travel sites

To me, there’s something special about searching to discover bits of secret travel and sightseeing tips about exotic places from all over the Internet and then anticipating a great vacation that will benefit from all of them. When I research the area of the world I plan on traveling to, I’ll frequently find little hidden treasures, secret restaurants, ignored little tourist gems and little-advertised local events that no one else knows about, and of course, I’ll find some of the best fares to everywhere. I’ve come by quite a few useful travel resources over my years trotting the globe; some of them are new, and some of them have seen many travel seasons. Information being power and all, here is my list of the best travel sites that I’ve ever had the pleasure of using.

Let’s start with the places that will give you an edge in the race for the cheapest air tickets. Everyone knows about the mass-market ones like Kayak, Expedia, and Bing Travel (Microsoft’s relaunched travel service that’s supposed to so creative, they call themselves a travel decision engine (as opposed to a travel search engine). But how about some of the new upstarts (or should I say startups?) that have come up over the past year or two – the ones that claim all manner of innovative discount searches? There are just so many of them – Dohop, SideStep, Mobissimo and Vayama are some of the more interesting new names in this business.

In my opinion, these travel sites deserve at least one visit at least for the kind of psychedelic names they’ve managed to come up with. On a recent trip that I made from New York to London, I decided to try all of these. Still, for me, the travel giant Bing and the upstart Dohop both did better than any of the other ones. On these two sites I could hit Buy on a round trip to London at $771; not every one of the others though, if I had hits Buy, I would have taken a hit for an extra $100. There is another booking site called cFares that’s picqued my fancy recently. The first and the most intriguing part to this travel site is the fact that they try to keep the rif-raff out by making you pony up the cash for a $50-a-year membership before they let you do anything on it. When I tried looking for the same flight on cFares, it saved me a further $70 on the fare. So the moral of the story is, travel sites for low fares, as great as they are, are not perfect. They don’t all win all of the time. The best I know how to snag cheap flights now is to take the advice of Dohop and cFares, and always pick Thursdays and Wednesdays to fly – lots of fares are predictably cheaper these two days of the week.

So these travel sites can help you buy a ticket, and book a hotel room; and everyone knows about SeatExpert and SeatGuru as the people to go for the best seat on the flight you’re taking; but is there such a thing for hotels though? That should be much more useful – you spend a lot more time in the hotel. As it happens, there is.It is called TripKick and it’s a really neat idea; it has an alarming amount of information on which particular rooms in a hotel of your choice have a bigger bathroom, a better view, and so on. For my London trip, told me to take room number 218 at a hotel on Oxford Circus, for a great view out on a park. The only problem with TripKick though, is that it only covers expensive hotels, and not the budget ones.

But enough of the mundane in travel sites; how about ideas and how to enjoy your destination once you get there? For anyone traveling to Japan, I found AitaiJapan, a great well-informed tip surce for the entertaining in the obscure. It is a great site that aims to bring a touch of local flavor to your travels; anytime you visit Japan, you could get in touch with this site to find a local volunteer who will be happy to walk around town with you and show you around. It’s so much better than being part of a travel group – with a tour guide who gives you the same old spiel everyday. It’s a wonderful feeling to just show up in Japan and find a new friend waiting for you – and every volunteer speaks English too. The best part is, they refuse to accept anything for the service.

Anuradhapura Kingdom
Anuradhapura Kingdom is the first established kingdom in Sri Lanka among the Sinhala people. Its rule began with King Pandukabhaya and the Kingdom flourished from 377 BC to 1017 AD. One of the important events during the Anuradhapura Kingdom include the introduction of Buddhism. This was made possible due to the strong union between King Asoka of India and King Devanampiyatissa of Sri Lanka.

Let’s take a look at the notable successors during this era. Some of these rulers are also of South Indian origin.

King Pandukabhaya
The founder and ruler of Upatissa Nuwara from 437-367 BC and first monarch of Anuradhapura. He had two sons Mutasiva and Suratissa. King Mutasiva ruled for over sixty years (367-307 BC) and constructed Mahamevnawa Park. Mutasiva had 09 sons some of the known successors include Devanampiyatissa, Uttiya, Mahasiva and Asela.

King Devanampiyatissa
Son of Mutasiva, Devanampiyatissa ruled from 307-267 BC. An important monarch as Buddhism was first introduced during his reign. Following his rule, King Uttiya was in power for a short period from 267-257 BC. Succeeding his reign was brother and King Mahasiva from 257-247 BC.

It was only after Mahasiva’s reign did the younger son of King Pandukabhaya, Suratissa, rule from 247-237 BC. However, his reign was short lived. Two traders from South India, Sena and Guttika killed King Suratissa and ruled the Kingdom for 22 years. Following their rule, another son of King Mutasiva, Asela came in to power from 215-205 BC only to have been killed in battle by Tamil Chola Dynasty member named “Ellalan”.

Ellalan
Having gained supremacy over the Pandukabhaya dynasty, Ellalan ruled Anuradhapura for over 44 years. During his reign from 205-161 BC he was known to be a wise ruler until he was defeated and exiled by King Dutugamunu in 161 BC.

King Dutugamunu
Perhaps among the favourite rulers of the Kingdom, Dutugamunu was also known as Duttagamani Abhaya. An important ruler in the era, Anuradhapura flourished during his reign 161-137 BC) and the kingdom expanded vastly. Dutugamunu was best known and accompanied by ten giant warriors or Dasa Maha Yodhayo. Some of his known work include Mirisavetiya, Lovamahapaya and the 90m tall Ruvanwelisaya. His contribution to the Kingdom are among the Anuradhapura Sacred City tour itineraries today.

Following his rule, the throne did not go to his son due to being married to a lower cast. Instead, his successor was his brother King Saddha Tissa. Having ruled from 137-119 BC, his successors included his sons, Thulatthana, Lanja Tissa, Khallata Naga and Valagamba.

King Valagamba
Having ruled the peaceful Kingdom for only a mere five months, before he was thrown out by South Indian invaders in 103 BC, King Valagamba was in exile for 14 years hiding in the Dambulla Caves. Following a long exile, Valagamba defeated the invaders and took back the throne in 89 BC. In gratitude, he converted his exile-home into a temple and also constructed the Abhayagiri Dagoba in Anuradhapura.

After the time of Valagamba, many in his family ruled the Anuradhapura Kingdom from 76 BC to 66 AD. King Subharaja was the final known King from house of Vijaya.

During this period however, it’s important to speak of the very first Queen in power from 47-42 BC. Queen Anula, was also the first female head of state in Asia. Having been in power for five years, history states that she poisoned at least four husbands and consorts during her time in order to stay in power.

Anuradhapura Kingdom After Vijaya
With the house of Vijaya ending in 66 AD with the killing of King Subharaja by King Vasamba, a new era began. Vasamba went on to construct 11 reservoirs and 12 canals during his reign from 67-111 AD to support paddy cultivation of the country. Following his reign, his son, grandson, King Gajabahu I and many more went on to rule the Anuradhapura Kingdom.

Here are some other cool facts about the Anuradhapura Kingdom.

King Mahasen (277-304 AD) built the tallest stupa Jethavanaramaya, sixteen large tanks and two irrigation canals, the largest among them the Minneriya Tank.
King Dhatusena (455-473 AD), another great sucessor who was responsible for many developments in the Kingdom. During his time, he built 18 irrigation tanks, a large canal or Yodha Ela (Jayahanga) and the iconic 43 ft “Avukana” statue of Lord Buddha.
The Anuradhapura Era ended with King Mahinda V (98 -1017 AD). The Kingdom was the beginning of Buddhism and saw the start and increase in the number of temples, dagobas and stupas and steered the country’s development towards paddy with tanks and canals.

People travel from one place to another a lot. And for traveling air travel is the best. It is the fastest and most comfortable mode of transport. But airfare is quite high. It is quite expensive for middle class people like you and me. But even you can avail the air transport facilities if you know the tricks of air tickets with the help of best travel sites.

Always keep in mind that in order to get cheap airfare you should book your flight tickets at least 3 months before the flight. Start planning your holiday beforehand so that you can buy the tickets quite a long time before the stipulated time of your journey. Always remember that in high season when there is a lot of air traffic you should buy those 3 to 4 months before the date of your journey. In low season booking your ticket before 1 month of the day of journey will be enough to get cheap air tickets.

After doing a lot of research experts say that on a particular day of the week air tickets are sold at a comparatively lower rate than the actual price. Normally that day of the week is Thursday. This is because on Thursdays after midnight airplane companies start reselling the tickets that were not sold on the last week.

When you are buying tickets you should also check that you are not booking them on Mondays, Fridays and Sundays. These are the days when business travelers travel a lot generally, so the prices of the tickets are a bit higher then other days. Try to make your journey on the rest of the days to get cheaper air tickets.

Now when you know the tricks, you should search the best travel sites. First you should search for the aggregator sites. In these sites with the help of the search engines you can find all the best travel sites simultaneously. This way you will get the knowledge of the best travel deals that are available online. You do not have to search one site after another but you will get all the information you want at one go. After you have searched for the best deals you can now go to individual company sites and search for even better offers.