Cheap and Easy Travel

Most web savvy travelers look up hotels and resorts on the web before they book their holiday – this way you can get a pretty good idea of what it’s going to be like by reading the candid opinions of people who have gone before. Prior to the advent of mass use of the internet, holidaymakers would sometimes arrive at a hotel that had been wholeheartedly recommended by the travel agent, only to find themselves in poky rooms, with unpalatable food, and in a hotel that was either in the middle of nowhere, or bang next to the noisiest nightclub in town.

I find two sites invaluable when making my holiday arrangements, and never book a trip until I have looked up the hotel and resort on these two. The first one of these is Trip Advisor, in fact a mere googling of most hotel names will bring the Trip Advisor site up. The site is handy because it incorporates a search engine that speedily takes you to the entries you want. Here you can read honest reports from fellow travelers of hotels and resorts, and even see their uploaded photos of what the place is like.

Slightly more awkward to use, but nevertheless useful, is the UK based Holidays Uncovered. This lists holidaymaker reviews, and both the hotel and the resort are rated. With Holidays Uncovered first you have to find the resort from a long list, and then you have to find the accommodation from an even longer list. However, when you do finally get there, what you get is worth reading and informative. People rate both the hotel and the resort separately, and then give a usually more detailed information of the highs and lows.

Using Trip Advisor and Holidays Uncovered, I knew all about the last hotel I stayed in before I even arrived. The hotel had caught my eye when I was researching the resort due to the rave reviews it received. So when I was browsing for cheap packages and the name of this hotel appeared on the tour operator’s website, I simply snapped up the holiday. We knew it was going to be good, and it was.