Travel Guide
What makes for the most useful guide to surfing “Travel?” If it’s simply cheap fares, try Kayak.com - a travel search engine (not a retailer) started by the founders of Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity. Then again, chances are you already have a favorite site or two for finding deals.
Interested in finding unique, even hip hotels? Taking a trip back into history or a flight into space? Finding a perfect byway to explore, then the best eatery along the way? How about offbeat tourist attractions, a culinary course disguised as a vacation, or a European garden tour? Even if you are simply going to meet a friend and want to locate a great place halfway between, this guide will help you find one, plus much more.
General
Designed for urban dwellers looking for a weekend getaway (currently only Northern California, but by years end, national…)
Beltane Ranch, California
Panoramic pictures from all over the world help you feel as though you’re already there.
Real time flight tracking to see if the plane you’re to meet is on time.
Clever idea…want to meet a friend, type in both your addresses and an agreeable kind of destination (default is coffee), and this site will find a meeting place.
Chow Hound is a blog for people who love to eat that rates places to eat.
Curious Expeditions “ compendium of the World’s Wonders, Curiosities and Esoterica.”
A View of America is a site compiling attractions from aquariums to beaches to scenic places.
The classic Baedeker guide books and maps are now available online.
Ballparks is a site for locating baseball parks, basketball arenas, football stadiums, ice hockey rinks, soccer stadiums, Olympic stadiums and racing tracks.
Seriousy silly, surprisingly useful site for finding one of 12,000 restrooms in 120 countries.
Find bed and breakfast inns, worldwide.
Bikely.com lists bike trails, paths and routes from over 40 countries.
The top 100 Chinese restaurants in the U.S.
Over 6,000 photos of cities around the world, from the American Geographical Society of America’s archives.
Warsaw, Barbican
Helps steer you to the right restaurants, bars, nightclubs, hotels and spas in dozens of cities, with editors’ picks and user reviews, and a Yellow Pages directory that includes shops and other services. A mobile version lets you access listing info from your cell phone.
Helps savvy travelers make the first decision - where should I go?
Find menus at local restaurants, wherever you are.
Research almost anything about 60 different cruise lines and gather advice on everything ship-related — from buying travel insurance to using onboard slot machines. (Not a booking site, so prices usually aren’t listed.)
Up to date currency conversions
Create your own before-you-leave checklists.
Social travel sharing and information for the wired generation.
Guide written by “expert” reviewers on budget hotels across Europe. Search for the best rates by city, peruse photos of your options, and read user reviews if you don’t trust the site’s own reviewers.
The first airline prediction service that helps you answer “Should I buy now or later?”
Travel fare search engine: shows airfares in one clear column down the middle of the page. If it finds a cheaper flight on slightly different travel dates than the ones you’ve specified, you will see a bright yellow pop-up. Adjusting your travel plans is easy with a large Modify Search button.
Rated the number one tourist destination by National Geographic; Wiki.
Database with 7 million gravesites/multiple ways to search.
Find an architects work, or search for a particular building.
FlightWait
Service let’s you see flight delays at major airports across the U.S.
If you love live entertainment (for about the price of a movie) you should check this out.
Great Outdoor Recreation Pages, includes ideas and tips.
The “decadent urban travel guide” helps search for “chic hotels, hot restaurants, sweet nightlife and pretty people.”
Originally written for family and friends, this local “guide” has lots of links to everything from water parks, gardens, volcanoes and culture and, yes, restaurants.
Historical, geological and anthropological sites
Archaeolink has it all, including archeological “vacations.”
Hip Hotels is a site for hotel properties around the world
Home of the U.S. historical marker.
User-submitted reviews of hotels; search by location or name of hotel.
Search for user reviews on hotels.
Compare hotel prices from top hotel sites.
User written travel blog about Italy written by people who love Italy.
Search 65,000 vacation rental listings.
Kayak is a travel search engine (not a retailer) started by founders of Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia.
Last minute air fare and hotel site finds bargains for spontaneous travelers.
The Lighthouse Directory have over 9400 lighthouses.
An outstanding resource for anyone researching travel destinations.
How about the 50 most unusual sites you probably never even heard of?
Delivers the best values on the greatest array of upscale hotel rooms worldwide.
Google Map mashup where you can find a place, put a pin in it, and send to a friend for quick reference
Inter-city bus travel for $1 each way, in UK and US.
Maps and directions to filming locations for both movies and TV shows.
Use the map to find a state, use the state to find a park.
New York architecture images of “What should I see in NYC?”
*simply a must for travel-holics
Personalized travel guides compiled using a combination of search technology and curation by both amateur and professional travel experts.
RoadsideAmerica is a guide to the offbeat in America.
Sam Hill’s Stonehenge - Maryhill, WA
Around The World In 80 Days, Pole To Pole, Full Circle, Hemingway Adventure, Sahara, Himalaya and New Europe.
Photo TourismView large collections of photographs in 3D, especially helpful for travel.
Site provides photos from travels around the world, organized by region and subject.
Here’s a site with 56 American scream machines all caught on tape (YT).
University of Oregon interactive Nolli Map: The 1748 Map of Rome, by Giambattista Nolli is widely regarded by scholars as one of the most important historical documents of the city ever created. This project is a collaborative exploration of the exquisite Nolli engraving, through its historic significance and contemporary application.
Milebymile provides free maps and hundreds of RV travel itineraries.
Byways.org helps you explore a region, then a route.
Riverroad Scenic Byway showcases the AuSable River Valley, MI
Online travel guide offering text only profiles of scenic trails and historic sites.
Dynamic travel guides to cities around the world.
If you’re flying somewhere, find out everything there is to know about your seat.
Travel fare search engine allows you to easily adjust your travel plans — eliminating a stopover, changing the dates — and see how it impacts your cost immediately.
When you have to leave right now, here’s the place to look for the lowest fare.
Smithsonian’s take on trips to take before you travel to the great unknown; such as portels into the past, like Mesa Verde, feats of engineering like The Great Wall, and in the presence of God, like Ephesus.
The Smithsonian’s travel guide. Select a region, find a tour.
Southwest Airlines
This airline isn’t available on travel search sites, so you’ll have to research this site directly.
Search through hundreds of specialty travel tour operators.
The deceased historian’s travel with Lewis & Clark, civil war battlefields and more.
Civil War tour visits the sites of battles fought along the Mississippi River.
Haunted buildings, places, urban legends, cemetaries, weird places, cool places, ghost towns, and anything else that’s worth your time to visit.
An extensive list of swimming holes, courtesy of reference library.
Lists the top 10 events across the USA, state by state.
A different take on a travel guide is Toronto’s very own Streets.to, a visual, virtual, 3d search engine. The site opens onto an animated illustration of the hustle and bustle of Yonge and Dundas, Toronto’s busiest intersection. From here you can hail one of the city’s infamous green and orange Beck cabs and drive to a host of restaurants, hotels, stores and attractions. Follow the arrows to enter each location and you’re instantly morphed into the surroundings of your selected destination, complete with real-life photographs.
Travel Guides
Slate has The 10 Oddest Travel Guides Ever Published. A Tramp Trip. SE Asia Graphic Guide. Granary Burying Groun (Boston).
International meeting point, as well as community of people who love to travel.
Travel&Leisure
Top 100 Hotels, Top 10 Cities, Top 10 Islands.
A collection of travelogues and educational and industrial films on YouTube — many of them in color - that show the world the way it was between 1900 and 1970.
Helps you get and stay organized - Automatically get itineraries with all your plans, weather, maps, restaurants and more.
Find the best hotel room in the whole hotel.
Video clips of 1500 hotels across Europe, plus discount fares.Unique Hotels
Tablet Hotels is a “tightly edited list of unique hotels around the world…that aren’t brand-name chain hotels.”
The Guerlich, Zurich
International air travel “solved” via a “massive” database of carriers.
Private homes and condos available for weekly rent
Travelzine for today’s vagabond; read the dispatches.
Hotel/B&B/condo search site plus reviews, specializing in Europe.
Discover points of interest with videos, nature areas and parks, restaurants, hotels, and other travel-related material.
Google Maps and Live Map images from above.
Interesting take on touring; individual sites not alphabetized by country, but helpful to gauge what might be worth visiting when there.
Temple of Kom Ombo, Egypt
A virtual scavenger hunt that helps you discover and share unique places around the world. Houses, miniature railroads, Carnegie library buildings, holiday displays, impact craters, “all things starwars,” “junk design,” “ginormous everyday objects…”
Travel site that combines weather related predictions for holiday periods, plus helps you match destinations with your exact wishes.
Deep database on discount carriers makes for best place to search for deals on European air travel.
Whatsonwhen is a site that lets you “browse events by month around the globe.”
Delivers a wealth of free worldwide travel guides.
UNESCO’s list of the most beautiful sites of universal value: These include 660 cultural 
, 166 natural 
and 25 mixed 
properties in 141 States Parties.
Yapta is a travel site built on the little-known airline policy of refunding ticket holders the price difference if the fare drops. Simply enter in your flight info and the price you paid for your tickets, and Yapta will track the ticket price for your flight(s) from that point on. If the fare drops before your trip, it will let you know the price difference and how to claim a refund or vouchers from the airline.
Hyatt travel site - where Gold Passport members share their insider trips and travel experiences.
A pan-Asian portal with links to online agencies based in seven countries (owned by Travelocity).
Themed
Grand Prix Tours helps you travel to Formula 1, Grand Prix, NASCAR, Le Mans, MotoGP and Indy 500 races.
Brazilian Grand Prix
Travel To The Horizon provides information on touring around the world.
Culinary Travel
Visits to world-famous chocolatiers in Brussels, Burges and Antwerp.
Week-long adventures in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal,Greece, Morocco,and England.
Cooking vacations for all tastes and budgets to Italy, Spain, France, Vietnam, Mexico, Northern Ireland and USA.
Cooking and culinary vacations to Spain, Costa Rica, Italy, France, Nova Scotia and Turkey.
GolfFlyOver is a site that let’s you fly over hundreds of golf courses.
Cooking adventures in the heart of the Napa Valley.
All about hiking, climbing, cycling, paddling, running and snowsports.
Hiking
Appalachian Trail, the International Appalachian Trail, or simply mount the peaks.
Cordon Bleu cookery courses in an 18th century French Manor house in Normandy, France.
L ‘enclume L ‘enclume restaurant, home of chef Simon Rogan, is Michelin star and rated one of 5 top destination restaurants in Europe. Shaw Guides
Descriptions of cooking schools and vacations worldwide, including calendar of upcoming programs.
Guided food and wine tours of France and Italy.
Coopersmith is “North America’s oldest and most trusted” garden tour company specializing in Great Britian, Continental Europe, New Zealand and California.
Hestercombe - Thomas Hardy Country, England
If you’re part of the jet set, don’t fret. Here’s a site that parses your options of where to go and what to do down to only a handful, each day.
As the name implies, here’s a travel site, but with a twist. All the products you need for that jet setting lifestyle.
Haunted Castles and Hotels offers tours of castles, hotels and dungeon throughout Europe.
Neuschwanstein Castle
Amazonia offers customized expeditions into Western Peru and trips into the Amazon.
Jungle Expeditions - Costa Rica
Explorations Inc is a tour company specializing in jungle expeditions to Costa Rica.
Relaxing in hot springs of Tobacon overlooking Arenal Volcano
Site is for travel fans of history and nostalgia. Find out of the way places.
Murder Mystery USA offers dinner theatre, train excursions and weekend getaways across the U.S.
Arcturus offers expeditions and cruises to Arctic and Antarctic regions, including details, maps and contact information.
Trains Unlimited Tours offers fully escorted train tours worldwide.
Travel Guide started by historian helps you explore the spiritual heritage of our world
Scenic Drives
Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet (Alaska)
Great Ocean Road (Austrailia)
Ortega Highway (California)
Pacific Coast Highway, Big Sur (California)
White Rim Road (Canyonlands National Park)
Sainai Pennisula (Egypt)
B9 from Koblenz to Bingen (Germany)
Valley of Nightingales road to Manolates (Greece)
Hana Highway (Maui, Hawaii)
Wailea to Hana (Hawaii)
Amalfi Coast (Italy)
Blue Ridge Parkway (Virginia and North Carolina)
Saluda (Hwy 176 North Carolina)
Columbia River Highway (Oregon)
Beartooth Highway (Montana)
Kings Hill Scenic Byway (Montana)
Prithvi Highway (Nepal)
Kangamanus Highway (New Hampshire)
Elan Valley Mountain Road (Wales)
The International Directory of Sculpture Parks
Helps you locate sculpture parks around the world, by the artnut Benbow Bullock, sculptor.
Space Travel
Space Adventures - provides access to space
Virgin Galactic - Plans to offer sub-orbital flights
Walks Worldwide offers a variety of walking, hiking and trekking holidays around the world.
Liveras Yachts owns, charters and sells time shares of some pretty amazing floating palaces.