Pore over other travelers' itineraries to plan your own
TripWiser.com, www.tripwiser.com, is unlike any other travel site, as it provides hundreds of itineraries that other travelers have experienced and loved.
You can search by simple tag words or set up a filter for the search by deciding how many days for your trip, where you want to be on the scale of adventure to relaxing, family to couples, luxury to budget and nature to culture.
I entered San Francisco, with the filter set to the max for relaxing, couples, budget and culture. Up came a rich list of trips packed with interesting things to do that I had never heard of, though I frequently travel there.
Different itineraries included such sights as a diamond importer, a ghost hunt walking tour, a tour of historic Warfield nearby and a store called The Wasteland, where fine alternative clothing is sold.
As you read a person's suggested itinerary in story form on the right of the screen, on the left is an outline of places visited. This site is great for generating ideas when you're planning a trip. .
Waymarking.com, www.waymarking.com, is a quirky site that can become a bit addictive. It focuses on locating specific points and objects of interest, and gives map coordinates so you can find them while traveling. Visitors to the site can register and submit anything they think is of interest.
The word "interest" is pretty broad. Objects include a U.S. Army bulldozer in a military equipment display in Tennessee, a beer keg mailbox in New York, the Blue Swallow Motel on Route 66 in New Mexico, a big sculpture of a spider in Washington State and a rustic rural post office in Brixey, Mo.
Also noted, each with a photo, are geologic features and fascinating sites all over the world. You can search by location or category, and items are marked by GPS or ZIP code.
Yelp.com, www.yelp.com, is for those who look for a wide range of activities for cities they plan to visit. Its slogan is Real People, Real Reviews, and the major categories are restaurants, shopping, night life and beauty and spas. The reviews are posted by locals, so they are informal and fun to read, whether for a unique doughnut shop, a wild shoe store with zebra-print stilettos, or a restaurant with the best and largest pancakes.
A map for each place also pinpoints five other things you might like to see while in the neighborhood. You can quickly create a profile and start writing your own reviews of your city.
In print
"Tall Tales and Tittle Tattle From Around the World," is written by Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls and published by Cadogan Guides at $16.95. It includes touching, thoughtful, serious and hilarious tidbits and quotes from points all over the globe, including a quote from a judge in the Wild West who angrily sentenced a gentleman for committing cannibalism and eating five of the seven Democrats in his county.
This fun read makes a good gift book.