Where to go?

The world may be divided into 2 groups of travelers—those who like to plan trips and those who don’t.  I’m in the former category.  Planning is almost as much fun as the trip itself.

In keeping with JMRL’s adult summer reading program of Novel Destinations, this series of blogs will explore different aspects of travel:  planning, getting there, staying there, budgeting, etc.  Feel free to share your travel planning experiences and strategies.

JMRL has lots of travel books—Fodor’s, Frommer’s, Lonely Planet, Eyewitness Travel Guides, and others.  We also have access to magazine and newspaper articles by way of online databases like General OneFile and Proquest which includes newspapers such as New York Times and Washington Post which both have Sunday travel sections which are fun to browse.  JMRL subscribes to magazines themselves like Travel and Leisure, Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel, National Geographic Traveler and Britain.

Tons of general websites help with travel planning:

Trip Advisor         http://www.tripadvisor.com/    Reviews and advice on hotels, resorts, flights, vacation rentals, travel packages, and lots more!

IgoUgo                   http://www.igougo.com/

Fastest growing online travel community in the world.

Lonely Planet        http://www.lonelyplanet.com/us

iwannagothere       http://iwannagothere.com/

After choosing a destination, then the planning begins—looking for a good deal.   Many start with the combo sites—Travelocity, Expedia, Priceline, Orbitz, Hotwire,  Gogobot (new) and the Frugal Travel Blog—to name a few.  Strategies abound and planners can spend (waste?) a lot of time comparison shopping.

In the following days, I will present other planning tools and thoughts—planning airline travel, booking accommodations, specialty travel and travel writing.

~ Joyce MacDonald