Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com

Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com: "My frugal travel tips:
1. Figure out where the students/faculty of a local college/university live/eat/drink.

2. Identify a good vegetarian restaurant not because of your dietary needs per se, but because you’ll probably glimpse some local color outside the tourist zone. It’s probably not too far from the University…

3. Find a local independent bookstore. Good for some chill time, people watching, a cup of coffee, and some good local recommendations from the store employees.

4. Look at the website for the local alternative weekly newspaper and read the best-of or the budget-guide issues. Most largish cities in the US have an alternative weekly newspaper."

Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com

Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com: "The fares found on
http://www.mobissimo.com/search_airfare.php
are very often cheaper than those on Kayak. It is a must stop website for me"

Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com

Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com: "Before I leave, I’ll check the latest exchange rates on Oanda.com, tell my credit card provider where I plan to use my no-foreign-exchange-fee Visa card, cruise the Flight 001 travel store in search of sale items, check my flight status with that TripIt app and figure out the fastest, cheapest public transit route to the airport. (Thanks again, Google Maps!)"

Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com

Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com: "I turn to CouchSurfing.com. Famous for helping travelers score free, comfortable places to sleep, it’s just as good, if not better, for simply making connections between like-minded people. Even if none of my friends know anyone in, say, Bucharest, it’s a good bet CouchSurfing will find me a pal there."

Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com

Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com: "Once I’ve got all my confirmation e-mails, I forward them over to TripIt.com, which automatically turns them into an easy-to-edit itinerary. It’s a free service, and it helps me keep my plans in some kind of order with — and this is the important part — minimal effort on my part"

Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com

Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com: "As often as possible, I try to book hotels through their own Web sites — to avoid extra charges and to create a direct relationship between myself and the hotel — but I always check Kayak, Hotels.com and DealBase.com to make sure I’m getting a good rate. Despite its popularity, I don’t often use TripAdvisor.com — it’s centered on user reviews, which are based on specific personal experiences (too personal for my taste) and generally, if it’s on Trip Advisor, it has already been “discovered.” But when I do find myself there, I skip over its hotel listings and change “Property Type” to “Other Lodging,” which turns up pensions, campgrounds, hostels and other accommodations that I often find more intriguing (and usually less expensive) than hotels."

Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com

Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com: "When it’s time to book a flight, it’s back online I go. Kayak.com, which searches virtually every other booking site, is my first stop: its flexibility, range, speed and ability to filter your results in specific ways are almost unmatched. But I’ve also started to use ITAsoftware.com’s QPX system, which was developed for the airline industry. It’s not exactly user-friendly, but it finds some surprising routes that don’t always show up on Kayak (for example, the system recently listed flights from New York to Berlin via Prague for $599 on Czech Air in June) and even includes heliports in its search results."

Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com

Research: The Traveler’s Best Friend - Frugal Traveler Blog - NYTimes.com: "I don’t just surf the Web, however — print still has its uses. My go-to guidebook is the Luxe series. The chic hotels, restaurants and boutiques that these lightweight, accordion-style booklets cheekily review are rarely frugal, but I don’t care. When I travel for work, I want to know what to aspire to, and what’s happening right now, and since Luxe guides are updated at least once a year, the intelligence they provide is always fresh. And occasionally, I even find bargains."