Planning a trip … I am one of those travelers who believes that preparation involves more than transportation to and from my destinations. For the extreme adventurous travelers who consider this sufficient planning, more power to you. Conversely, I don’t want to know what I am going to do every second of my trip either. So, regardless of your preference for planning, where do you go for advice, professional travel sites like Frommers, Fodor’s, Lonely Planet or a travel blog?
I used to rely almost exclusively on these professional travel sites, thinking that I would get some unbiased true advice from an “expert traveler” whatever that is, but then it dawned upon me that I shouldn’t limit my research to just one type of traveler, who may or may not have the same travel expectations or needs that I have.
My first venture into blogs began when I started reading opinions on Expedia that were written by your average regular traveler. Sometimes these average regular traveler’s opinions are not helpful, but so is advice from some of the professional travel sites. For instance, I used Frommer’s to select one of my hotels while traveling in Portugal, which turned out not to be great.
I have taken to using both “professional” sites and blogs. I like the professional sites for their “factual” approach, such as you can do this, this place offers that, and so forth, but I like the blogs to learn about other travelers’ experiences. I also find that people who spend time setting up a blog really want to share their experiences. I’ve noticed that many of these “professional” sites like Frommer’s and Fodor’s include areas for blogging as well.
Bottom line, I find both useful. You can find a broad range of advice from those who say, hop on a plane and just go with it, to those who offer recommendations and their experiences in terms of what to do, where to stay, and what to eat.
