The best travel review websites
Planning an overseas holiday can be an arduous task. Making the right decisions on airlines, hotels, must-see tourist attractions and best routes can be key to the whole experience. Thankfully these days you don’t have to rely solely on the slick hotel marketing blurbs or the limited recommendations of your local travel agent.
Travel review guides like Lonely Planet have been indispensable for travellers over the years, however, the broader power of the internet now delivers a whole new layer of real advice and recommendations from the most trusted source of all – fellow travellers.
The leader of the internet review pack up until now has been TripAdvisor. What makes this site so useful is its huge database of user reviews. When you need a broad range of honest feedback, sometimes mixed with cranky complaints about a hotel or vacation rental property, TripAdvisor is likely to have it. Sure, it also has flight, hotel, and vacation rental search and booking capabilities, but other sites handle those features better. Go to TripAdvisor for advice.
However, TripAdvisor is not alone in the mushrooming space of online travel reviews, and with a plethora of websites, forums and traditional guides now online to choose from, where else should you go for advice on your dream holiday experience?
All the major players on a global and national scale (think Orbitz, Travelocity, Webjet, Wotif, Hotels.com, Lastminute.com) offer some advice in areas such as location, types of available rooms, proximity to local attractions and the like.
But beware – these sites often rehash marketing material from the hotels themselves. They are also in business with the hotels they provide information for, negotiating commissions for the bookings they take.
Websites of this nature make no claim to independent editorial and can change the material posted at any time. Hotels even have the option of self-rating their services. However it is worth noting that many online travel agents offer the opportunity for guest reviews where users can provide their own account of a particular accommodation site, either named or anonymously.
Other more independent options offer a real-time question and answer engine for travellers around the world to share their travel knowledge. Much better than a travel forum, questions are routed to locals and past visitors with similar interests to source the best possible answers through intelligent Q&A profiles, connections on Twitter and Facebook, and geo-tagging. You're notified when new answers, comments, ratings and messages are posted and you can browse other questions and answers by topic and location.
Trippy.com, lets globetrotting friends essentially plan your vacation for you by syncing with social sites like Facebook, thereby using your online friends to provide recommendations for your itinerary.
Oyster.com provides reviews compiled by so called expert hotel investigators. These investigators provide untouched photos of the hotels they review, which they have taken themselves during their visit. Oyster also promotes the work of their local reporters who provide insider’s advice on food, drinks and activities once you get to your destination.
There are more independent review sites popping up all the time and they’re well worth checking out when considering your travel needs.
Image credit: GongTo / Shutterstock.com