State of the Travelsphere: Travel Websites that matter

I’ve covered the topic at length before, but the changing nature of this that is the internet makes the topic relevant once again. Search is evolving, attempts at travel social networks are launched weekly, and the the internet still rules when it comes to travel planning. I feel these forces create a need for someone to weed through the spammy content farms out there to succinctly list the travel sites that matter.

Thus, I figure I may just be better off just creating a State of the Travelsphere: Sites that matter report to be updated semi-annually or annually…. or something.

Why? I feel like the internet has been filling up with content garbage that hurts search, as noted by TechCrunch recently in Search Still Sucks. Personally, I think travel topics have been hurt most, so I hope this guide may be of some help to save you time and have a better online travel planning experience.

Travel Search - Travel Datasheets

• WikiTravel.org - always should be your numba one go-to
• Gogobot.com - an up and coming travel search for travel topics. Not revolutionary, but new.
• Tripadvisor.com, & Virtualtourist.com - not particularly a huge fan of these behemoth sites, but their age and large sizes make them relevant for data and facts for a variety of specific topics

Flight search

• Kayak.com - I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times. Kayak.
• Vayama.com - Always a good backstop in case Kayak doesn’t have all the published fares
• Skyscanner.com …If you really need another search…
• Expedia - Of the behemoth searches out there, Expedia comes in as my personal fav and a solid tool to benchmark flights.

Accommodation

Travel Blogs

Up and Coming Travel blogs: new blogs (…at least to me), that have caught my interest and are very worthy of receiving a mention here. The following make up my favorite blogs due to the recency effect.

• FoxNomad.com - A techy, former hacker now digital nomading around the world while living off of his travel blogs. Definitely a niche quick to my heart.
• Canvas-of-light.com - Awesome travel photography
• WanderingTrader.com - A traveler who trades stocks for a living. An even quicker route to my heart than Fox, given this career move is in my 39 year plan.
• JohnnyVagabond.com - Just good
• NerdyNomad.com - chronicling her experience as a digital nomad supported by her travel blog revenues

Legacy Travel Blogs: old, yet still outstanding travel blogs that are always a good read. The following keep chugging along.

• Cheapest Destinations: travel.booklocker.com
• Matador Network: matadornetwork.com
• Budget Travel (mag): current.newsweek.com/budgettravel
• Vagablogging: Vagablogging.net
• Hobo Traveler: Hobotraveler.com
• Jaunted: Jaunted.com
• Gadling: Gadling.com
• Gridskipper: Gridskipper.com

Forums

• BootsnAll.com - Always, always a favourite
• LonelyPlanet.com/thorntree - occasionally a good resource
• TravellersPoint.com - has somewhat of a social network vibe as well

Social Networking

• TravBuddy - The only one I really classify as a travel social network (that I like
• WAYN - If you must, WAYN is a travel social network as well. I prefer TravBuddy and find WAYN a bit more spammy, but check it out if you must.

..More Travel Data searches

If you want more places to search for travel data / facts / info tidbits, below is a list of sites I find to be all identical in offering “Travel Guides” or reviews or testimonials or what not.

• Stay.com
• Tripwolf.com
• World66.com
• Tripsay.com
• Driftr.com
• Travelpod.com
• Travelblog.org

Outlook

With that, you have the Travel Sites that matter, 2011. The verdict, essentially, that Google sucks for search, and that sticking to authoritative content sources for data like WikiTravel and perusing a few reputable blogs will get you by.

While it’s unlikely Google travel related searches will get any better for travel guides / reviews / etc, it will become a major player in Travel booking and flight / hotel searches in the VERY near future. Google purchased the Travel data provider ITA for $700 million recently, and will surely be integrating it somehow in the near future once regulatory concerns are dealt with.

Who is ITA? ITA is only the sole provider of travel data to Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz…the list goes on. So now that Google owns the data, it will be very, very interesting to see what they end up doing with it, and I believe in 2011 we will begin to see some major shakeups in travel search, potentially with Google besting a lot of other searches like Kayak, Expedia, etc.