My Top 3 Travel Guides - Don't Leave Home Without It

I've never been a "tour group" type of traveller. Somehow the thought of waking up at an unearthly hour every morning to go on the bus by 7am, long bus journeys with only photo stops at famous sights, meals at tourist-catered restaurants isn't my cup of tea. For people who don't want to worry about planning a holiday, tour groups is the way to go. However, I much prefer a free and easy type of travel which means a lot more preparation for each holiday. Fortunately, with the internet, one can plan an entire holiday from the comfort of home without the aid of a travel agent.

My top 3 travel tools for planning a holiday are as follows:

1. Frommers
2. Trip Advisor
3. Map Quest

Frommers is an excellent starting point for on-line research on a holiday destination. Unlike some other travel guides, Frommers actually has a fairly comprehensive on-line site. So, I could actually plan an entire holiday itinerary without purchasing the guide book. However, I do highly recommend getting the destination book to bring along on the trip as it comes in pretty handy for dining and sightseeing suggestions. I find their "What to do in 1 day, 2 days, 3 days, 1 week" very useful for planning my itinerary. Most of their suggestions are spot-on. I also like the discussions on their Travel Forum as I can learn from other people's questions and experience. Frommers will also provide the URL for the official destination website which should also be checked out.

Once I've decided on an itinerary, I use Trip Advisor to evaluate accomodation options. Bear in mind that different people have different opinions and expectations. I find accomodations with more reviews, both good and bad provide a more rounded view. Whilst there is a risk that some reviews may be "engineered", I think that eventually the truth will come out as the person who may have been influenced by a "positive" review will post a negative review if the place did not meet up to their expectations. Again, my own experience with the accomodations reviewed by Trip Advisor have been mostly positive.

Once I've decided on where to go and stay, I use Map Quest to provide specific directions for my driving holidays. Whilst the car rental company will provide a state map, Map Quest has proven to be invaluable again and again for accurate points to point directions. It provides distance and driving times which is useful for planning my itinerary. Together with estimates of petrol/gas prices, this is a usefel tool for budgeting for the fuel expense.

There you have it - my top 3 travel guides which I don't leave home without whenever I travel!