See the Sites, From A to Z

Quibbles. If you care about fellow travelers' experiences, Trip Advisor ( http://www.tripadvisor.com)/ features more than 5 million customer reviews of hotels, restaurants, attractions and vacation packages. It ranks hotels based on reviews and posts average prices. It also compares prices from major booking sites, including Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz. The site's recent upgrade is a "My Trips" function, which allows you to create personalized folders with trip details, photos, hotel ideas, etc.

Honorable mentions: The sites http://www.wheretostay.com, http://www.eopinions.com and http://www.travelpost.com all offer reader rants and raves. The Better Business Bureau (http://www.bbb.org) is also a good resource.

Restaurants. The site for the Zagat Survey ( http://www.zagat.com/) offers info, reviews, menus, etc., from restaurants across the United States and Europe; cities are especially well represented. Can search by neighborhoods, cuisines, ratings, etc. Also includes fun articles, such as best restaurants for Valentine's Day dinner (five got the nod in Washington, including Asia Nora and Rasika).

Honorable mentions: At http://www.dinesite.com, with similar content to Zagat.com, you'll find some good search categories, such as restaurants that serve Sunday brunch. For restaurant reservations, hit http://www.opentable.com.

Special deals. For sheer simplicity, Travelzoo ( http://www.travelzoo.com/) is tops. Every Wednesday morning, it e-mails the top 20 deals of the week. It can search for car rental, air deals, cruise bargains, vacation deals and lodging specials, and it also offers a news desk, which posts deals as they're announced.

Honorable mentions: A new feature at http://www.hotwire.com is a geographically targeted "Travel Ticker" that's e-mailed every two weeks. Also, try http://www.independenttraveler.com, http://www.smartertravel.com, http://www.shermanstravel.com, http://www.cfares.com and http://www.priceline.com. All of these sites do a good job of scouring the Web for travel deals, and you can sign up on each one to receive e-mail deals notifications.

Tourism. Seems as if every city, county, region, state and country has an official tourism site, doesn't it? Find them all on the Tourism Offices Worldwide Directory ( http://www.towd.com/), which offers links to 1,421 tourism sites worldwide.

Honorable mentions: The European Travel Commission (http://www.visiteurope.com) is an umbrella group that represents tourism agencies for 34 countries in Europe, from Austria to the United Kingdom. The Caribbean Tourism Organization runs http://www.doitcaribbean.com, with info on 31 Caribbean destinations.

Urban. The site for the travel guide series Time Out ( http://www.timeout.com/), the bible for urbanites, offers detailed info on 117 cities from Abu Dhabi to Zurich. The well-written entries describe best restaurants, bars, nightlife, shopping, hotels and events. But it's not always up-to-date: The New Orleans entry, for example, makes no mention of Hurricane Katrina.

Honorable mention: The Online City Guide (http://www.olcg.com) is hit or miss: It offers good articles on recreation, for example, but visitor information is thin.

Vaccinations. For the official word, go to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( http://www.cdc.gov/travel), where you'll find health information for specific destinations, vaccination recommendations, updates on disease outbreaks and articles on such topics as mosquito and tick protection. It includes a list of travel medicine clinics.

Honorable mentions: The International Society of Travel Medicine (http://www.istm.org) has a list of travel vaccination clinics, while http://www.tripprep.com serves up more info on destination-specific health information. Check with the International Association for Medical Assistance to Travelers (http://www.iamat.org) for the lowdown on travel risks.