Having trouble choosing your next destination, or finding that perfect deal? Many travel sites can offer not only great vacation ideas, but provide the means to get there on a tight budget. Some sites host online communities which offer personal feedback from fellow travelers on dining, nightlife and activities. Others guide you through the difficult process of finding that great deal with the simple click of a mouse. So whether your headed on a safari, looking to relax on the beaches of Fiji, or just hoping for a nice price, take a look. You won’t be disappointed.
Intro and listings by David Reid

BootsnAll
The irreverent BootsnAll is a web-based travel publisher and an online community for independent travelers, with more than 40,000 members and close to 100,000 traveler stories. They publish more than 12 newsletters and have more than 30 travel-based web sites, everything from Travel News Daily to Student Spring Break to various guides around the world. Their mission statement is "to cultivate an organic community that encourages independent travel," but this is as close to corporate jargon as they get.

igougo.com
IgoUgo calls themselves the number one travel community on the web. Maybe so. They certainly have an endless number community member reviews on anything from dining to nightlife, hotels and activities. Because of the size of the site and all the listings, it is easy to get lost if you are casually searching for ideas.

away.com
The Interest Guides on this site is an excellent starting point to finding destinations -- well, based on your interests. If you love beaches, surfing for instance, but have trouble finding new places to go, simply search by your interest in surfing and a whole number of wonderful destinations will be recommended to you. If you have no particular activity in mind they will recommend one, or two, or ten. Interests are not limited to sport, you can also find fine destinations for religious interest, archeology, or cooking to name a few.

cheapfares.com
The name pretty much says it all. There are no bells or whistles -- just pick a destination by air or sea and these people will do they’re best to find you a cheap fare. Specializing in package deals (and there are a few good ones to be found) you’ll need to keep an open mind to find the best deals.

top100travelsites.com
Check out this site and guess what you’ll find? That’s right, the top 100 travel sites. Ta da!

planetrider.com
If your tired of sites with more text than Moby Dick and more smoke than a loco motive check out planetrider.com. Neat and tidy designs await you. They have designed a very specific and simple page. Their Q and A sections already provide you with questions like, “How can I arrange to swim with dolphins?” with simple answers. How easy is that?

thebigtravelguide.com
Too big. There are sites here featuring just about any country you can, or can’t think of. Some are helpful and quite interesting but they take time to find. No particular help or search features are available, this is basically a list of sites.

kayak.com
Imagine a search engine that draws from over 100 travel sites in a purely objective and comprehensive fashion and gets you the best deal possible. That’s a great idea and it’s exactly what kayak.com does. You can save yourself some serious time and money here.

farechase.com
Here is another search engine for your pocket book pleasure. Powered by Yahoo, farechase draws from a pretty large pool and can find you a great fare almost anywhere. Be aware that in bigger cities some of the best deals will fly you home to a different airport than you departed from. With some planning that is a small concession for these prices.

itravelnet.com
A large directory of airlines, itravelnet can put you in touch with some very inexpensive air travel providers throughout the world. Other than that the work is up to you. This may take longer than a search engine but if your planning to do a lot of intercontinental traveling on smaller airlines this is a good method for you.