It’s very rare I end up writing posts about travel sites I hear about through my contact form. This is one part because I’m too busy, but fifteen parts because the sites I hear about just aren’t that interesting. (Read: The world doesn’t need another TripAdvisor or Virtual Tourist)

However, the stars aligned when I was recently contacted by InBed.me regarding their service. InBed is one of those rare original, non-shitty new travel websites that I’m convinced offers a true value proposition to travelers… especially to the single, solo, independent budget traveler.. like myself.

Click through and spend a few minutes on the site, and you’ll get why I’m excited about it. InBed is AirBnB, but with hostels, and a little more social twist. Rather than only finding a bed like AirBnB, you’re finding travel buddies and a social circle. The little corny video on the landing page hits the nail on the head - cool hostels aren’t cool if you’re alone after arriving. I couldn’t agree more.

InBed.me simply solves the problem. Why hostels.com or hostelworld didn’t think of this first, I don’t know. Maybe because they’re lazy. But going forward, there’s hardly a reason to book hostels ahead without using InBed.me.

I realize I’m fanboy-ing hard on this one, but it’s for good reason. It’s refreshing to see techcrunch buzzworthy disruption come back to the travelsphere and challenge the AirBnB’s and Couchsurfings of the world. This will only lead to good things. I’m excited. There aren’t many travel startups I’d love to really work for, but this might be one of them. So check it out, and if you’re a travel geek, be sure to keep InBed on your radar. This could get big.

I’ve been on a list binge lately, and Lonely Planet released their Best cities of 2012 List a little while back, and I can no longer refrain from commenting. First of all, I’m a huge LP fan. For nearly every trip I would recommend purchasing a LP country guide if possible. But rather than gearing up and planning ahead for 2012 visit to some of the cities below, may I recommend saving instead for a couple late deal holidays?

The Lonely Planet Best Cities of 2012

1. London, UK
2. Muscat, Oman
3. Bangalore, India
4. Cadiz, Spain
5. Stockholm, Sweden
6. Guimarães, Portugal
7. Santiago, Chile
8. Hong Kong
9. Orlando, FL
10. Darwin, Oz

Now, LP knows their stuff and likes to keep things fresh, but of all the cities in the world, these are the top 10 for 2012?

Questionable Top Cities

#2 Muscat:
I live here. Right now. I’ve been here for a month. Now, the city is fine, and a lot of people like aspects of living and traveling here. But I really do not get it. The weather leaves a lot to be desired, the infrastructure is not traveler friendly, and after a blistering day on the beach and a tour of Old Muscat, there’s not much else to do in the city. When I think of city, I think of something explorable. Muscat is a good launching point to nearby Wadis, Wahiba Sands, and Emirates. Maybe a launching point of 2012, but not city. If not for work, I would’ve left for more lovable destinations after 3 days of exploring.

#3 Bangalore
Again, Bangalore seems to be a fine city for IT professionals with some cash. Probably great place to work given India’s economic boom, but Bangalore isn’t even a top 10 city in India, let alone the world for 2012. Pushkar, Agra, Mumbai, Delhi, Jaisalmer, Jodphur, Varanassi…..

#8 Hong Kong
I love love love Hong Kong. It deserves to be on the list. But I can’t help but laugh at LP’s reasoning. Lonely Planet recommends a visit because of potential protests relating to the movement for more democracy. Perhaps New York and Oakland should be on here for the Occupy Wall Street protests.

#9 Orlando Florida.
LP tells us to visit Orlando…becaaaauuuuseee…..(drumroll)…of the NBA all-star game. The NBA. The same NBA which almost did not have a season this year due to a lockout.

Personal Recommendations

UEFA Euro Cup - Poland & Ukraine
The Euro Cup happens every four years, and is arguably the world’s 3rd most popular sporting event after the World Cup and Summer Olympics. Plus, it’s in Poland and the Ukraine. What better time to visit Poland and Ukraine, no?

Africa Cup of Nations
Better yet, visit a city in the Africa Cup in 2012.

Are there no other events going on in 2012?

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.

I’ve long wondered why there hasn’t been a comprehensive Travel Budget database of sorts with all the web app hype that’s come alive recently. Sadly, the developers of “2.0″ online travel apps have focused almost exclusively on social networks, “where i’ve been” and flight aggregation. Well, awesome. But really, an accurate, quick centralized database for travel prices and budgets has been a pipe dream of mine that I even failed at creating in Backpackability.com.

Sure, us backpackers and wannabees can sift through BootsnAll, Lonely Planet, and Trip Advisor for prices and then brag about how much time we spent [wasting] planning our trips, but why? Or better yet, we could definitely all order new copies of the recent Lonely Planet guides off of Amazon! not. that’s just silly.

I’m obviously not leaving you hanging with ranting post here shaming the big boys of travel for not developing a travel price database already. So Here comes BudgetYourTrip.com.

BudgetYourTrip is something of what I’ve described above. It’s a relatively new, but no soooo green, website that is alot of what I wanted to develop before I understood database powers. In their own words:

Estimate travel costs by country, city, and category. Use the Estimate Trip Costs search form to plan your expenses, or browse the list of countries. The trip expenses entered by other travelers help us calculate daily averages by location and category.

It’s straight forward, and a golden idea.  There’s no reason for me to sit around and talk about it anymore. Just check it out. Better yet, contribute!

Final Disclaimer This is NOT a paid post at all, surprisingly enough. I’m just a fan of truly helpful travel websites, unlike most of the gunk out there.

Bus travel is coming back. After the industry has declined for numerous years, the past few have seen a slight resurgence in bus travel which might be offering budget travelers a decent domestic travel option. But when it comes to booking buses, who honestly knows where to start when booking tickets? Neither Kayak, Vayama, nor Expedia tell me about buses.  And call me naive, but I have honestly only heard of Megabus and Greyhound. Compare that to our knowledge of airline carriers, and you get what I’m saying.

So, obviously, I’m going to give you the solution to the problem and tell you how to find low bus fares (and even compare prices!)

BusJunction.com

BusJunction is a bus fare aggregator that’s a self explanatory bus fare search brought to my attention by its founder in a buried email half a year ago which I just rediscovered. Like Kayak, it’s an aggregator, which is an important clarification because this means it is independent of the bus operators, thus offering you unbiased fares and information.

So, naturally, I’m partial to BusJunction (not even having used the service) and would recommend it. If my word doesn’t mean anything, Frommer himself hearts BusJunction in the HuffingtonPost, one of several high profile coverages the site received. The final kicker of BusJunction is its integration of Yelp, another site i’m a fan of.

GoToBus.com

GoToBus.com is the other, bigger and older bus fare search tool. The site features just Chinatown bus routes zig zagging across the US. While also super helpful, it engages in ticket partnerships with the bus companies for profit, thus potentially resulting in worse bus route and fare searches.

As a capitalist at heart, I love to see BusJunction’s emergence on the scene to give GoToBus a run for its money and help out the lowly bus travelers out there. Let’s hope that this increased bus travel trend continues so budget travelers aren’t left out to dry when attempting to travel on the cheap, and so I can feature fewer rants in posts on US budget travel.

Get on Twitter already. If you aren’t, everyone’s doing it. Your favorite online travel stars are all over twitter, so if you want some travel reminders, tips, commentary or deals in your home feed check out my list of top Travel Twitter -ers to follow for some saweet travel tweets. (more…)