restaurants, etc. If you start with the |
| Hotels link on the main page, you are then led to a choice of destina- |
| tions, and so on. Whatever you choose as a starting point, in the end, |
| you get to the same information. Other main sections of Fodor's that |
| deserve attention are: |
| • Travel Wire – This section alone would make Fodor's a top |
| travel site. Here you will find brief articles (from the last few |
| months) by Fodor's editors, arranged in categories such as, |
| Bargains and Packages, Festivals and Events, Fodor's |
|
|
| Travel Guides Online |
| 25 |
| Choice, Gear and Gadgets, Just Back From ... , |
| MuseumWatch, New and Fabulous, News, On the Road, |
| Overlooked and Underrated, Tours, Travel Tips, and Worldly |
| Shopper. The search box lets users find articles on a destina- |
| tion or topic of interest. Look for the link on the Travel Wire |
| pages where you can sign up for a free e-mail subscription to |
| the Travel Wire newsletter. |
| • Talk – Contains forums with comments and questions from |
| travelers. You can read the discussions without registering for |
| Fodor's, but you must be registered to post a message. Look |
| for the Log In/Register section for more information. |
| • Booking – Takes you to the Expedia site (see Chapter 3, |
| "Reservation Sites: Flights and More"). |
| • Shop – Leads to a catalog of Fodor publications. |
| Lonely Planet |
| Although Lonely Planet (both in its free online version and its print |
| books) has much in common with other travel guides, its content is |
| steered by its philosophy that "as part of a worldwide community of |
| travelers, we want to enable everyone to travel with awareness, respect |
| and care." This goal lends a definite and unique perspective to the |
| information you will find at Lonely Planet. With information on far more |
| cities (and countries) than Fodor's site, Lonely Planet is a good starting |
| point if you are interested in a smaller city or out-of-the-way places. On |
| the other hand, the descriptions for each city are likely to be signifi- |
| cantly shorter. Some major cities have their own fairly extensive pages, |
| while smaller cities receive coverage only within the Web page for the |
| entire country. Lonely Planet doesn't directly provide lists and reviews |
| of hotels and restaurants, but it does provide links to partner sites for |
|
|
|
|
| 26 |
| booking flights, lodging, tour packages, and other travel services. A |
| key part of the Lonely Planet site is the input provided by travelers in |
| the Thorn Tree Forum. The Lonely Planet site is easy to navigate, and |
| a search box on the home page allows you to search the Lonely Planet |
| Shop, the overall site, or its forums. The Advanced Search link leads |
| to a sophisticated site search by date and a number of other search |
| criteria. Lonely Planet content is available for mobile devices |
| Lonely Planet Destinations (WorldGuide) |
| Click on the Destinations link and you are taken to Lonely Planet's |
| WorldGuide, where you can pick your destination either by pull-down |
| menus or by clicking on a map. If you want information on a specific |
| city, you will want to use the search box or the pull-down Explore |
| menus instead of the map (which just leads to country-level informa- |
| tion). For each country, you will typically find the following categories |
| of information (Figure 2.2), and within each category page, you will |
| find links to city descriptions, a map, the image gallery, travel services, |
| and the Lonely Planet bookshop: |
| • Introduction – Offers two subsections: |
| - At a Glance – A brief traveler's overview of the country and, |
| in some cases, a When to Go section with weather condi- |
| tions, peak seasons, and more |
| - Fast Facts – A brief listing of information about the country, |
| including population of the capital, language, religions, |
| currency, time zone, dial code, electrical voltage and fre- |
| quency, and electrical outlet used |
| • See – Provides a brief description of the major sights and |
| locations. |
|
|
| |
| Travel Guides Online |
| 27 |
| Figure 2.2 Lonely Planet's Destinations page for Norway |
| • Image Gallery – Displays from three to six pictures; not many, |
| but good. |
| • Events – Provides a brief overview of what's happening and |
| when, including public holidays for some countries. |
| • Transport – Tells you how to get there and how to get around |
| once you are there. |
|
|
|
|
| 28 |
| • Money – Provides details about the country's economy, but |
| more importantly for the traveler, a Costs list showing the |
| price of typical items, such as movie tickets, a liter of milk, a |
| loaf of bread, a glass of wine, a roll of film, and a daily trans- |
| port ticket—a tremendously valuable tool in planning a travel |
| budget. |
| • Background Info – Includes sections on Weather, Time & |
| Place (time, weights and measures, geography), Crossing |
| Borders (customs, visas, passports), Government (names of |
| heads of government, etc.), People & Society (origins and reli- |
| gions), and Culture & History (the origins of the culture, the |
| language, music, literature, and history, so travelers get a |
| sense of the basics). |
| City information includes similar categories, with much more infor- |
| mation about the city's local sights, attractions, events, etc. (However, |
| for individual sights within any city, more information is available on the |
| Fodor's or Frommer's sites than at Lonely Planet.) |
| Other Sections of Lonely Planet |
| On Lonely Planet's main page (and other pages), you will find links |
| to the following Lonely Planet features: |
| • Thorn Tree – One of the most active travel forums on the Web |
| with more than a quarter of a million registered users. For |
| more information about the Thorn Tree forum, see the section |
| on Discussion Groups at the end of this chapter. |
| • Travel Services – Lonely Planet has teamed up with several |
| well-respected sites to provide the following reservation and |
| travel services: Airline Reservations (from Opodo, Kayak, |
| Zuji); Hostels and Budget Travel (HostelWorld); Hotel |
| Reservations (Opodo, Kayak, Zuji); Travel Insurance (World |
|
|
| Travel Guides Online |
| 29 |
| Nomads); Global Communication for phones and phone |
| cards (ekit); Adventure Travel (World Expeditions); Personal |
| Trip Web Site (MyTripJournal); Rail and Ferry passes, sched- |
| ules, and reservations (RailPlus, RailEurope); and Car Rental |
| (Holiday Autos). |
| • Bluelist – A collection of travel experiences and destinations |
| that are recommended, described, and rated by the Lonely |
| Planet staff, authors, and travelers. |
| • Travel Ticker – Contains important travel advisories, including |
| new and ongoing warnings, and reminders of other events, |
| such as elections and holidays, that may generate large |
| crowds travelers may wish to avoid. |
| • Theme Guides – Provides advice on where to go, categorized |
| by a variety of themes, including Art, Beaches, Deserts, Fatal |
| Attractions, Festivals, Food, History, Honeymoons, Islands, |
| Music, Religion, Roadtrips, Safaris, Sport, Twilight Zone, |
| Water, and Sports. Lonely Planet is at its unconventional best |
| with its commentary on places and events: "The sole purpose |
| of the Burning Man Festival is to confirm the widely-held belief |
| that Californians are a loopy lot, in that harmless SoCal |
| magic-crystals-and-inner-child kind of way." |
| • Digital Guides – Print guides, audio guides, and maps you |
| can purchase |
| • Travel Features – Browse this mini-travel magazine with arti- |
| cles, podcasts and blogs by Lonely Planet guidebook writers. |
| You can browse by author and by region. |
| • Postcards – Includes guidebook-type information contributed |
| by Lonely Planet readers and functions somewhat as an |
| update to the printed Lonely Planet guidebooks. Most infor- |
| mation falls in the following categories: Visas; Embassies & |
|
|
|
|
| 30 |
| Border Crossings; Travel Tips; Moving About; Scams and |
| Warnings; Gems, Highlights & Attractions; Yarns, Fables, and |
| Anecdotes; and others. There's a disclaimer from Lonely |
| Planet warning readers that content here has not been |
| checked by LP editors. |
| • Travel Links – A useful collection of links that connects to sev- |
| eral hundred travel sites arranged by continent and topic. |
| These sections are found at various places on the site. If you do not |
| find them, use the search box to search for them. |
| If you have not used Lonely Planet, try it out. You will find it to be a |
| substantially different kind of travel guide with unique perspectives. |
| You can also sign up for the Lonely Planet newsletter, Lonely Planet |
| Comet (www.lonelyplanet.com/comet), or RSS feeds to keep up with |
| Lonely Planet's excellent travel articles. |
| Frommer's |
| For information on a very large number of destinations, plus excel- |
| lent articles, travel discussion forums, deals, tips for travelers, and |
| more, the Frommer's site is a great starting place. Frommer's provides |
| information on more than 3,000 destinations, articles that bring |
| together advice, resources, and identification of great travel deals, |
| plus a helpful collection of information in its Tips and Tools section. |
| The site is extensive, with more than 100,000 pages of information, |
| well organized, and easy to use. The Trip Ideas section provides a |
| great place to start if you are looking for ideas. This section lets you |
| browse based on your preference of activities or lifestyles. Frommer's |
| main page has preview sections for major sections of the site: The |
| Destinations section of the main page contains a map and search box |
| for finding information on a particular destination; the Deals & News |
| box provides links to featured articles, along with a Browse All link and |
|
|
| Travel Guides Online |
| 31 |
| search box for accessing all articles and deals; the Trip Ideas box pro- |
| vides links to 16 categories of activities and lifestyles; and the Book a |
| Trip box presents a compact box for making reservations through |
| Frommer's reservation partners. In addition, on the main page you will |
| find links for subscribing to Frommer's newsletters, plus ads for |
| Frommer's publications and services. Take advantage of the search |
| box at the top of the main page to search the entire site, Destinations, |
| Deals & News, the Bookstore, or Message Boards. Tabs near the top |
| of the page take you to each section (which are described in the fol- |
| lowing paragraphs). The site is very well integrated and conveniently |
| "redundant." For example, although there is a specific section for mes- |
| sage boards (Travel Talk), the message boards pertaining to specific |
| destinations are also found in the Destinations section. |
| Frommer's Destinations |
| Frommer's is very generous with the amount of information that it |
| provides for free from its extensive catalog of printed guides; it covers |
| more than 3,000 destinations (countries, regions, states, national |
| parks, islands, etc.). From the main Destinations page, you can search |
| using the Destinations search box, or you can browse by clicking on |
| one of the continents on the world map shown there, by clicking on |
| one of the text links to continents, or by choosing a place from a list of |
| Top Destinations. (If you use the Destinations section of Travelocity, |
| you may notice great similarity between what you find there and what |
| you find on Frommer's Destination section, as Travelocity uses |
| Frommer's content for destination descriptions.) |
| Frommer's search boxes provide more search functionality than |
| search boxes on most travel sites. In addition to just entering one or |
| more words, you can use the Boolean AND, OR, and NOT. (For those |
| not familiar with Boolean, AND narrows your search to only those |
| results that contain all of your words, e.g., |
| Birmingham AND Alabama |
| ; |
|
|
|
|
| 32 |
| OR expands your search to include any term of multiple terms, e.g., |
| Holland OR Netherlands |
| ; and NOT eliminates a term, e.g., |
| Birmingham NOT Alabama |
| .) On search results pages, you will see two |
| lists of results: one for Destinations and the other for From Our |
| Guides. The former takes you to the main page of any guide that |
| matches your search, and the latter displays the title of each individual |
| page (from the Guides) that matches your query. |
| For most parts of the world, Frommer's provides Guides at several |
| different levels: Countries, Regions, States/Provinces/Territories, and |
| Cities (Figure 2.3). Depending on the level, you will find the following: |
| • Deals and News – Special deals and articles for the destination. |
| • Introduction – An overview of the destination. |
| • Frommer's "Bests" – Best bets in dining, hotels, museums, |
| experiences, outdoor adventures, attractions, etc. These cate- |
| gories will depend on the location. For Thailand, you'll find the |
| Most Fascinating Temples; for Cuba, the Best Beaches; and |
| for London, the Best Pubs. |
| • Planning a Trip – Contains Fast Facts, Visitor Information, |
| When to Go, Getting There, Regions in Brief, Health & |
| Insurance, Money, Entrance Requirements & Customs, |
| Getting Around, and Trips for Travelers with Special Needs. |
| • Organized Tours |
| • Hotels – Provides a fairly extensive listing of hotels with |
| columns for Rating, Price, Name, and Neighborhood. Click on |
| the column heading to sort by that criterion. Click on a hotel |
| name to get a review, facilities, phone numbers, address, |
| price range, Web site, etc. |
| • Restaurants – Provides a listing of restaurants with columns |
| for Rating, Price, Name, Cuisine Type, and Neighborhood. |
| The details page for each restaurant gives a review, cuisine |
|
|
| |
| Travel Guides Online |
| 33 |
| Figure 2.3 Frommer's city guide page for Rio de Janeiro |
|
|
|
|
| 34 |
| type, hours, location, transportation, address, phone, |
| prices, reservations, credit cards accepted, dress code, |
| and season. |
| • Attractions – Provides reviews, ratings, hours, locations, |
| transportation, phone numbers, and prices. |
| • Nightlife – Provides names, reviews, phone numbers, and |
| addresses. |
| • Shopping – Provides areas, reviews, and locations. |
| • Side Trips – Provides descriptions, distances, and more. |
| • Active Pursuits – Talks about sports and fitness facilities at |
| this destination. |
| • Spectator Sports – Click here if you want to drop some money |
| at the local racetrack or enjoy a soccer or cricket game or |
| other spectator sport. |
| • Message Boards – Provides excellent active discussion |
| groups. |
| Other Sections of Frommer's |
| Frommer's main page provides links to the following features: |
| • Hotels – Takes you directly to the same hotel information that |
| you will find under individual destinations. |
| • Trip Ideas – Whether or not you have a pretty good idea of |
| what kind of vacation you want, this section can be a good |
| place to start. Provides articles, deals, selected destinations, |
| carriers, and other information for seven categories of |
| Activities (Beach & Water Sports, Cruise, Cultural Immersion, |
| Outdoor & Adventure, Road Trip, Theme Park, and Winter |
| Sport) and eight categories of Lifestyles (Disabled, Family, |
|
|
| Travel Guides Online |
| 35 |
| Gay & Lesbian, Honeymoon, Senior, Single, Student, and |
| Women). For each category, a specialized search box is pro- |
| vided to search the articles in that section. The Activities cate- |
| gories provide additional search criteria. In the Outdoor & |
| Adventure category, for example, the search box lets you enter |
| a destination and use a dropdown menu to narrow your search |
| to any of 15 specific sports or other outdoor activities. |
| • Deals and News – Possibly viewed as Frommer's travel |
| magazine, contains articles by Frommer's staff that are well |
| researched, very informative, yet short enough to read |
| quickly. Each article focuses on one of the following cate- |
| gories: Airfare, Hotels, Car, Bus & Rail, Package, Cruise, |
| Other Discounts, Trip Ideas, or Tips and Tools. These are |
| the same articles listed in the other sections of the site and |
| typically include descriptions, news, and perspectives and |
| links to relevant Web sites and deals. They may cover travel |
| news, specific destinations, activities, travel tips, deals, or |
| other topics, with content ranging from European opera |
| tours to national park passes. While other travel sites may |
| have articles about "deals" that turn out to be ads, |
| Frommer's articles provide links to multiple competitive |
| providers. These articles also make good reading for the |
| armchair traveler. Use the Newsletter link on the Deals & |
| News page to subscribe to an RSS feed or e-mail delivery |
| of new articles (and selected message board postings) |
| three times every week. |
| • Book a Trip – Make reservations using one of Frommer's part- |
| ners: Flights (Travelocity), Hotels (Hotels.com), Cars (Thrifty |
| and Travelocity), Packages (iExplore), Cruises (Travelocity and |
| Norwegian Cruiseline), Rail (Rail Europe), and Last-Minute |
| Travel (Travelocity). Since Frommer's is not a travel agency, it |
|
|
|
|
| 36 |
| does not book its own arrangements. It partners with |
| providers such as these so that you can make reservations |
| through the Frommer's site. |
| • Tips and Tools – Features recent articles on travel tips and |
| tools, arranged in the following categories: Calendar of |
| Events, Entry Requirements & Customs, Health & Travel |
| Insurance, Money & Currency, Online Updates, Packing Tips, |
| and Photography. |
| • Travel Talk – Hosts all Frommer's message boards: |
| Destination Boards, Activity Boards, Lifestyle Boards, and |
| Tips, Tools & Deals Boards. For more details, see the |
| Discussion Groups section at the end of this chapter. |
| • Bookstore – Frommer's catalog of print guidebooks. |
| • Frommer's Newsletters – Access Frommer's five free e-mail |
| newsletters: Frommers.com Newsletter (three times a week); |
| Ski Newsletter (seasonal); National Parks Newsletter (alerts |
| for new articles in the U.S. National Parks section of |
| Destinations; a Sponsor News and Deals Newsletter (variable |
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