TravelProductivity

What are the best sites to aid in holiday/vacation planning?

8

Options
Considered

12

User
Recs.

Mar 27, 2018

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

7 Options Considered

Best sites to aid in holiday/vacation planning	Price	Platforms	Publisher
-- Trip Advisor	-	–	–
-- Google Flights	-	–	–
-- Kayak	-	–	–
-- Lonely Planet	-	–	–
-- Foursquare	-	–	–

Trip Advisor

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Top Pro

Good interface for hotel booking

Intuitive interface for finding hotels or hostels and booking them on the site. See More

Top Con

Lack of trust in reviews

There is a lot of incentive for companies to post fake reviews in order to increase their ranking/visibility. Tripadvisor does very little to catch the false reviews, so it's hard to know what's authentic and what isn't. See More

Top Pro

Good for food/restaurants

Tripadvisor will usually have the not-to-miss restaurants, even if they can end up being touristy. A good yelp equivalent in non-US countries. See More

Top Con

Lots of sponsored content

Sponsored content such as sightseeing tours and hotels can clutter up the content users are actually searching for. See More

Top Pro

High quantity of reviews

Tripadvisor lists tour options for many of the available attractions. Many of the individual tours have lots of recent reviews so you can get a better idea of what the experience will be like. See More

Top Pro

Large compilation of sightseeing spots

Google Flights

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Top Pro

Google integration

It's integration into Google (example: query "flights to Sydney") makes it convenient to use. See More

Top Con

Not able to book directly on Google Flights

You can't make a purchase/booking directly on the site. You are instead redirected to the company offering the service and must book there. See More

Top Pro

"Explore" feature helps you discover new (cheap) places to go

Google Flights offers a neat explore feature that allows you to search by dates, continents and interests to discover new destinations. See More

Top Con

Limited to flights only

Google Flights only provides information for flights, and does not include other categories that many travel search engines do (such as hotels and packages). See More

Top Pro

Ability to compare price for many dates at once

You can pick the cheapest date to fly easily by comparing the different dates at once. See More

Kayak

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Top Pro

Able to search bookings concurrently on multiple travel sites

Kayak searches hundreds of travel sites to find all the possible flights to ensure you don't miss out on the best options. They have the most comprehensive results out of the competition. One of the biggest advantages of Kayak that most of their competitors don't have is the choice of where to book after you have found what flight or hotel you want. This means you are not locked into a single vendor and can compare the various booking fees etc. See More

Top Con

Dishonest about prices

There are a large number of complaints against Kayak questioning their honesty. It's frequently reported that after booking on the site and enter your credit card information, you will be told to call Kayak as something went wrong. You are then given a higher rate, or sometimes charged the higher rate without being told. See More

Top Pro

"Explore" is awesome for trip planning

Kayak has a feature called "explore" that lets you answer the question "Where can I go for how much?" Explore is a fantastic tool for initially planning out your trip while finding the cheapest flights. From CN-Traveler: You punch in parameters for a trip and how much you're willing to spend to fly there, and your options magically appear on a map. You could punch in, for instance, that you want a maximum-four-hour nonstop flight in January to someplace where there's a beach and the temperature is between 70 and 90 degrees and they speak Spanish, and you don't want to spend more than $500 on airfare; Kayak will spit back your options. See More

Top Con

Poor customer service

There are many negative reviews containing complaints of very rude and unhelpful Kayak customer service. See More

Top Pro

Good interface for flight booking

Foursquare

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