Top Sites for Easing Travel Woes
Online resources that make trips easier for tech-savvy travelers abound, but they vary in quality and even in reliability of their information. Here, I’ll collect three of my absolute favorite, dependable sites for easing the hassle of traveling.
Do you have a hit-or-miss approach to getting the kind of seat you want on a plane, and finding it equipped with the connectivity and entertainment options you want? If so, you can take much more control of your fate by using SeatGuru.com. On each page for any plane SeatGuru.com lists, you’ll find an In-Flight Amenities list, which can tell you what kinds of audio, video, Internet and power options your seat will offer. You’ll find complete instructions for using the site at the bottom of the home page.
If you frequently run into travel problems like arriving at the airport too early for a flight that’s been delayed, you may not be using the best technology or online sites to optimize your plans. My very favorite online tool for this kind of task is FlightAware.com.
FlightAware.com is independent of the major carriers, and it essentially aggregates all the data in the air traffic control system so that you can just put the flight number of a plane in and pull up a graphical map showing precisely where any jet is. This is the most dependable way I know of to time your trips so you encounter the least hassle. You can also use FlightAware to check on current airport activity. All you need to do so is the airport code, which you can get by clicking on a link at the bottom left of FlightAware’s home page.
Most online-savvy travelers are aware that once they get to a destination city, they can look for Wi-Fi hotspots at places like Starbucks, but the recent trend has been for far more types of locations to offer free Wi-Fi. There are even now several entire cities offering free Wi-Fi outside. My favorite, easy-to-use tool for tracking down a convenient spot for free Wi-Fi is Wi-FiHotspotlist.com.
At Wi-FiHotspotlist.com, you can enter your address and city in, then click “Find a Hotspot.” A search I just did for downtown San Francisco lists everything from McDonald’s outlets offering Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi-enabled lobbies of posh hotels. You can also click the Browse by Region button to find all hotspots in any city.
Taking a few minutes to familiarize yourself with these sites for travelers can save you time and hassle on your next trip.
Do you have any tips for road warriors?
I have to tell you, Seat Guru is an AMAZINGLY good website.
Tripadvisor is always my first site to look at when choosing hotel. Very useful and excellent reviews.
UNTHIRSTY!!!
Finding happy hours while traveling is huge. When I worked for a company, and had a nice fat daily food stipend, I didn’t care, but now that I work for myself, and my travel expenses come out of my profit… I like to save money. Usually I’m in a trendy part of town, meaning there’s lots of access to close by restaurants. Knowing where to save a few bucks while I have a drink or three is pretty helpful.
FlightAware is good, but I have to admit FlightStats.com is way better. Granted, totally biased, we got the same info (a little better actually) and we continue to crank out additional widgets you can use – like our Flightstats Mobile, so you can get all this info on the go too!
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