1. Schmap.com is a simple interactive mapping site that’s been well-received by delicious.com users. The site is a map-based travel guide to more than 200 places in the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. You can customise the map to highlight sights and attractions, hotels, and so forth, then narrow your search by budget or preference.

There are lots of images and a good description of each entry plus, unusually, a link to the relevant website. There’s Windows and Mac versions and widgets that you can download and place on your blogs or social networking pages.

2. A new website www.townandcountry.ie has brought together more than 1,000 B&Bs across the country. The site has been launched by the Town and Country Homes Association, which represents the country’s small guesthouses.

It hopes to open the B&B market to international visitors because the site is bookable in Spanish, French, German, Italian and English. The site has a Google maps feature to search for properties by location and listings include a description, picture and details on facilities.

BACKGROUND

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3. Walking websites abound – we’re already huge fans of the Ramblers Association website, but this is one that’s recently got our attention. Walking in England has more than 1,800 walks that you can download free of charge.

It’s an unsophisticated design but the content is comprehensive – with links out to walks, maps, books on walking and walking groups around the country. There are 24 counties so far, with more being added in the future.

4. If you need more than a print-out and an OS map for your walk, a new website is offering audiowalks around London. Soundmap walks can be downloaded onto an MP3 player or CD for £5.99.

The walks promise hidden gems and amusing anecdotes and include jaunts around Brick Lane, Camden and Chelsea’s Kings Road. They are narrated by authors and journalists and include a printable map to accompany the walk.

5. Passporty.co.uk is a useful little website launched by a photography business in South Yorkshire. The service on offer is the production of passport and visa photographs from digital camera stills. You email them a picture of you, taken according to their instructions, e.g. good light, plain facial expression etc., then they touch it up and send it back to you in the correct format for a cost of around £10.

Of course, you could always visit your local passport photography studio, but for those who can’t find the time, this is a useful option – and even if you don’t use the service, the tips are handy.

6. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic is celebrating after it snatched the top website award at the Enjoy England Excellence Awards 2008. The site relaunched in October 2006 with improved search feature and multimedia content. Judges of the awards praised it for its podcasts, seat view pictures, and “remind me about this event”. There’s even an online car-sharing service for concert-goers.

7. Lonely Planet has launched its own travel channel on YouTube. The guidebook publisher has got 27 videos online at the moment – but more are being added every week. They are an entertaining mixture of energetic shorts compered by bright young things.

The videos are more professionally produced than your normal YouTube film, and are short, punchy and fun – a good addition to your travel research. There’s clips from LonelyPlanet.tv, the company’s user video upload site, and behind-the-scenes footage from Lonely Planet TV shows.

8. Thomas Cook is planning to launch a section on its website for hotel reviews written by its customers. The reviews will launch by the end of July with around one million ratings that have been collected on paper from holidaymakers over the past year.

All reviewers will have to prove they stayed at the hotel by producing a booking reference and they will be incentivised to write reviews from time to time with prizes or vouchers. Thomas Cook has promised not to weed out any negative reviews and says it will link to the reviews from various pages across the site.

9. Low cost airline in shock positive news story… easyJet has impressed the fastidious readers of Which? Holiday magazine. The carrier was voted the number one website for booking flights in a survey of 3,000 flyers. Easyjet.com was praised for its intuitive design, and facility to filter search results.

According to the consumer magazine, website users are most frustrated by having to register with a website before using it, slow loading times, and inflexible search dates.

10. Apparently a simple “Do not Disturb” sign is too boring for hotels these days, so they’re coming up with more imaginative ways of letting guests tell staff to leave them in peace… In a bid to come up with a witty slogan, The Embassy Suites hotel chain in America invited people to send in their best efforts.

The winner was: “Shh! I’m hatching a plan to bust some little soaps out of here.” To see some of the other entries, which range from the amusing to the saccharine, go to www.embassysuitesdndcontest.com/winners.

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