TripAdvisor

What we liked:
The week we visited, 22,606,817 travellers from nearly 200 countries had planned their travels using TripAdvisor, which is a lot of potential advice and reviews. It’s easy to add details of places to stay and visit, store relevant reviews by others in your My Trips area, and view their holiday snaps and videos. You can also add your own content (photos up to 5MB and videos up to 100MB) and experiences and share them with friends and family via email (the site will import addresses from many popular email programs and services).

As you explore, TripAdvisor automatically builds a personal map so you can mark particular places as favourites and trace journeys yet to be planned or already taken. We liked the ability to add a ‘cities-I’ve-visited’ map to Facebook, MySpace or your website, as well as the rolling updates on the homepage. These let you click straight through to the latest content and discussions, to which you can easily add your own opinions. Another neat feature lists the top-rated hotels, attractions and restaurants for each destination, while the travel guides and ‘before you go’ advice help prepare your trip.

TripAdvisor also has a raft of partner sites offering advice and resources for cruises (www.cruisecritic.co.uk), booking the best plane seats (www.seatguru.com), travel-blogging (www.travelpod.com) and more.

How it can be improved:
Some of the most prominent video slots have been hijacked by commercial members, diminishing the user-generated feel of the site. There’s also a lack of online help for tasks such as adding a map to a printed travel itinerary.

Our verdict:
Friendly, informative and free to use, TripAdvisor combines the authority of seasoned tourists with encouragement for newcomers to share their experiences.

Reviewed: Issue 190 (19 June - 2 July 2008)