The Best Sites for Trip Planning

Best Flight Deals: www.AirFareWatchDog.com
Why: It pulls up all deals - announced and unannounced - from your departure city. You can also click a link to see the top 50 flight deals around the country.

Best Hotel Deals: www.Hotwire.com
Why: Unbeatable deals. The catch? You can't see what hotel you're booking until you commit to paying for it. You simply choose your location (in large cities, choose a specific district), then which type of hotel you'd like (three stars, four stars, etc.) and book. You can save more than half on your hotel rates.

Best Site to Use Before You Book a Hotel on Hotwire.com: www.BetterBidding.com
Why: As I said, Hotwire won't let you see which hotel you've booked until you pay for it. So Hotwire users have figured out a way to cheat the system. After booking a hotel, they visit BetterBidding.com and post the following information: which city the hotel they booked was in, how many stars it had and what the description of it was on Hotwire.com. Do a little searching and chances are, you can figure out which hotel you're booking BEFORE you book on Hotwire.

Best Site for Busy People: www.BookingBuddy.com
Why: Searching for a flight or hotel? Plug in your information on BookingBuddy.com, and the site feeds the data to a variety of travel sites, so you can search for deals across the Web without having to re-enter your information each time.

Best Site for Real Feedback: www.TripAdvisor.com
Why: Type in the name of the hotel, then read hundreds of customer reviews about the hotel. See the best, see the worst, then decide where to stay.

Best Site to Fill Your Itinerary: www.Frommers.com
Why: When you type in your destination, you'll find restaurants, hotels, neighborhood guides, events, activities, suggested itineraries and more.

Best Site for Traveling Foodies: www.FoodTV.com
Why: You've found recipes here. Now search for restaurants. From the FoodTV.com homepage, enter your destination in the search box, click on "Topics," then search the results for great finds from traveling chefs, including Rachael Ray and Giada DeLaurentis.