50 Essential Travel Tips

Travel is full of pitfalls. One wrong step and your vacation could be ruined by a seedy hotel room, an overpriced restaurant, a wasted afternoon at a tourist-trap attraction or an overnight flight crammed in the middle seat. So, guarantee a smooth trip by planning thoroughly. Here's how to make all the right moves.

Start with Kayak

11. Booking: Start with Kayak

Ironically, the best site for booking a flight is not one that actually books flights, like Expedia, Orbitz or Travelocity. What you want instead is a meta-search site that scans the fares of multiple airlines and travel booking sites simultaneously and sends you to the source to book the fare you want.

Kayak.com is the best option, but even this mega-meta-searcher doesn't pull up departure info and prices for every airline. To fill in the gaps, check Mobissimo.com and DoHop.com, which are good for locating flights overseas (within Europe especially), and Momondo.com, which says it scours more than 650 websites for the cheapest fares possible.

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