When I’m looking for a cheap flight, usually the first place I check is either Orbitz.com or Expedia.com and then depending on whether I am going to a city that Southwest.com goes to, I check that as well. I had a recent trip planned that involved a non-refundable European leg on a small carrier that I hadn’t heard of. Perhaps out of instinct, I opted for the “travel insurance” on Expedia. Well, I got sick the day before that leg and had to cancel. I needed to get a doctors note and it took a few back and forth mailings but I was able to get the full refund from the insurer. Expedia saved me there.

Recently, I’ve begun using another travel aggregator site and was able to find some good flights to Europe using Kayak.com. It’s search is a touch slow but it entertains you while you wait, as you watch it rattle off all the airline sites it is checking for you. A good new entry into the space, Farecast.com probably does the best job of showing when the flights are cheapest should you be flexible in your travels. For information on particular travel locations, there are a number of social sites that solicit travelers stories but my favorite happens to be Yahoo Trip Planner. If you’re traveling to Europe, the best accommodation finder I’ve come across is Venere.com.

Priceline.com is an option if you want to play the blind bid game. I’ve been able to get good deals on hotels and car rentals there. In one particularly great deal I was able to get, I was bidding on a 4-star hotel in a popular area of Los Angeles. I was able to check the message boards on Betterbidding.com and find what lowball prices others had previously had success with in that neighborhood and used that as my bid.

If you’re planning a trip and the weather is important to your planning, Weather Underground provides the ability to check what the weather was like in recent years at that location on the dates your interested in. This was quite valuable for choosing a date and locale for a large outdoor party. Finally, everyone should be aware of seat maps available online on sites such as USA Today’s SeatInsider and SeatGuru.com to help you select the most comfortable seat on whatever airplane you have selected. Happy travels.