Some of my favorite sites

These are some of the sites I frequent when I am planning a trip.

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/
http://www.twizgo.com
http://www.tripso.com
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/languages/
http://www.venere.com
http://www.kayak.com
http://www.mappy.com

Lonely Planet is an fabulous site for travelers on so many levels. From world maps to in-depth information on the country of your choice to forums where people can tell you about scams or tips and tricks. Even if you aren't planning a trip, it's just an interesting site to visit.

Twizgo has some good information about places in Europe and I love the way they deliver the information. It is direct, clear, amusing and helpful.

Tripso has a lot of interesting articles, written by people in the know, regarding a lot of travel issues we deal with on a daily basis.

The language section of the BBC website can be extremely helpful when you are trying to learn a bit of the native language for whatever region to which you are traveling. It even has audio to go along with the tutorials so that you can actually HEAR how things are supposed to be pronounced. For example, in Paris I ordered French Onion Soup and ended up with a Super Hot Dog. I obviously discovered this site after that trip.

Venere is a great site for seeking lodging of any kind - cheap, expensive, etc. They have an interactive map that shows you exactly where the hotel/B&B/motel/etc is and extensive reviews from other users that have stayed there in the past. I think the reviews are the most helpful part of this site because even though the pictures look good for a particular place, you may find out in the reviews that there are blaring street lamps at night or it's incredibly noisy or it smells funny or it's in a really bad area.

Kayak is a fantastic search engine when you are looking for great deals on airfare or car rentals. I use it constantly for airfare searches. It breaks things down in prices by airline and it can even show you airfare trends for the particular flight for which you are searching.

Last but not least: Mappy. I love this site because it is so thorough. It's like MapQuest for the world. Not only can you see how long it will take you to drive from Paris to Frankfurt (and how to get there), but it will tell you how much you'll spend in gas (you specify what type of car you will be driving for more accuracy) and on tolls. You can even go further than that, though: You can see how long it will take you to get from Trevi Fountain to the Colosseum on foot. This can be very useful for planning out your days.

Hopefully you will find these sites useful and interesting whether you are planning a trip or just playing around online. Let me know if you have any sites along these lines that you love.