Millions of us use the Web to find cheap airfares, but the Internet is also a great place to plan your vacation. Especially, if, like me, you're doing it at the last minute.

As with anything you do online that involves spending your money, it's crucial that you do as much research as possible. Be sure to shop around, read the fine print and watch out for hidden costs.

Here are a few good places to start your vacation planning (these go beyond just simple airfare sites; a separate list of airfare sites is below this):

Travelocity.com's Guides and Advice
Travelocity, which is very popular for airfares, has an in-depth "Guides and Advice" section that is really worth checking out. My favorite part is the Someplace Similar feature which allows you describe to the computer a place your liked visiting and it comes back with similar locales that you might enjoy.

TravelZoo
TravelZoo is a good site to bookmark. It tracks down vacation specials on various travel sites and puts them on one convenient page. You can also subscribe to an e-mail alert service for the best deals.

Lonely Planet
The legendary Lonely Planet books have a terrific site. It recently won a Webby Award for best travel site of the year. While most trip sites are very U.S.-centric, the international scope of this is unparalleled. And it's easy to use.

Here are a few airfare sites:

Sree's June 2002 story about airfares

Sree's Feb 2001 story about airfares

Write to techguru@sree.net and let me know your thoughts.

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