Since it’s already June 1, it means that 2008 is now less than 6 months away. Which, of course, technically means that planning for 2008 travel is not that silly anymore.

According to the sorry state of my finances, I am pretty much grounded for the rest of 2007. Definitely no overseas trips for me this year. I can probably do a couple of local day trips or maybe one 3-day weekend trip if I’m lucky.

To console myself, I have now started listing the places I want to go to in 2008.
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Popularity: 25% [?]

With the Internet, it’s so easy to look and book for accomodations for your trips. However it can be a double edge sword: with the rising number of hostels going online and hostel review sites up, it can get quite hard to pick which one you’ll book with.

These are the things I consider when picking a hostel:
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Popularity: 26% [?]

My sister forwarded me the link to the See Melbourne Card website. It looks interesting, but of course, the big question is, is it worth it?

In my limited Googling, I found this verdict on a similar product, the See Sydney Card:

The Verdict Thumb Down
Not worth it. With the one- and three-day plans, you’d have to cram in four or five museums just to make the card pay for itself: While the Opera House and Taronga Zoo—at $17 and $23, respectively—are pricey sights, others, such as the Chinese Garden, charge only $4, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Botanical Garden are free. On the other hand, if you have enough time to take advantage of the Blue Mountain attractions (worth about $75) and to visit several Sydney sights, you might make the Smartvisit Card pay. Whatever you do, don’t buy the transportation option: Unspecified “administration fees” mean you’ll pay about $8 more than if you purchased a transportation pass separately.

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Popularity: 24% [?]

Here’s a great article for all of us budget travelers (or independent travelers; whatever floats your boat): 51 Ways to Cut Vacation Costs from National Geographic Traveler.

I find myself agreeing with most of the list, but this one comes as a surprise:

2. Trash your “cookies,” small files (stored in your Internet browser) that record the websites you surf—and the transactions you make. Say you go online and purchase a $200 plane ticket from Chicago to Omaha. The next time you visit that site, you could be quoted a higher rate than what’s actually available because of your spending history. Avoid this problem by deleting these files each time you log on; detailed instructions can be found under the “Help” option in your browser menu.

Well I’ll be darned.

Popularity: 28% [?]

I’m starting to research a new destination. Since there’s no direct flight from the Philippines to this new destination, I’m having a ball sniffing out the possible flight connections to get there.

One particular airline has a very sucky website. They don’t have a flight schedule posted online, so I had to rely on good ‘ol Google.

Lucky enough, I found this tool over at the Airwise website. Basically, with that simple search box, you can find ALL the flights originating from your city to your destination at a given date, including the flights back, the stops and connection in between flights, flight duration and aircraft type.

Nifty, isn’t it? The airlines and airports are identified through their codes though. If you’re not familiar with the codes, head on to AirlineAndAirportLinks.com. It has an extensive listing of both airport and airline codes. You can sort the list by name, region and code. Ctrl+F will come in handy here *wink wink*

Popularity: 19% [?]