Travel - Useful Links

If you're a person that enjoys Traveling the World and you have a thirst to learn and to experience different cultures, history, art, food or wine then the best resource on the web that you need to check out is Slow Travel. The best Travel Community is hands down Slow Talk. And the best bloggers are Slow Travelers.

There is no question from reading the above statement that my most favorite Travel Website is SLOW TRAVEL. Their main travel site has a lot of great information, trip reports and reviews to places all over the world and their community board has very knowledgeble and helpful travelers that can give you great advice and tips in helping you plan your dream vacation!

Since traveling more steadily since 2005, I have come across some very useful information and here is a list of some of the most useful Travel Links that I have found. My favorites Travel Links are in BOLD for your convenience.

FINDING GREAT AIRFARES

Kayak.com

This is a great search engine to find low airfares. When looking for flights I run a search here and monitor the airfares for up to a full month before I'm prepared to purchase what I will assume to be the best price that I can get.

Finding affordable airfare prices is a practically an artform. There is no way to really know that you will be getting the lowest fare and best connection possible, but this site does a lot of the work for you in a short amount of time. You can also program it to notify you when airfares come up for the connections you want.

Tip: When you find the flights that you want, go to the airlines direct website just to make sure that it is the best deal. I also will call the airlines and double check. Nearly 100% of the time I have found that what Kayak quoted is correct. I also preper to get my seat assignments when I am ready to book my flights and will use Seat guru to check out the seat configurations for my flights before booking. I always, always and did I say always get an aisle seat.

Seat Guru (Airplane Seat Location)

This website contains a number of airline seat configurations. I find it very helpful when booking my flights and securing my seat assignments. The site will display an illustration of the seat configuration of an aircraft and will point out the good seats and the worse seats. For example, I never want to set near the restrooms for obvious reasons.

AIR TRANSPORTATION & SAFETY

Safe Travel.dot

Transporation Security Administration (TSA) - US

TSA Rules on Carrying Special Items

Useful Links for Information on International Travel

FOR MORE INFORATION ON OTHER COUNTRIES

For Other Countries Click Here - US Dept. of State

Consular Information On Countries

ELECTRONICS - WORLDWIDE:

Cellular Abroad

Kropla Worldwide Electronics

FAVORITE TRAVEL WEBSITES:

SlowTravel

FAVORITE TRAVEL MESSAGE BOARDS:

SlowTravel Message Board

Fodors Message Board

Lonely Planet Thorntree Message Forum

Trafalgar - If you like group touring my favorite travel community is Trafalgar. Prior to learning about the joys of independent travel I used to do group tours. If you like that sort of travel and some people do, check out their travel board. They are a great group and I have no regrets for having done some of my first travels with these wonderful group of people. But I am now a Slow Traveler and that's just the way life is sometimes. You grow, things change and sometimes you move on.

GROUND TRANSPORTATION

Die Bahn - Train Schedules

Man in Seat 61

Rail Europe

Trenitalia - Trains in Italy

HOW FAR & HOW MUCH TIME BETWEEN DESTINATIONS:

Maporama

Measurement-Distance Conversions

Michelin Guide

LODGING:

Expedia

Hotel.com