What do exotic safaris in Africa, philatelists' conventions in Russia and nudist weekends in the Ardèche have in common? Answer: they can all be reserved on-line if you know where to look. And with more people than ever using the Internet to book their holidays, the number of travel-related Web sites is exploding. As usual, Yahoo! is a great place to start. Its special travel pages let you read about interesting destinations, consult maps, check out hotel facilities, assess the climate and buy books on the country. Similar sites include The Expedia Travel Network, ITN and Travelocity. These booking engines, also known as on-line reservation systems, allow you to research your complete itinerary and book everything from your PC. They also search for best fares in real time and continually update you on special offers and last minute bargains. Travelocity's current "specials" include cruises on the Nile, a visit to the Alaskan glaciers and tours of the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City. Degrif Tour is a French company which specializes in selling unsold seats and holiday packages from one to 15 days before departure. Its sister company, Reductour, covers longer-term bookings. Many sites have message boards where travelers can share experiences and receive unbiased advice. Fodor's, the travel publisher, not only has an attractive site, but also a large forum section, where people avidly debate anything from the dreamy "What took your breath away?" to the more down-to-earth "Comfortable shoes for all-day sightseeing." And talking of dreamy, the Internet is the ideal place to let your imagination wander. Try searching for "New Age Holidays" or "Conservation Projects" and see what happens. I discovered from the National Trust for Scotland's site that I could spend a week on a Thistle Camp, helping to excavate 2000-year old Iron Age houses and burial mounds on the evocatively named St. Kilda and Fair Isle. Or I could retrace some of my lost Scottish heritage in Culzean Castle, one of General Eisenhower's favorite retreats. If your spirit needs uplifting, what about a Sacred Way course, where they suggest you "Give yourself the gift of time alone in nature, clarify your life's purpose, experience your essence, and open your heart to the natural radiance of source." This new-agey site is well worth the visit just for the spaced-out lingo. "May we walk in balance and beauty with each other, Great Spirit and the Earth," they intone, before giving lots of details about their meditative self-discovery programs, called Sacred Passages and NatureQuests, which take place in the mountains of North America, the tropical forests of Asia or the Himalayas. Actually, it sounds wonderful. Uplifting maybe, but not particularly spiritual, I imagine, was an intriguing link I stumbled across to something called "The Boob Cruise," but obviously I didn't follow it through... Adventure travel companies abound in cyberland and their roaring tigers and mud-spattered jeeps certainly tempt you to forego the usual two weeks on the Costa del Sol. Guerba Expeditions and Safari Africa lead the way with enticing itineraries for intrepid adventurers. One operator, called Discovery, combines a program covering 18 countries with a highly conservationist philosophy, allowing you to travel to remote areas confident that your tour company is working with the locals to help preserve and promote the local culture and industries and not merely exploit them. That's what they say, anyway. Santa Holidays is a charming site promoting "a small cluster of beautiful, warm and cozy log cabins, nestled among murmuring fir trees. This is Santa's home," they say, before going on to talk of the magical Arctic Circle, reindeer safaris and fairytale atmospheres. They call it a dream holiday for children and adults alike, but boy, I bet its cold up there! United Airlines is one of the best airline sites on the Web, providing mind-boggling details about their flights, destinations, hotels, maps and weather, right down to what food you'll be served and which films you'll be able to watch, along with a review. If you want to get a taste for what life is like on a luxury cruiser, surf over to the Windstar Cruises site, close your eyes, listen to the gulls, the laughter, the light winds and the splash of the sea... ahhh. Let's Go, the travel guide company, adds value in the form of readers' stories and photo galleries, travelers' forums and "Tales from the road." Learn how to spray cockroaches with insecticide and eat them on baguettes as a cheap way of getting high, or what it's like being caught in a full-scale riot in India. The rival Lonely Planet site is similar and, if anything, even cooler. This entire article actually could have been replaced with the words: "Go to the Web Travel Secrets site." This one is a gem a mini on-line course in how to use the Internet to plan and book your holiday, designed by travel professionals and beautifully simple to use. The French tourism industry seems to be making a particular effort to promote itself on the Net and almost all major towns and attractions now have splendid Web sites. The tourist offices have pulled together hotel information, restaurants, campsites and places of interest, with the sites for Anjou and Etretat being good examples. Even the rail networks are jumping on the bandwagon with the SNCF providing on-line booking and the RATP stuffing its site with surprisingly interesting content. An on-line auction service from Nouvelles Frontières, based on an American model, took off last October and is proving highly successful. Every Tuesday, visitors bid for unsold packages, of which around 150 are purchased. According to Odile Rouland, the site manager, 30,000 people access the site on Tuesdays, bringing in 2.5 million francs a month. Customer resistance to buying on-line is finally crumbling. Once people realize they can dream about their holiday, then plan it, then finally book it, all from the comfort of their favorite armchair, no one's going to be running down to the travel agent on a Saturday morning any more. Bonnes vacances! Interesting web sites
Free mini-course on Internet travel services: http://web-travel-secrets.com
On-line travel agents: http://www.itn.com http://www.travelocity.com http://expedia.msn.com www.bestfares.com http://www.degriftour.com http://www.reductour.fr http://www.travel-guides.com http://encheres.nouvelles-frontieres.fr
Travel services: http://travel.americanexpress.com
International car rentals:
http://www.autoeurope.com
Interesting sites:
http://www.duderanch.org http://www.santa-holidays.com http://www.guerba.co.uk http://www.safari-africa.co.uk http://www.discoveryinitiatives.com http://www.nts.org.uk http://www.sacredway.com http://www.windstarcruises.com
Airlines: http://www.ual.com http://www.twa.com http://www.british-airways.com http://www.aa.com http://www.virgin.com https://w3.aircanada.ca http://www.airfrance.fr
Rail: http://www.sncf.fr http://www.ratp.fr http://www.eurostar.com Publishers: http://www.fodors.com http://www.letsgo.com http://www.lonelyplanet.com Accomodation: http://www.hilton.com http://www.hyatt.com http://www.france-gites.com http://www.iyhf.org www.180096hotel.com www.gonative.co.uk French Towns: http://www.anjou.com http://www.etretat.net http://www.bordeaux-tourisme.com
Road Maps: http://www.michelin-travel.com |
