It's been a seemingly endless winter and you've just shoveled out your plowed-in car for the second time today. You're so ready for a vacation escape.
But where?An ever-increasing number of travel-inspiration websites, or those with inspirational features as a sidelight — including Goby, Tripbase, Wanderfly and Cheapflights — now offer vacation, activity and entertainment recommendations based on personal preferences.
Major online travel agencies such as Travelocity and Expedia also offer vacation searching by theme, but they try to get you to the booking quickly. In contrast, most travel-inspiration websites are for people who have no clue where to go and are just beginning their research.
They let you insert your travel dates, decide if your priority is to hit the beach or catch some nightlife (or both), then offer personalized destination suggestions.
The travel-inspiration arena is branching out. This winter, Southwest Airlines has quietly launched the Southwest GetAway Finder, enabling you to search for destinations, Southwest flights and hotels based on your budget and desired vacation types. Wanderfly, a start-up, just added a concierge service and is working to integrate advice from your Facebook friends. Cheapflights recently added a "Be inspired" tab, arming travelers with the ability to search for destinations and flight deals based on preferred vacation or destination type.
To widely varying degrees, these travel-inspiration sites can point you toward destinations you might not otherwise have considered.
What's more, they can provide detailed advice. Do you know the best trail to hike in the spring in Tennessee or the airline with the most Atlanta-to-Chicago flight delays? Some sites will tell you.
However, a flaw with some is the disconnect between inspiring your vacation and enabling you to book it. For example, Wanderfly doesn't handle bookings and uses Kayak to search for flights. But, since Kayak doesn't process bookings, either, it transfers you to an airline or online travel agency website to purchase the ticket. For lodging search and booking, Wanderfly turns to Hotels.com
Wanderfly . com
Overview: Enables travelers to search for vacations in more than 1,200 destinations in 130 countries based on 20 trip types. Also recommends in-destination activities.
Pros:Wide choice of searchable trip types. You can save flight and hotel bookings to MyTrips. Preparing to integrate advice from your Facebook friends.
Cons:Destination descriptions can be flat and not travel-oriented. Results pages are busy and confusing. Activities listings, some sourced from Foursquare, may provide scant detail. Lists your Facebook friends "near" a destination, though sometimes they are hours away, and provides no meaningful way to interact with them.
Takeaway:Disappointing, although it's only a few months old. Attempting to do too much; hasn't found a niche.
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