The Top 3 Travel Sites

How many hours did you work last week? What about the week before, and the week before that? Yes, we know the life of an entrepreneur seems to revolve around work from dawn to dusk and it doesn’t stop there. When was the last time you took a vacation? Seeing as you are probably way overdue, we thought that we should take a look at the large number of online travel sites and have come up with our top three picks for sites that help you decide where you are going to go, to get away from it all. Disney World or the French Alps? The Mexican Riviera or the Australian Outback? Here are our top three travel sites:

1.Trip Advisor

Trip Advisor uses the power of social networking particularly well. Let’s face it, a vacation for you and your family can be an expensive proposition and has more attached than just cost alone – you badly need this “getaway!” Trip Advisor has long been known as the site that brings together real-time user experiences. Online market research company Compete, Inc., tells us that 56% of respondents consider consumer-generated content to be more credible than the descriptions entered by a supplier or venue. Trip Advisor has gone further and allows you to import and build upon a list of contacts within your “travel network.” Now you are likely to know the source of the first-hand experience as well, making for even more credibility. Trip Advisor has more than 20 million monthly visitors and has amassed more than 10 million consumer reviews. You should know that the hotels and travel venues themselves actively monitor the website and that the site is thus helping to improve the breed as well as providing you with the best unbiased advice.

2.Trav Buddy

Trav Buddy mirrors Trip Advisor in some respects, although it has fewer than half the number of members. Once again social networking is front and center and at Trav Buddy you can keep a diary of your travels as well as a general calendar showing where you’ve been, where you are going to and even list your dream destinations. The scale of interactivity means that you are likely to come into contact with other people who have the same interests as you, who become part of your network and you part of theirs. While it might be fun to think that you can make new travel friends this way, caution is always advised! Trav Buddy is a fun place but its interface is quite cluttered and in terms of site navigation you might feel that you are already on your journey!

3.Travellerspoint

Travellerspoint attracts bloggers who love to travel. As we know, blogs are powerful and primary sources of information on the web and you can tag reviews and information about your travels and append comments, good or bad about destinations, hotels and venues. This is one of the web’s most active travel-based communities and you can also interact via forums and get direct answers to questions from “travel helpers” within the site. Don’t expect to get too much inspiration from the design of the site however, as it is very uninspiring and not an ideal gateway for something which is, after all, one of life’s true delights.

So do you agree with our list of top three travel sites? We want to hear your choices. Who would be on your top three list of travel sites, and why?

Matthew Toren