Image by tom.snaps /flickr.com

I was trying to find some statistics related to airplane travelling and I found this great tool called FlightStats. What is FlightStats? Well, it is a website that provides global information related to airports and flights. There’s a list of the busiest airports and destinations, the most popular destinations and several tools, including an attractive map search tool.

There is an interesting Travel Tool section, in which I explored the Flight Status tool that allows you to search by flight (need airline name or code, the flight number and the departure date), by airport or by route and provides near real-time information and reports of anything that could be affecting a flight. There are other tools worth trying, like Airport Information, which seems to be able to provide delay information, flight status, weather conditions, driving directions (with traffic conditions), car-park options and user ratings. Seems interesting, right? I will try it next time I plan a trip, and I look forward to receiving your comments if you try it too.

If you are just starting to plan how to get to your home exchange destination, you may want to take a look at the Travel Planning tool (currently in the More at FlightStats.com section), it offers the following options: Flight Availability, Country Information, Travel Warnings, Travel Advisories and Consular Information Sheets. Here is what they say about these tools:

“FlightStats has a set of applications that can aid you during your initial stages of planning for travel. Before traveling internationally make sure you view the latest travel advisories and warnings, and research the country you are thinking about traveling to.

Country Information - This application summarizes some of the other country-related applications. In addition, you can see a map of the country with major airports, and learn about disease prevention based off of information from the US Center of Disease Control and Prevention.

Travel Warnings - Get the latest travel warnings published by the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand.

Travel Advisories - Current and past news and security alerts for countries around the world.

Consular Information Sheets - The latest information about a country published by the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand.”

Image by Arvind Balaraman /FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Sometimes when you return from a trip you have the bittersweet feeling you didn’t do as much as you wanted to do. You didn’t visit as many attractions as you wanted, you didn’t find some of the places you wanted to visit, you didn’t find that little coffee house you heard about, and you start thinking that maybe you should have taken a guided tour or something. Of course, a guided tour may be a good solution but if you don’t want to spend your vacations following someone else’s schedule, there are other options to enjoy your destination to the fullest during your next home exchange. Many excellent travel guides from recognized editors are available online to help you plan ahead and find the best places to visit. Combined with Google Maps or your GPS these online guides can help you select and get to those places you just can’t miss.

Today we provide you with a short list of travel guides from around the Web, but there are hundreds of other online resources like blogs and forums fully dedicated to travelling.

Here’s what the travel guides we selected say about themselves:

Fodor’s - “Fodor’s helps you unleash the possibilities of travel by providing the insights and tools you need to experience the trips you want.” http://www.fodors.com/

Frommer’s Travel Guides - “Frommers.com is an essential online destination for those planning the perfect travel excursion.” http://www.frommers.com/

Let’s Go Travel Guides - “For 50 years, Let’s Go has published the world’s favorite budget travel guides, written entirely by students and updated every year. With pen and notebook in hand and a few changes of underwear stuffed in our backpacks, we spend months roaming the globe in search of travel bargains.” http://www.letsgo.com/

Lonely Planet Travel Guides - “Lonely Planet is renowned for its first-hand approach, up-to-date maps and commitment to providing the best information for travellers.” http://www.lonelyplanet.com/

Travellr - “Travellr.com is a question and answer (Q&A) site for travelers to get answers from locals who know.” http://travellr.com/

TripAdvisor - “TripAdvisor® provides recommendations for hotels, resorts, inns, vacations, travel packages, vacation packages, travel guides and lots more.” http://www.tripadvisor.com/

WikiTravel - “Wikitravel is a project to create a free, complete, up-to-date, and reliable worldwide travel guide.” http://wikitravel.org/

Image by Salvatore Vuono /FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I gave my HomeForHome profile a tune-up, I prepared myself to find my home exchange opportunity for this summer vacations, but I didn’t know where to go. So, as I was trying to find a great destination I came across an interesting feature of the famous TripAdvisor website: Travel Inspiration. If you are lacking ideas for your next vacation, flipping a coin will not solve the situation, but somehow you can still leave it to fortune, but not completely, because TripAdvisor bases its results in thousands of reviews made by travellers like you and me. The Travel Inspiration section allows you to choose (1) What You Like and (2) Where You Want To Go. Of course you can select “Anywhere” in the second one if you want the “full surprise” deal.

After making your selection and clicking the “Inspire Me!” button, you get your results with a brief description about each destination and many links to find out more.

Maybe my results can inspire you today. Let’s see. I tried:

1=Adventure + 2=Anywhere and the top results were:

1) San Juan, Puerto Rico, Caribbean
2) Bali, Indonesia
3) Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, USA
4) Kailua-Kona, Island of Hawaii, USA
5) Thailand

My second try was 1=Family Fun + 2=Mexico, Central & South America, and I got these:

1) Playa del Carmen, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico
2) Cancun, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico
3) Puerto Vallarta, Pacific Coast, Mexico
4) Ixtapa, Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, Pacific Coast, Mexico
5) Los Cabos, Baja California, Mexico

Then I decided to search for a place to lay down in the beach and I thought about the Caribbean, so I tried this last search: 1=Beaches & Sun + 2=Caribbean, and when I clicked the “Inspire Me!” button again I got:

1) Dominican Republic
2) U.S. Virgin Islands
3) Jamaica
4) Aruba
5) St. Maarten/ St. Martin

Try it and find your own inspiration (or just have some fun)

Image by Salvatore Vuono /FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Did you know that there is an official travel website for people travelling to the European Union? Well, there is one. Travelling in Europe is the EU’s official website for travellers. It is an interesting website, with an informative and promotional tone. Right now, the first thing featured there is a section about the documents you will need to move around in Europe.

For those making plans to travel to EU countries for their next home exchange it is a must to learn about passports, identity cards and visas required.

Passport or IDs

For EU citizens, it is not a requirement to present your ID or Passport to enter another EU country, except Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ireland, Romania and the United Kingdom. However, it is advisable to have your ID or Passport at all times, in case you are required to prove your identity, for example, in case there is a temporary security check established in any of the borders between EU countries. If you are planning to leave the EU, you are going to need your Passport or ID card.

Non-EU citizens need a valid passport to enter the EU, that is there are checks in every country receiving people from outside the EU. The only exceptions are citizens from Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, because these countries have signed agreements with the EU.

Visas

EU citizens do not need a visa if they are travelling to EU countries, along with people from 34 countries travelling to the EU for less than three months. These non-EU countries include Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States of America. For current information, you may search the Travelling in Europe website but it would be much simpler just to contact any EU country consulate near you and ask directly.

The requirements are different for non-EU citizens travelling to the United Kingdom and Ireland, so in their case it would be advisable to contact their representations in your country for more details.

Even if you have a valid visa, officials at the border checks may ask you for other supporting documents, like a return ticket, invitation letter from a EU resident, or lodging reservation, so make sure you cover every detail before packing your bags.

For detailed information, you can visit Travelling in Europe

Image by Dr Joseph Valks /FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Most current trends in vacations involve direct contact with nature. Examples are adventure sports tours, like hiking, trekking, kayaking, etc., but there are several different options. Today we would like to explore one related to the observation of wild animals: birdwatching. This hobby is related to the observation of wild birds. It goes from watching birds in your own garden or yard to travelling to distant locations to watch rare species, depending on your interest and your budget.

There are thousands of documented bird species. Some have splendorous colours, others are noticeable by their songs and calls, and all of them have the particularity of transmitting a sense of freedom, mostly related to the fact that they can fly.

The UK has over 550 documented resident bird species, and there are several migrant or breeding visitor species that can only be seen during a particular season or in a particular area. If you learn that your area is an interesting birdwatching spot, you could include it in the nearby attractions in your HomeForHome home description to attract swappers that would like to combine their home exchange experience with a little birdwatching on the side.

If you want to learn more about birdwatching, both in the UK and around the world, the following links may help you get started:

Fat Birder - a thorough and well organized website, where beginners may find it easier to start their birdwatching web tour.
Birds of Britain - a web magazine for birdwatchers.
Birding UK and Ireland - an online community where information and experiences are shared, groups with a common interest are formed and there’s a variety of forums to learn about birds.
WorldBirder.com - an online photo book with over 6000 bird species from 100 countries and Antarctica.
BirdTrack - an online record of bird sightings, powered by the British Trust for Ornithology, which also hosts a list of species for any location in Britain and Ireland.

We received a suggestion that we couldn’t leave out. It’s Frixo, a UK road traffic reporting website which may help you not only during your journey to your final home exchange destination, but also in your everyday on the road. Frixo provides users with live traffic information, updated every three minutes using various road sensors. The information is accessible in a number of ways:

Quick Traffic Report - Navigating a zoomable map you access relevant information of current incidents affecting UK roads.

Custom Traffic Report -  By specifying a region, city or road you can access a custom report with details about delays, incidents and any issues that could affect your journey.

Live Traffic Delays - Offers a list of current delays due to heavy traffic, roadworks, blocked lanes, etc. There is mention to the time when conditions are expected to return to normality, so you can plan you trip accordingly.

We didn’t mention an important fact: these services are free.

In the reports, there is information about current average speeds in different road stretches, direct links to connected roads so you can easily check your route, and even future planned roadworks. These reports can also be viewed in your mobile phone, so you can receive updated information as you travel, and if you want to receive regular updated information about a specific route, you can sign up to receive reports at any specified time directly in your inbox.

Remember that HomeForHome gives you the opportunity to arrange a car exchange along with your home exchange, which may be specially suitable for medium to long distance trips, where there may be more cost-effective ways of travelling and you won’t have to end your vacation with a long drive home.

For many people, home exchange has solved the troubling idea of not bringing an important member of the family on their vacations: their pet. But sometimes, the possibility of travelling with your pet doesn’t solve a major problem, how can we avoid the trip being a bad experience for them? Your pet may be used to short distance car drives or you can train your pet for a long distance drive by taking trips of longer distance every time and even check with your vet for advice to make the trip an enjoyable one, but what if you need to take a long distance flight to your destination?

Well, for this particular issue, there’s a new solution called “Animal Airways” that provides many pet travel services. Their idea is to help people make the best arrangements to assure their pets will travel as comfortably as possible. For example, they can advise you on the most suitable airline and route for the particular destination you’ve chosen. It seems as their service was first intended for people relocating, but it may as well help people travelling for a different purpose.

Here is their basic service description:

“1. Tell us your plans - talk to us or fill-in your flight, pet and personal details, so we can identify the most suitable solutions for your family and pet travel plans.
2. Explore your options - Our representative calls to talk with you about your plans and explain the different options.
3. Choose your flight - After taking into account your comfort, budget, and your pet’s safety, our flight managers assist in choosing a flight that’s just right for you.
4. Get ready - We inform you of all regulations and how to prepare yourself and your pet for the flight. We prepare all the necessary documents.
5. Fly! - Sit back. Relax. Enjoy your flight.
6. Support - Our 24/7 call center is available to answer your questions and put your mind at ease.
7. Settle in - We confirm that you and your pet have arrived safely and give advise on how to ensure a healthy stay for your pet.”

They have other solutions so if you want to learn more about them just visit Animal Airways, and to find your next home exchange visit HomeForHome.

We just found another directory that could help you plan your next trip, whether long term, work related, a family vacation or a backpacking journey, you can find relevant information in the Travel Directory. It covers worldwide travel related resources and it would also be a good place to search for a good destination if you are undecided about what to choose in the HomeForHome search tool.

The Travel Directory hosts a number of travel related websites, with some unusual categories, like “Working Abroad”, and where you can find commercial websites, organizations and even chats and forums for travellers looking to exchange their experiences, find fellow travellers with similar interests or just learn about wonderful places around the globe. Here is the complete list of searchable categories to give you a peek:

Adventure Travel - Backpacking - Business Travel - Disabled Travel - Eco-Tourism - Family Travel - Insurance Services - Language Schools - Lodging Europe - Lodging USA - Lodging Worldwide - Photography - Safari - Ski - Sports - Tours - Transportation - Travel Chats & Forums - Travel Guides (Europe) - Travel Guides (Worldwide) - Travel Health - Travel Tips and Advice - Travelogues -  Working Abroad

As you plan your next home exchange, take a tour through the Travel Directory, you may find that extra touch to make your trip a magical one or you can find tips to turn that business trip a little more enjoyable.