| According to a recent survey by the Travel Industry Association of America, nearly 80 million Americans turned to the Internet for help with travel planning in 2005. The same survey reports that the Internet is now used for some aspect of travel planning in more than 75 percent of all trips. You can count on these numbers rising in the years ahead. Why is the Internet revolutionizing the way we research, plan, and book travel? Because it saves time, and because online information is often more current and timely than what’s available in printed guidebooks and brochures. This can make a big difference in the quality of our travel experiences.
Most of what you’ll find on the Web is both free and accessible around the clock, but sifting through the sea of available travel information can present a tremendous challenge. There are so many available travel sites that most travelers stick with the few they know best, missing a great deal of valuable information as a result. This is what makes The Traveler’s Web such a useful tool. Ran Hock covers scores of sites readers might otherwise miss, helping travelers sort through all the noise on the Internet to hone in on the information they need.
With this new book, Hock has created a compendium of travel-related Web sites relevant to a wide range of travelers. He covers virtually every mode of transportation and a variety of trip styles, from adventure to luxury travel. He goes beyond the basics, tackling such practical topics as where to find weather reports, subway maps, and cyber cafes, and recommending specialized travel sites for seniors, families, gays and lesbians, and other groups. |