Lee's Purely Personal List of Travel Links
Airline and hotel search.
General Links for Searching Flights
Survey of fares from several airlines.
Uses ITN.
Be sure and check Travelocity before buying through United.
(It's a lot faster, for one thing.)
This site certainly is slow to do a lot of things
that ought to be fast.
For years I always flew on United,
even when it cost me a couple hundred dollars extra.
There were two things that made it worth while:
Mileage Plus and Economy Plus.
But on my last two flights to Europe,
I wound up sitting between two people,
even though I had booked my flight more than a month
in advance and booked an aisle seat
and arrived at the airport well in advance of the flight.
United still uses the "friendly skies"
slogan, but it's become clear that when it becomes a contest
between "friendly skies",
and "the on-time airline,"
the skies can become very unfriendly indeed.
Uses Sabre.
Can look up multiple legs.
Does not include Southwest and some other budget airlines.
No longer usable with Netscape 4.7.
Use Yahoo instead.
Uses Travelocity but doesn't require membership.
Booking system for major airlines.
Can't handle multiple destinations or trips originating
outside the US.
This site is a joke. To extract information, one has
to go through multiple pages and each page takes forever to load.
Then finally it tells me that my time limit has expired
My God this site is slow!
And it's not the loading time, but the time it takes
my computer to process the code.
Besides that, it gave me lousy choices for
London to Athens. But Travelocity had that problem too.
But Expedia doesn't even list Olympic Airlines
as an option.
A travel agency. Not fully automated.
Specializes in budget prices on around-the-world travel.
By choosing the Advanced Air Search option, you can get
access to Sabre and actually get fare information
for a trip with more than one leg.
A useable site.
For Paris or the Riviera
To Germany or Russia.
To Poland, Prague, or Berlin.
Unusable.
Requires a later version of Netscape than my computer will run.
Travel packages
Travel packages.
Good site for European travel packages.
Lists singles prices and prices for various departure
cities.
Primarily car rentals, but also specials on air fare.
They don't tell you the airline until you book.
Unusable for practical purposes.
Web design from hell. Do not try to load this site.
Special deals on airfares.
$60 annual fee. The consensus is that it's not worth it.
In any case, it's very slow to load.
This site often hangs up netscape.
Offers various specials but does not have systematic
flight information.
U.S. cities only and nothing from Honolulu.
U.S. cities only.
Good information on airpasses, etc.
hotels, and many other things.
A real gold mine of information.
It's worth spending a few hours looking around this site.
Useful portal for several European airlines.
Discount European airlines.
Discount European airlines.
European Budget Airline Search.
Uses Apple Fares.
Fares from England to Europe.
Frequently has airfares not listed on major sites.
Their web site is definitely not worry free.
Reprograms the escape key,
then hangs up the browser.
Requires computer reboot.
Best avoided!
Frequently has airfares not listed on major sites.
Shows seating arrangements for various planes.
Difficult site to connect to and very slow to load.
Information and news about airlines, but mostly they seem to be
offering airlines a chance to promote themselves
for a fee.
Info (some little known) on frequent flyer programs.
Consolidators and Other Places
for Cheap Flights
Doesn't tell you what airline you're on until you book.
Scans about a dozen online travel sites, including budget outlets like
CheapTickets.com, to find the best price.
Doesn't tell you what airline you're on until you book.
A general travel site. Slow to load and it
doesn't seem worth checking.
Airlines
US Low-fare Carriers
Seat pitch = 32 - 33 inches.
Seat pitch = 32 to 34 inches.
Lowest fares sell out quickly.
Subsidiary of Delta. Food for sale.
Seat pitch = 33 inches, only 17 inches wide.
Offers first and second class. Economy has 29 to 31 inch pitch.
First class and economy. 30 or 31 inch pitch in economy.
First class and economy. 31 to 32 inch pitch in economy.
33 inch pitch.
Large seats. Unfortunately, the hub is Milwaukee.
Major Carriers
Very frustrating site.
From Leeds-Bradford (England) to variou European cities.
What a dreadful site! A real booby trap.
Use American Airlines site for BA tickets.
The timetable is quirky. It varies according to the time of the
year and the days of the week. Be sure and check it before
using a site like Travelocity.
Greek. Very hoaky site.
European Budget Airlines
(Not only Europe.)
Budget airline for Central Europe.
Italian budget airline.
Scandanavian (Copenhagen, Stockholm) Budget Airline.
German budget airline.
Formerly Deutches BA. German Budget airline.
Munich to Cologne or Berlin.
Cologne to Berlin.
Budget airline out of Cologne.
Budget airline out of Cologne.
Budget airline out of Berlin.
General Information
"We are a US- based travel agency and we offer domestic airfares and
consolidated airline tickets to Europe and other International
destinations. We also offer worldwide airline tickets from
virtually all major airports in the world. Our customers save on
average 35% off the regular published fares. I believe we offer
very unique content including constantly updated travel and
non-travel news and other useful travel related information and
tools which would serve as a great resource for your site’s
visitors."
This is a fairly new site (as of February 2007).
Well organized with lots of interesting and useful information.
Budget hotel rooms in major destinations.
Mostly consists of advertising for the books,
which look extremely useful.
Recommended for budget travel.
Contains an atlas.
Travel articles from newspapers and magazines, excerpts
from guide books.
Check their page
of links.
Help getting visas, etc.
Personal site. Some good information.
Based in Singapore
Non-commercial site with very personal travel reports and good tips.
Christopher Elliott is a travel writer in Florida.
Lots of interesting reading here and a few useful tips.
Package vacations via apartment rentals in various cities.
Part of his
Enjoy Europe site.
London online travel agency.
Flights from London, hotels, etc.
General information and contact with fellow travelers.
Registration required.
An online book with lots of good information on travel in Europe.
Directory of various resources.
Excellent key word search.
Trains
General information on European travel, including rail travel.
This has point-to-point fares and schedules in addition to passes.
(Beware their high fees. It's generally better to
purchase tickets in Europe.)
Standard rail passes. Also some good deals
on flights within Europe.
Ships tickets via Fedex ($10).
British site, information on rail travel and hotels.
Primarily promoting package holidays.
To get a good approximate idea of costs.
Better site for Thalys information.
European Rail Passes and Tickets.
Fairly new site. Still becoming operational. (Febr, 2003)
Swiss railway system. Schedules for several countries,
but apparently only via Swiss Rail.
Schedules
They sell tickets on-line that other systems may not sell outside
Europe.
Beware: very inflexible on the input format.
Not an easy site to use.
Orient Express brand hotels, trains, and cruises.
Train tours.
Specialty Links
Affinity tours and vacations for special interests.
(Including writing workshops.)
Educational cultural travel and workshops.
Schools in 90 countries.
Schools worldwide and agencies that set up language school travel.
Adventure travel.
Study, work, or live abroad.
Lots of good articles.
Instructional fun vacations for individuals, families, and groups.
Summer work abroad.
Books with info on living in various foreign countries
France, Ireland, Belize, Mexico).
Directory of companies with services for moving abroad.
Assistance in getting French visa. It doesn't look
much better than applying directly to the consulate.
Among other things, offers an
insurance program.
Teach English in Russia
Lots of language courses in Brussels.
Destinations
Reference source for cities around the world.
Amsterdam
London
Claims best prices for London hotels, but doesn't
offer a list sorted by price.
8 Collingham Rd, Kensington,
Gloucester Rd Station. 1-800-775-8485.
Near Hyde Park and Harrods.
Prices seem reasonable, daily or weekly.
Has a useful list of London links.
Room rates are moderate.
55 Pounds for a single with bath (shower).
Berlin
Private rooms at low rates.
Very slow. German language only.
Try searhing under keyword "hotels."
News, events, hotel booking.
Hotel, meeting place. French-German youth exchange program.
Not tourist oriented.
Entertainment oriented.
Second Sunday in July.
Cancelled for 2004 because of continuing financial difficulties.
France
Yellow pages, white pages. No general information.
Highly recommended.
Lots of apartments available, weekly or monthly.
Budget hotels in the French provinces.
As listed by the Parler Paris
newsletter
French Newspapers
Britain
Newspapers
Check classifieds for vacation rentals
Around the world.
A topical directory of links, not geographic.
Newspapers around the world.
Lodging/Accomodations
Privates homestays in London at weekly rates.
London Homestays
Apartment rentals in Paris, London, etc.
This is an American site, but it has lots of listings for Europe.
Packages, sometimes for less than airfare alone.
Network of people offering free accomodations.
Membership required.
International Hosts and Travelers Network
Hospitality exchange club of people offering rooms
to travelers over 40.
Teachers offering accomodations to other teachers.
Apartments and B&Bs in New York and Paris.
"The best sublet service in New York" --- New York
Magazine
Bed and Breakfast.
Short and long-term rentals in New York City, Paris, etc.
French travel site
Very informative site for those looking for a permanent
apartment in New York City (all burroughs).
Does not directly search for rooms,
but has lots of good links
to major hotel consolidators.
Fast server.
Searches web sites for
hotels in Europe and elsewhere. Good site. Links to many
hotel sites. Also apartments.
But they're not all that cheap.
Good starting point.
Discounted last minute hotel reservations.
Good site.
Search engine for hotels in all Germany (and Europe).
Big selection, but not very informative about the hotels.
This is a site where you can get a reasonably cheap hotel right
away. Wide selection, one of the best sites.
Warning: Be cautious, though.
In a few cases, the hotel description is solely the
responsibility of the hotel and in rare cases
they are highly inaccurate.
Good site, reasonably fast. Square buttons.
The yellow and green site.
Okay, but tends more towards higher priced hotels.
Directory of discount hotels.
Only major cities.
Not well organized: you have to sort through everything.
They also have air-hotel packages.
Okay, but limited.
Searches many different sites.
Doesn't sort by price or neighborhood.
Not recommended.
Extremely slow.
Lots and lots of listings for Europe. The prices seem to be
pretty good. But the listing are not well organized and
the server seems to be fairly slow. Okay
if you're primarily interested in price, but more difficult
if you also want to sort by location within a city.
Booking requires payment in advance.
Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Dublin.
Pretty routine listing.
Definitely not well organized.
Recommended on usenet.
This is very informative about various hotels.
Honest opinionated reviews.
Very worthwhile.
(Most of these hotels are not online.)
Limited offerings, but usable.
Hard to compare prices.
On-line listing of hotels around the world.
Australian site.
They want the money up front
and had problems with my credit card.
Discounts on hotels.
The site is a nuisance to use because it takes several clicks
to find the rate for a particular hotel.
And mostly they're fairly expensive hotels.
Seems to be only for the U.S.
Lisbon
Borges, Rua Garrett.
Floroscente
Greece
Pythagorean
Athens Center
Zinon
Greek travel agencies. Hotels all over Europe.
(Greek tourism site)
Totally hoaky web design.
Italy
Berlin
Single or double from 75 euros/night
Schwedter Str 15,
Singles from 75 euros/night
Very nice hotel
Kastanienallee 65,
Singles from 75 euros
Prenylauer Allee 4,
Singles from 76 euros
Singles from 80 euros
Very nice hotel
"Zimmer frei" means "rooms free". You will find these signs normally for
privat accommodation - outside the big cities.
In big cities they will normally be listed under "Privatzimmer" or "private
accommodation".
Normally you will find at such places only 1-3 rooms.
If someone has more rooms, i.e. mostly in built to purpose buildings these
are called
guesthouse (Gästehaus) or pension (Pension) or "Hotel Garni" (hotel only
with breakfast)
In big cities you normally find pensions or "Hotel Garni".
Pretty complete listing.
400 hotels and guesthouses in and around Berlin.
Some have single rooms for fairly cheap.
A month or longer.
25 to 30 Euros per night for a single with running water
but no bath.
One minimal room, but it's cheap. (20 Euros per night.)
Flats and rooms for long or short term.
Classified ads, including rooms/flats for rent.
Unfortunately, you can't get the phone numbers unless
you join the service.
Cologne
Mostly not very cheap.
Paris
Hotel bookings in Paris.
Apartments for the short-term visitor. (Upscale.)
Very large assortment of information.
Search engines for hotels (two star or better).
Unfortunately, none of them have web listings.
Very comprehensive listing of apartments and hotels.
Numerous ads of all sorts. Long and short-term rentals.
Selection by arrondisement.
Quick with a good selection.
Extremely slow site.
It basically locks up the whole computer.
Despite the name, most of these places don't seem to be cheap.
7th Arrondisement. A bit expensive.
Interesting family-run three star hotel in the Latin Quarter.
Two-stars, rooms have private baths.
Hotel Etap in south Paris
This one crashes netscape on my computer.
France and Europe. Reasonable rates?
Among other problems, no prices listed here.
London
Summer covers July through September. Easter is most of
April. Rate is roughly 30 pounds with hall bath.
1000's of UK Hotels and Guest Houses
many offering exclusive Internet user discounts
Warwick
Guest House (Ealing, W5)
West
Five Hotel (35 BP/night
Grange
Lodge Hotel (30 to 45 BP/night)
Acton Grange
Guest House ( W3. 25 to 30 BP/night)
Acton Hill
Guest House (W3), 25 to 30 BP/night)
Swan Guest House (Chiswick W4) 25 BP/night
27 S Ealing Rd, London W5.
Hostels
London Hostel near Russell Square. It's not cheap, and it's
said to be run down and full of noisy student groups.
Hostel directory.
French Hostels
Rio
Apartments in Rio.
Home Exchanges
Residence exchanges.
Try also Homelink.
Claims to be the largest home exchange network.
(Alternate link)
Mostly Britain and Europe
Travel Insurance
Comparative quotes from various insurers.
For Americans.
Based in Denmark. Must be living abroad to apply.
Based in Indianpolis.
Health Insurance, including short-term travel.
Information on several plans.
Information about several plans.
Join to get an international directory of English-speaking doctors
and clinics offering treatment for a reasonable fee.
Miscellaneous Reference Materials
Information About Living Abroad.
Guides to various U.S. cities
A Few Maps
Fairly usable some of the time,
depending on what country you need.
(No good at all for Greece.) My first choice.
Second choice.
Also kilometers to miles and kilgrams to pounds
Courtesy of Champs Elysee
Audio Courses
Airport Codes
CDG = Charles de Gaulle
PAR = Paris airports
BER = Berlin airports
TXL = Berlin, Tegel
XSF = Berlin, Schönefeld
MUC = Munich
LHR = London Heathrow
MIL/MXP = Milan
FCO/ROM = Rome
HNL = Honolulu
SFO = San Francisco
OAK = Oakland
LAX = Los Angeles
LAS = Las Vegas
IAD = Dulles
PHL = Philadelphia
MIA = Miami, Florida
TPA = Tampa, FL
AMS = Amsterdam
ATH = Athens (Greece)