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When Garth Chouteau set out to find a one-of-a-kind vacation spot for his family last year, he didn't call on a travel agent. He went to the Internet. Chouteau used online maps to search for some names of cities in southern Oregon where he, his wife, Stacy, and his 5-year-old daughter, Georgia, hoped to visit. Then he clicked on www.search.com to check out lodging possibilities. Intrigued by a link for Out 'n' About Treehouses in Cave Junction, he e-mailed the resort's manager. A month later, the Chouteaus were out on a limb—in an opulent treetop suite, complete with kitchenette, full bath, and a breathtaking view. Says Chouteau: "I learned you can find some good surprises on the Web."
3. Web news is the latest. Web convert Lynn Kruse of Larchmont, New York, who used to rely on travel books as her guides, says she appreciates the timeliness of Internet travel sites. "By the time a travel guidebook comes out, it's already out-of-date," says this mother of three. On the other hand, questions e-mailed to the Web site of a hotel or Chamber of Commerce are often answered in less than a day, Kruse notes. 4. You can snag a bargain. One more benefit is that sometimes good deals are available only to online visitors. Cruise ships and hotels frequently offer special Internet fares that cannot be accessed through the telephone-reservation system. So do airlines. An Internet fare from Houston to Orlando on United Airlines, for example, was listed at $308 one day last winter, while the lowest comparable airfare available through conventional reservation channels was $750. And when Pam Keeton of Houston, Texas, researched Web fares for a recent trip to Cape Cod, "the Internet travel sites blew (the airlines' fares) away," says Keeton, a mother of two. "The online offers were half what my travel agent was quoting me." The ABCs of Plugging In and Taking Off Ready to click your way to your next vacation? Families don't have to be particularly computer-savvy to discover good deals, according to Noah Vadnai, author of Travel Planning Online for Dummies (IDG Books). Rather, he says, it's a simple matter of pointing the cursor and clicking. Follow these ABCs of online planning to find your family vacation paradise. Activate your engines! If you're a beginner, it's best to start by logging on to one of the many Internet search engines (such as www.yahoo.com, www.excite.com, www.metacrawler.com, www.looksmart.com, or www.about.com). Within each you'll find links to traveling with kids and everything from car-seat information to seasonal deals. One advantage of search engines: Unlike travel sites, they won't try to keep you clicking there just to buy things. Once you've accessed a search engine, go to the "find" space, type in the subject or destination you're looking for, and then click the "search" or "submit" button. This will yield a list of specific entries related to your request. For example, typing in "national parks" might bring up the government's National Park Service Web site (www.nps.gov), which will link you to information on Yellowstone National Park. (For more Web site addresses, see "Best Family Travel Web Sites" below) Other search engines, like www.askjeeves.com, allow you to conduct your search in the form of a question—and the more specific the query, the better. To find out about Cape Cod, simply type "Where can I find tourist information on Cape Cod, Massachusetts?" Then click on the answers that best suit your needs. If you're in Yahoo, you can ask the same questions or go directly to www.yahoo.com/Recreation/Travel and click on "Family Travel." Browse by activity. An alternative strategy is to search by activity. For example, if you're interested in finding a music festival in Chicago, you might go to a search engine and type in "festivals." That might lead you to www.festivals.com, where you could refine your search to find information about the Chicago Blues Festival. Similarly, zoo enthusiasts can check out the American Zoo and Aquarium Association site, www.aza.org. And families searching for child-friendly activities in any major city can try www.citysearch.com. Cook up a plan as fast as you can. Since experts say you can find the best deals in the summer, start looking in late spring (April or May). But even if you're a little slow getting started, there's so much constantly updated information on the Web that your options remain open. The advantage of the Internet is that you can often plan a great vacation just a few weeks from your departure date.
Do surf carefully. The most dependable sites are those with strong endorsements and brand names you identify with, such as Visa, Sabre, the Better Business Bureau, Hertz, Hyatt, and so on. If there's no information about the company or the people who run the site, be careful. "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is," advises Sally Lewis Black, marketing director for 1travel.com, a bargain-travel Web site. Keep records of any travel transactions, and back up important information you've downloaded so that you have documentation of a site's claims. As with any commercial transaction, there are risks: You may not like what you booked, or perhaps you heeded the wrong advice. But experts say the dangers of giving your credit card number or personal information online may have been exaggerated. Most major sites have adopted what are known as "secure servers," which keep your credit card information from being viewed by anyone else. Make sure to look for the assurances that a company's site is secure before entering credit card information on the screen: "You have requested a secure document. The document and any information you send back are encrypted for privacy while in transit." And don't hesitate to e-mail customer support for help if you experience any problems. Explore deals but beware. The latest wrinkle in online travel planning is the auction-house concept—naming your own price for tickets or accommodations. It typically works like this: A consumer visits an auction site like www.priceline.com or www.bid4vacations.com and names the price she's willing to pay for an airline ticket or hotel room. In the majority of cases, if your request can be accommodated, you're charged immediately. (One exception is www.respond.com, which carries no obligation to purchase.) But buyer beware: Auction-house deals often entail flying at odd hours, making connections, or staying at a hotel that may not be as close to a theme park or the city center as you'd like. When Kruse bid for tickets to St. Louis for herself and her family through an auction service, she was thrilled at the price, which was about half what she usually paid. The only downside was the timing of the flights. The family was scheduled to leave their native New York at 8:00 p.m., a bit late for Kruse's children. When the flight was delayed, the family was stuck; the kids were fast asleep just when Kruse needed to get them into a car and on their way to their St. Louis hotel. "Because we'd bid for our tickets, we had no flexibility," she says. But those willing to be flexible and explore often see the rewards when they plan their family travel online. Just ask Garth Chouteau, whose daughter, Georgia, still chatters with delight about the family's magical tree house vacation last year. "It's the best place ever," she declares. Says Dad: "Seeing her eyes light up made a little bit of Internet sleuthing well worth the effort." Jeanne Muchnick is a freelance writer and the mother of two in Larchmont, New York. E-mail this URL to a friend |
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