Vacation, Travel and Tourism companies quickly realized the potential of the internet. Computers are super at making custom lists of flight times, hotel room rates, entertainment specials etc. We, their customers, usually find it easier to decide on what to buy from looking at prepared list than trying to take our own notes.

Tourism and lodging buisnesses are also extremely experiencied with advertising and promotion. Out doing their competitors in adverstising can be as big a focus as trying to improve thier hospitality services. See our tips page to understand how that effects what you'll find

The Titles places you're pointed to won't always help you; What you think might be a local "chamber of commerce" is often some web promoter hawking for an audience to earn commission.

Paid adverstiments aren't all bad: the cost of placing the ad tends limit those ads to enterprises that *might* have something of value to you. If not, they'd go broke. So sometimes the paid ads at travel related sites can be good resources for information, just don't expect what you find out to be unbiased advice.

Key thought: Don't latch onto the first deal you find: Spending some time asking questions, looking for better Rates and better service, avoiding bad times to travel etc, will make your trips more enjoyable and leave you with more money to travel more often.

Eventually, I'll include a section here on booking Hotels and Motels, and some tips to sites I like best for Airlines, Flights, and booking seats. If you are looking for those sorts of places, particularly in tropical settings, I'd suggest you explore all inclusive deals that can give you a break on air-fare, and rental cars along with the hotel rooms. In Hawaii in particular the package vaction prices can be much less than if you tried to book the services seperately. Below are a few sites I would bring to your attention that give good alternatives for staying in better places for lower prices, particularly for bigger groups of people.

Renting a Condo or a Timeshire (not buying the timeshare) can often offer you many of the resort qualities of hotels. Bigger complexes tend to have more amenities. You can often find the same or better quality pools, tennis courts, and sometimes water slides and golf course access. You can often book for a lower nightly rate and get much more space, a kitchen allowing you to save money on some meals to spend more or other recreation.

Individually owned condominiums and vacation homes often come equipped with stuff you'll want on vacation, like games, blenders, stereos and Bar-b-ques.

Individual owners will often have helpful ideas on great day tips and how to avoid the crowds etc.

I own a vacation rental in and, advertise it many places. From my experience I would recommend the sites below but there are other good ones, some vacation spots are better for Hawaii while others might be better for Orlando:

Craigslist, the nation wide classified ads, lets owners adverstise free or almost free of charge subject to their spam rules and update requirments

Vacation411.com is an vacation lodging adversting site open to individual owners can pay a small amoung to move their places higher up the list. I've used the place to promote my vacation rental page, and my experience with that rental is how I've become familiar with the vation orientated web. I like the way their pages are laid out making it easy for me at least to get to where I wand to travel, and quckly see bedrooms price and a picture before I delve deeper for more information

I think that those two sites are particularly good at including wide varieties of ads and due to savy shoppers who frequent the site you'll often save time at quickly learn the real market condtions. Some units will be managed by people directly but others might just be answering questions and might use a proffessional broker to handle keys and deposits.

Paid advertisements on travel related sites can be excellent ways to find useful places too, more looking and research can lead to better decisions, for your own needs. But don't just book the fist place…remember advertisers have a more single goal of promoting the lodging that they represent rather than selections you'll see above.

" Timeshare " still brings up a shady sort of image to many people me included, but a family trip we took to Disneyworld really turned around my thinking. We stayed with another couple and their kids in a large three bedroom mid-rise condominium near Disney attractions in Orlando. Disney has its own timeshares but there lots of others like the one we stayed at that have open grounds with views of golf courses and dozens (yes dozens) of pools with varying depths water slides, lifeguards etc. I found the time shares lower key while still polished and professional and considerably cheaper than getting stuck in a four star hotel where sneezing seems to cost you money.

Timeshares have become much more like resort hotels Over the last 15 years. Most units will still have have kitchens and multiple rooms to simulate a "second home" ownership. Even while saving money and time avoiding the breakfast lines each morning you can still get the water slides fancy pools, live entertainment and on site restraints that hotels have if you opt for a bigger complex. You'll also feel less like you're living out of a suitcase.

One interesting angle with timeshares is that the "owners" of a given week or slot will often not be able to use it and will sell the rights on the secondary market. Many associations will try to book and alternative visitor, and you can go that route too. Often times the owners will be willing to take far less rent than a similar hotel or a direct rental because for the owner of the unit, there is a "use it or lose it" choice where if *their* unit is vacant their week, they'll get nothing at all. Often times they just want to cover the years maintenance expenses or be willing to take a modest offer and "be done with it" and go about there other business. Last minute timeshare rentals can really be a steal!

Here is one good timeshare site that I found a year ago.

Vacation Timeshare and Rentals

I still think it's a great site, easy to navigate by region and complex quality or ownership (some people want Marriott and Marriot runs lots of time shares that can be found there!). They also handle secondary sales of ownership rights. You can often get a far better deal, and less of a hard sale by doing some of your inquiries that way if you do think you wanted to purchase a time share. (I'm inclined to get a great deal renting with no ongoing liabilities or commitments)

As I get more feedback, I might include more especially if there are timeshare vacation sites that change people less to list their available weeks. Look around though. My main purpose was to get you to consider secondary timeshare rentals in your search for lodging. Typing "hotels, Orlando" in a search box, might not find you the much cheaper, perhaps more enjoyable time share re-rental options.

Check back as I try to expand and make this site more clear.