Travel Websites Reviews People Car Hotels Popular Tripadvisor

TripAdvisor is "arguably" (can be said to be) the most popular travel website, with about 27 million "unique visitors" (different people coming to a website at least once) each month. Like many other travel websites, TripAdvisor can help people find and "book" (reserve and pay for) flights, hotel rooms, and car rentals. It also offers "extensive" (many) reviews of hotels, restaurants, and "destinations" (places to go and things to do while traveling). Yahoo! Travel and Expedia are websites with similar services and a "comparable" (similar) number of unique visitors.

Travelocity, Orbitz, and Kayak have "slightly" (a little bit) fewer visitors, but they offer similar services to the travel websites described above. Hotels.com specializes in providing reviews and "booking services" (reservation services) for hotels. Travel websites sometimes offer "steep discounts" (very low prices), especially for "vacation packages" (combinations of airfare, hotel rooms, and local transportation paid for with a single price).

Priceline.com allows people to search for flights, hotels, and car rentals, too, but it also allows people to "name their own price." Users can indicate where and when they want to travel. Then Priceline shares that information with airlines, hotels, and car rental companies to see if any of them are interested in offering the service at that price.

Other travel websites specialize in providing the type of information that is normally found in guidebooks. Travel websites normally allow visitors to read reviews from other travelers, but a site like Lonely Planet pays employees or "freelancers" (independent contractors) to go to places and write reviews of places and destinations that are "off the beaten path" (lesser known and not commonly visited by tourists).