Benefits of Online Travel Connections

After you have thoroughly researched cheap traveloptions, such as cheapairplane tickets, discount hotel rooms, and cheap vacation packages youshould check out a few travel social websites, especially if you will betraveling solo, to save money, stay safe, and enjoy more authentic culturalexperiences.

Some of the bigger travel social websites are Couchsurfing,Airbnb, and Planely.

The following are a few relatively new travel socialwebsites identified by the New York Times that work to make touring a city fullof strangers a little more friendly and less costly:

• Easynestis a website that helps travelers be able to afford nicer hotels by matching uplike minded people that can split the cost of a room. People join Easynest by signing up via theirFacebook accounts and creating a profile that describes them.

  Users can view hotels where others want tostay or post hotels where they want to stay and wait for others to contact them. Consider Skyping a few times before agreeingto check into a hotel together. There isno insurance if you book a room together and the person who was supposed toshare it cancels or refuses to pay.

• Friendsof Friends Travel is a social network for travelers between the ages of 18 and35. Here members share accommodations,luggage lockers, travel tips, or just a drink in a foreign city. The goal is for travelers to meet new people,save money, and enjoy a more intimate city experience. This site encourages you to limit yourconnections to friends and friends of friends, thereby getting the best of bothworlds: the reliability of friends, and the excitement of meeting someonenew.

  Friends of Friends Travel places a map ofthe world on each members dashboard allowing them to easily see the location ofeveryone in their network.

• GraphSearch is a new tool from Facebook that allows people to sort all of theirFacebook friends by country. Graphsearch enables users to find friends and friends of friends who share the shareinterests.

• Tint.travelis a Facebook app that uses Facebook to connect friends of friends and helps themfind someone to host them in a foreign city, show them around, or share a meal.

• VoulezVous Diner has a website that encourages people around the world to cook mealsin their apartments and houses for travelers who prefer to pay for a homecooked meal with a local resident than eat at a restaurant every night. The cost of the meal is set by the host andshown on the dinners presentation page.