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Online and mobile app startups seem to be all the rage these days. Check out my list of 5 [relatively] new startups that help make travel easier, cheaper, and fun-ner.
Peek.com
Ok. You’ve figured out where you’re going. Now what? Peek helps you figure out what to do once you reach your destination. Peek combines the benefits of a travel agent and a tour guide into one. Simply go to their website, select your city of choice, your dates, and enter keywords for the type of activities you wish to pursue (e.g. “museum” or “theater”). Peek will automatically present you with a whole host ofdifferent opportunities that match your search. Best part: Peek automatically offers a 15%-30% price cut for every activity booked through peek.com.
In addition to letting you search for specific activities of interest, you may also brows Peek’s collection of “Perfect Day” itineraries created by tastemakers such as Tory Burch, Wolfgang Puck, and more!
ZapTravel.com
Remember those days when people used travel agents? Yeah, neither do I. Today you can find a digital replacement for a travel agent in ZapTravel. ZapTravel allows you to finish the sentence “I’d like to…” however you like and it’ll find you the vacation for you. Your search can beas vague as “I’d like to visit a big city in September” and ZapTravel will quickly present you with a list of different cities and vacation packages for great prices.
ZapTravel’s database includes 10 million flight routes, 2,000 destinations, 10,000 trip inspirations, 15,000 events, 400,000 hotels, and 10 million hotel reviews. So even when you don’t know what you want, they can help you figure it out.
Tingo.com
Searching for the best hotel rates is exhausting. Tingo, however, saves you from buyer’s regret after you see the room price drop the day after you make your reservation. Tingo (a TripAdvisor company) lets you book most hotels found on reputable travel sites and then will monitor the price at that same hotel. If they see the price drop, they will automatically rebook your room at the lower price and provide you a refund for the difference.
Triposo
What if you’re more of a spur-of-the-moment type of tourist? Triposo delivers up-to-date, in-the-moment recommendations for what to do at your destination. The Triposo app (made for both iPhone and Android) takes into account your location, time, weather, and personal preference before delivering you custom recommendations for what to see and do.
Triposo delivers users information and detailed maps for more than 15,000 destinations in 200 countries across the globe.
Bag2go
Lost luggage may be one of the worst sentences ever handed down by the airline gods. Airbus seeks to solve the problem with their coming soon Bag2go technology. “Bag2go” is a “smart bag” and has GPS, RFID, and 2G mobile date capabilities to help you keep track of your bag.
Although Bag2go isn’t on the market yet, avid travelers should be excited to finally have a solution to misplaced luggage. Even if Bag2go can’t assure your bag will make it on the plane, it’ll make it a lot easier to locate your luggage if ever lost.
With so many new travel sites and apps in development, traveling the world has never been so easy. Although classics such as Lonely Planet or Frommer’s, the market for quality travel advice is expanding by the moment.
Anna Albi is a graduate from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, where she received a B.A. in Creative Writing with an additional major on Professional Writing. She is currently pursuing her Masters of Arts in Professional Writing, also at CMU. Feel free to reach out to her through Google+.
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