Room 77 – Reserving hotel rooms seems like a no-brainer. You look at some pictures, check out the rates, maybe even read a few reviews and make the reservation. But more often than not, once you get to your hotel room, you realize your scenic view is the neighboring building, a parking lot, or worse, a brick wall. Room 77 is here to make sure your next hotel room suits all your preferences but remains within budget limits.

Room 77 uses the forefront of technology to deliver the best room options for you in hundreds of different hotels across the country. Using the Google Maps 3D platform, Room 77 shows you the actual view of different rooms in each listed hotel so you can see for yourself which rooms to avoid, and which to request for when making the reservation.

To see an example, click the image below, the screen shot of the Churchill Hotel in Washington DC page, showing maps, street view and including tips and expert advice.

Room 77 changes the entire concept and experience of hotel room reservation. Thanks to this terrific free service, you can make sure your stay at the hotel is as enjoyable as possible.

World Travel Guide – Offering “inspirational destination guides, features, travel deals, events and more,” World Travel Guide tries to take the travel world by storm. What do I think? After a short test drive using the search word ‘Barcelona,’ I can’t really say this travel guide is better or worse than the top ones out there. I would say it’s average. You will find all the practical info you need for your destination, but you won’t find anything that’s ‘Wow!’

To be honest, I feel AMF’s Travel Guides faveline on the Travel page offers resources that are more useful and appealing.

Gogobot – The best trip tips I get when I travel come not necessarily from travel guides like TripAdvisor and the like, but from friends who had already been to my desired destination. Gogobot is built upon the same concept, offering a network of friends who share the best travel tips with the rest of the community, based upon ‘actually been there’ experiences. These tips are then combined with photos and maps to build the ultimate travel guide for you, according on your preferences.

To see the wonders of Gogobot, log in with your facebook account and explore Destinations, or type in any other location and hit Plan a Trip. You can either seek advice or share yours with the community. To see an example, check out this travel profile for San Diego. To learn more on Gogobot, watch the video below.

TripWow – This super cute tool by TripAdvisor, my #1 travel guide and rating place, is an absolute must feature to make use of when you have returned from your vacation and wish to share your photos in a fun way with friends and family.

The TripWow interface is attractive and easy to navigate through. Start by uploading your photos (you can choose between several photo storage providers such as Facebook, flickr and Picasa as well as uploading pics from your PC or Mac). Next, customize your sideshow by selecting a theme, background music, and related text (your name, your vacation destination and more). See a solid example of TripWow’s whole nine yards via my sideshow, titled “My Crete Getaway,” a trip I had last summer.

Historvius – Some travelers strive to be the antithesis to traditional tourists, seeking rarely visited, off the beaten path sites around the world, avoiding famous sites and the crowds at all costs. But that doesn’t mean famous sites have become overrated. On the contrary, international tourist sites such as Egypt’s pyramids or the huge man-shaped statues of Easter Island are still on my to-visit list, and the fact that many people flock these places each year is not about to deter me from doing so.

Historvius is a wonderful information place on mainstream (and less known) tourist sites worldwide, offering a super cool platform for learning more on your next sought-after site (note that you won’t be able to find info on cities per se, rather only on attraction sites). Start your site search by selecting your vacation destination, or choose a time period you are interested in as a filter, or, if yo wish, search by historical figure. There is also an open search for those interested. I had a specific site in mind I wanted to learn more about when I gave Historvius a try, and I enjoyed it tremendously. The photo below is a hint. Click it to get to the site’s page.

HomeAway – Vacation rentals galore, this great site lets you tap into special accommodation options outside the mainstream B&B scenario. Quite similar to Airbnb which was previously featured here on All My Faves, HomeAway matches more independent tourists and visitors with local property owners seeking to rent their place for short periods.

Aside from searching for rental properties by location, date, number of guests and price, HomeAway also allows you to compare rental places by stacking all your checked selections horizontally, showing you the benefits and drawbacks of each rental property. HomeAway is a great solution for the more savvy tourist who is looking for a more local feel. See the screen shot below of the comparison option, applied to a vacation destination in Cyprus.

Kukunu – Travel planning is taken to a whole new collaborative level with Kukunu. This gorgeous travel portal offers users a unique and intuitive way to plan their next trip while getting support every step of the way. Pick your destination, set the dates of your trip and let Kukunu guide you in terms of finding accommodation and sight-seeing. According to Kukunu, users have access to  “more than 100,000 hotels and 200,000 activities, restaurants and landmarks.”

Kukunu is a fresh travel planner with a twist. It’s highly recommended. For more travel guides, visit out Travel page.

Stay.com – Planning your vacation nowadays is easy and fun, thanks to the numerous online travel guides available (see some of the best ones on our Travel page). In most cases, these travel guides are based on the input of users who have already been to various locations and shared their experiences and recommendations with the rest of the community. Stay.com is yet another fun and interactive travel guide on the scene, offering easy and accurate planning of your next vacation.

Although you can type in any destination in the world, Stay.com currently offers the travel guide feature only for major cities. This is a shame but since Stay.com is a new player, I hope that with time we’ll see their travel guide tool include less mainstream destinations. In terms of the travel guide itself, once you’ve chosen a city, you get a basic guide including a map with chosen site-seeing suggestions. Your destination page will have a list of other visit ideas you can easily add to your guide (drag and drop), and these will be beautifully integrated into it.

Needless to say, you may download your custom travel guide, and when you come back, you can create your own and share it with the rest of the Stay.com community. I only wish they had offered a cool travel guide option to other locations such as Bali, Indonesia, where I’d really like to go someday. See the screen shots below of the offered travel guide to Berlin for families with kids.

Every year the winter holidays are a hustling and bustling travel season, with millions of Americans across the continent moving to and fro to make it to the festive dinner table. If reaching your holiday destination requires air travel and/or car rental this season, you are in for quite a challenge. Why? because finding a worry-free travel arrangement that is also on budget may easily turn into a ‘worry-full’ mission, especially during theses hectic holiday weeks.

To help you out in your travel arrangements this season -and in the future- here are 10 tools on the Web you could and should make use of, all free of charge, accessible and extremely rewarding:

1. Choosing your Destination

Tripwolf. This is one of those sites where the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. Why is it so special? Because Tripwolf “combines travel tips from professional travel writers with a vast collection of travel information, experiences and reviews from a worldwide community of thousands of travelers like you.” You get the best of both worlds: feedback from professional savvy travelers, and the picks of recent tourists worldwide. To see the Tripwolf service in action, check out their take on Barcelona.

2. Cost Estimations and Booking

CheapOair. Pure and simple. CheapOair offers an abundance of hot deals on any given day of the year, and you can plan your entire vacation, business trip or weekend getaway from A to Z using CheapOair’s friendly and easy-to-use website. In every step along the way, you’ll know exactly what your entire travel plan will cost. Another cool thing about CheapOair is their Lowest Airfare and Hotel Rate Guarantee (for reservations booked on their website), so you can rest assured you’re paying the absolute lowest price for the flight or hotel at the moment you make the reservation.

3. Itineraries Go Mobile

TripIt. Have all your itineraries and travel information on the go on your iPhone or Blackberry by simply sending your travel confirmations, itineraries, hotel reservations and more to TripIt’s given email address (once is all it takes). And don’t worry; it doesn’t matter if your vacation consists of different booking sources. Once you’ve forwarded your travel info to TripIt, it creates a master itinerary right on your iPhone for easy access and information retrieval. This way you’re always in the know and can really enjoy your vacation or make the most out of that business trip. What happens if your flight schedule has suddenly changed due to bad weather? TripIt automatically receives real-time updates and alerts to keep you informed of the latest flight information (Pro service).

4. Flight Delay Notification

FlightCaster. Flight times are always prone to change, and delays are not caused only due to bad weather. If you wish to stay on top of your flight’s actual departure time, you could visit (and re-visit) your airline’s website or call that 1-800 number. However, FlightCaster offers an even better service, sending delay alerts up to 6 hours before the airlines do so. Moreover, there is a FlightCaster iPhone/Blackberry application available ($7.99 on the App Store) which will, no doubt, come in handy when you don’t have computer access.

5. Accommodation for the Frugal

CouchSurfing. If you’re traveling on a budget, you might want to consider an unconventional lodging option that will save you plenty of cash and warm up your heart. “Participate in creating a better world, one couch at a time” is the motto of this international NPO. Their goal is to foster close and friendly connections between travelers and the local communities of traveled destinations. How do they do it? As the name suggests, good-willed people the world over offer their couch to travelers interested in a temporary place to stay. Being kind both to your wallet and soul, CouchSurfing is perfect for the more open-minded and probably baby-free travelers who are looking for a unique lodging arrangement.

6. Get Specific, Solid Tips from Locals

Spotted By Locals. This wonderful website posts a series of city blogs for travelers who are looking to experience cities ‘the local way.’ Their team of “Spotters” is made up of enthusiastic urban dwellers who are not only city savvies but also gifted writers who create content out of passion for their metropolis. This up close and personal way of getting information about things to do in a given location is a refreshing take on city guides. The added bonus is that you receive solid and updated information on your desired vacation city rather than having to rely on printed material that might be irrelevant. It’s important to note that Spotted By Locals currently only offers blogs about major European cities.

7. Hey, I’m in Town! (and So are You)

Dopplr. This terrific travel aid is an online service that is ideal for business travelers and other frequent flyers. Dopplr allows you to share your next travel plans with friends and colleagues, privately. The amazing feature of the Dopplr service is that it points out instances where your stay at a given location overlaps with the visit of one or more of your friends. Although this will work only if all your pals and colleagues join the service, it’s free and definitely worth signing up to. Plus, as with almost any other Web feature these days, Dopplr offers its iPhone application version – for free via the App Store.

8. Feeds from Your Captain to Your Friends

Lufthansa MySkyStatus. If status updates is something you wish you could have created while on board an aircraft, you should know that now you can. Lufthansa’s MySkyStatus automatically posts your flight’s updates to your Facebook or Twitter account. Regardless of your airline carrier, this travel gem by Lufthansa allows the people you care about to know your departure and arrival times and locations, the plane’s geographic positioning in the air, etc. Forget about the “Captain speaking” announcements; now your friends and family will be in the know while you’re still up in the air.

9. Travel Planning, the Visual Way

Duffel. One resource that will help you organize your trip is duffel, “a trip planning dashboard that organizes and helps you visualize your travel research.” Although their DIY travel planning tool is something worth trying out, duffel’s ready-made visual trip plans (under ‘explore popular cities’) are a valuable resource you should consult prior to visiting a new destination for the first time. The best way to start exploring duffel would be by checking out some of their suggestions for high profile cities such as Rome, Paris and Tokyo.

10. Small and Supreme

All My Faves. This search/discovery website is a visual, logo-based homepage which facilitates navigation through the Web by keeping it simple: in each category or ‘faveline’ you’ll see the top 10 websites of that category. All My Faves also offers a designated Travel page where you can find numerous resources for all your travel needs. Recently, All My Faves launched a new personalization tool, the Mini Faves, where users can create their very own homepage and add over 25 of their favorite URLs and bookmarks to their customized page. To show you what the Mini Faves looks like, here’s the page All My Faves created for CheapOair, which displays the Company’s best links and deals.

Airbnb – Here’s a concept that is so simple and effective, it’s a wonder no one has thought of it before, let alone offered such a user friendly website for it. Airbnb is “an online marketplace allowing anyone from private residents to commercial properties to rent out their extra space.”