Erin Colbert

4 New(ish) Travel Sites I Can’t Live Without

I’m a travel nut and I’ve got 4 new(ish) travel sites (most have only been around for a year or two) that I just can’t live without right now. I’m trying to plan all of my summer activities and vacations and these sites are huge time savers and super handy.

JetSetter

The sexiest travel site on the planet! This site was made for me and my style - luxury travel deals at great discounts all curated by trusted Jetsetters like me. The flash sales are the best part with deals on great boutique, unique, and resort locations. They typically last around 7 days so you have to think and act fast to snag it up. Because the deals are for luxury properties don’t expect to pay dirt cheap prices, however you can get amazing hotel deals for $100-$400 per night. 

JetSetter puts their stamp of approval on every flash sale and writes a lengthy review about their experience at the property. It adds a level of confidence that they really stand behind the deals they offer and it’s not just about filling excess inventory. JetSetter is owned by the fashion deal site Gilt Groupe in New York.

SniqueAway

Just like JetSetter they also offer member only travel deals on a-list accommodations. Because they’re owned by the TripAdvisor media group, they integrate with TripAdvisor comments, though no curated content from employees. JetSetter has the leg up on 2 fronts - user experience and trusted advisor. However, SniqueAway has potential and I believe they just recently launched so they have some time to work things out.

Hipmunk

I first heard about them from Dharmesh’s article, 9 ways to disrupt and hipmunk and industry, and kept meaning to check it out. I finally did, switched from Kayak and won’t be heading back anytime soon. Who would have thought yet another travel booking site could change the user experience so drastically, but we’re going to see this a lot in the travel space over the next few years. Good designers are in high demand, but those that are exceptional are creating seamless ui and when applied to the travel space create disruptive results. 

With Hipmunk they’ve simplified the search and display of airline travel to a visual grid system with a few filiters by price, duration, number of stops and, my favorite, agony - a mix of all 3. They’ve tackled the hotel booking space too, but this part still needs some work. All this with just 7 guys, some angel funding and super cute chipmunk as a mascot.

Gogobot

I just recently learned of Gogobot and have to say at first I was like, ‘oh no, not another travel review site.’ But, Gogobot is different and addictive. It connects with Facebook and Foursquare to pull in your checkins and add them to your passport where you can showcase all of the places you’ve been - cities, hotels, vacation rentals, restaurants, and activities. You add reviews - just like Yelp, but for travel - and then share them with friends. I’ve added 14 countries, 63 cities, 64 spots and 3 reviews in the past few days and I’m just getting started. I have an obsession now with getting all of my travel history into Gogobot because it’s now become my digital passport. I want to look up places I’ve been to revisit or share those reviews with friends.

Unfortunately, one of the most powerful features of Gogobot, getting a different user experience based on your friends reviews, isn’t as useful to me yet because I only has 4 friends on the service - it’s in beta. But they make that pretty easy too - I’ve recruited all my friends who love to travel through Facebook.

Now, what I would love is if Gogobot starts showing deals from JetSetter and SniqueAway for the locations I’ve visited and want to visit. It would also be cool to curate my own itineraries, alone or with friends, like the Santa Cruz Mountain Winery passport event coming up. We could share our reviews for the best wineries and get other friends to come with us.

Any travel sites you can’t live without?