Tagcrumbs are places worth remembering

by Brenda Yun on

Let’s face it: there are tons of online travel resources out there, and they seem to be growing exponentially by the day. It came to my attention that one of those millions should not be overlooked. Despite its rather unfortunate name, I found Tagcrumbs, a Germany and UK-based company, to be quite useful and informative.

The premise here is simple. When you come across a cool place in the world (one worth remembering), sign into your Tagcrumbs account and tag it by location. You can then write a little blurb about it, adding specific recommendations if you like. Each Tagcrumb is connected to a specific location and has some tags added to it. That way you can easily search for nearby places that are relevant to you.
The site will eventually provide a way to send your tagcrumbs to your friends as well as upload new tagcrumbs from your mobile phone.

Ultimately, Tagcrumbs is a comprehensive site that allows you to organize and share interesting stories, opinions and insider tips with the world. Right now, it’s just getting started, and while notable places in the U.S. have yet to be tagged, I could see this resource really taking off with the proper publicity. All this site needs is a little incentive for users.

So go ahead: get to it — Tagcrumb away!

Yapta alerts travelers of fare drops — over Twitter

by Grant Martin on

Remember Yapta? They’re the scrappy airline website that keeps travelers informed in case their fare drops.

All that you used to have to do was log onto yapta.com, register your itinerary and watch the progress as the site automatically checked your ticket every day to let you know if changes occurred. If the price went down? You’d get an email, book your ticket and everyone would have a beer.

Now, Yapta has added the feature where they’ll Twitter you if your fare drops. Which means that if you have Twitter linked to your mobile phone, you’ll get the note immediately, dive into a cyber cafe, book your ticket on the spot and then get a beer.

But what if you have a web enabled phone and can check your emails on the road? Or what if you don’t use Twitter? Well, in that case it might not be as useful. But for the surprising number of us who do have Twitter SMS messages enabled, this service could save us a bundle. Give it a try at yapta.com.

Budget Travel: 7 Quick tips for cheap airplane tix

by Grant Martin on

Spending some time on the road this year? Chances are, you’re going to have to battle the internets for a good deal on your flight. But what to do when the prices are sky high and your wallet is recession skinny?

Most respectable travel websites out there have giant lists, strategies and flow charts about the best way to get the absolute best price. It works, but it can be complicated, and in a busy world like this, few of us have time to look through an ITA Matrix and calculate the most optimum routing.

Don’t know what an ITA Matrix is? Then keep reading for our quick tips to getting the best price on airplane tickets.

  • Flexible Flexible Flexible: There’s a reason that Kayak has a “flexible dates” option in their search engine. Traveling on Fridays and Sundays are most expensive (highest demand,) so if you can, try Thursday or Monday. Monday AM flights are often drastically less expensive and you can still often get into work by 10.
  • Book early: Probably more than a month out. Definitely more than two weeks. If it’s inside of a week, drive or take a hot air balloon.
  • Use a metacrawler: Given that we just mentioned Kayak, we should point out this important tip: Always use a metacrawler. Both Kayak and Mobissimo search engines search all of the traditional search engines on the market AND airline websites, so you can guarantee that you’re not shelling out extra cash on a third party website.
  • Check the Low Cost Carrier: Southwest doesn’t publish its fares on the regular search engines, so make sure you do a cross check at southwest.com before you book your ticket.
  • Search nearby airports: Flying out of Los Angeles? Make sure you check Long Beach (LGB,) Santa Ana (SNA) and Ontario (ONT) as well. Airports with a large LCC presence often have more competitive fares.
  • Look for coupons: As our friends at Airfarewatchdog (AFWD) recently pointed out, promo codes are the way that airlines are going this year. American, Virgin America and JetBlue are among the carriers that frequently used coupons last year and you can expect moreto come. Not sure where to find codes? Check with AFWD or your respective carrier over at flyertalk.com.
  • Consider a consolidator: For international travel, consolidators often buy tickets in a discounted block and pass the savings onto passengers. Hotwire.com and airlineconsolidator.com are both fairly simple sites that you can use, or you can always use a local (physical) source.

Finally, the best piece of advice we can give is to be patient. If you’ve got a few months before your dates of travel, set up a fare alert at Kayak. You have to create an account, but once you do, you can have the software automatically search for your fare every day and report to you when the price drops.

Dirtiest Hotels in the United States

by Mike Barish on

Hotels are filthy places. As fellow Gadling blogger Scott recently told us, hotel rooms aren’t always cleaned as well as we would like. Imagine how many people have touched that television remote before you arrived. Or, for your sanity’s sake, don’t. And for the love of all that you consider holy, do not run a blacklight over your sheets and bedspread. But some hotels are filthier than others. And the folks at TripAdvisor have used reader reviews to compile their annual list of Dirtiest Hotels in the United States.

New York City (where I live) is home to two of the “top” three dirtiest hotels. Coming in at number one is the Hotel Carter and at number three is the New York Inn. The reader reviews for the Hotel Carter don’t pull any punches.

Roaches, rats, mice, horrible smells, dirty sheets, horrifying bathrooms, outlets that hang out of walls…

This hotel was the filthiest,most unsanitary place I have seen ever. From the smell when you walk into the room to the plastic wrapped around the mattresses.

There are bed bugs in this hotel and you don´t easily see these bugs, but after one night you see the bites and they itch terribly for many days!

Welcome To Hell.

It could be worse than bed bugs, though. You could find a corpse under your bed, which a housekeeper at the Hotel Carter did in 2007. The upside to this story? It proves that they have housekeepers!

Strange Hotels from Around the World


Where to go in the middle of the night

by Annie Scott on

It’s 2am. You’re in the middle of nowhere. You’re up. What do you do?

Cleverly named 2itch.com will tell you what’s open 24 hours anywhere in the US and a few places beyond! You just enter in your location and they tell you what’s open. This is ideal for road trips, business trips, and visiting friends or family who go to bed early.

They currently have over 4,000 locations (including a random 400+ in Phoenix), and a ton are user-submitted, so if you want your town to rock at 4am, send in the right places for people to go!

You can even hook up 2itch to your mobile phone. Visit the website to see. Thanks to reader Tony R. for the tip!