February 5, 2012

Have a good holiday

At WhatsGoodOnTheWeb we recently asked people to tell us about websites they would recommend anyone who is going away this year to use and we had lots of responses which is always great. Many of the sites we have been asked to review are independent sites that rate everything from the quality of the accomodation through to how good the food is, many of which rely on you the user giving them information and writing reviews.

One of the websites we have decided to give a quick review of is the Checksafetyfirst.com site – it aims to give travellers security about where they are travelling to and reviews hotels and resorts individually based on over 250 criteria including food hygiene and safety which is very thorough.

If you are a first time traveller or have previously been unwell whilst you have been away we’d suggest that you take a look at the site and read some of the reviews.

The downside of the site is that it only lists hotels and resorts that have been individually verified by Health and Safety inspectors so there are only about 1500 to look at at the moment but the list is growing all the time.

If you’re hotel is not listed don’t worry as Checksafetyfirst work with travel operators to ensure their hotels are to the highest standards.

You may also want to read some of the advice and tips for travellers to make sure you have a great time.

Things to do on holiday

www.isango.com

If you like to travel but not sitting on a beach, going somewhere new can be a problem as you have no real idea what you can do when you get there. A fairly unknown site, Isango, hopes to solve this problem for all the jetsetters out there – it lets you search, and even book things to do whilst you are away.

Just to illustrate a simple example:

If you were travelling to California on holiday what would you do – Universal Studios? Rodeo Drive? Venice Beach? A simple search using the activities search engine throws up a few solutions:

  • Disneyworld
  • Seaworld
  • Shopping
  • Nights out

You can then follow the links and book the activity. Obviously Isango is making a profit on you pre booking but it is a really nice way to find out what is going on and actually give advice on what sort of people may like the activities.

The downside -

We’d actually like to see free things listed with the activities – What about a walk on Will Rodgers Beach or a advice on a nice resturant.

Overall we like the idea – a bit less heavy sell and more a place to stop by and I would be really happy to keeep coming back to the site – even better would be personal reviews of the activities and how they were rated – good, bad or indifferent.

I’d say Isango is a good three star site – the concept works for us and with a few more bits added I think this could be the next tripadvisor. If you have used the site please let us know in the comments section.

See the next page to read the Isango’s own description:

[Read more...]

Travel guides and Tips

www.tripwolf.co.uk

TripWolf is a recently launched online travel guide that gives you, the international traveller the opportunity to take a look at where you want to go.

Site users have access to information on over 200,000 travel destinations all over the world. Users of www.tripwolf.co.uk can search for destinations, find tips from friends and pro gurus, and even create and print out their own travel itineraries. A nice neat feature is that users can also browse galleries of pictures posted by other users who have visited the locations and get a really good idea of what to do and see when they get there. For the next budding travel writer you also have the ability to write a journal online so friends, family or fellow travels can read all about your experiences.

Although www.tripwold.co.uk is not fully operational yet it gives you a good idea of what is going on and we are sure in the fure it will become as popular as WAYN.

We’re giving this two stars at the moment but we will definetly check back in the future to see how it goes.