List of the Best Websites for Travelling

Updated On: November 08, 2023 by   Ciaran Connolly

We constantly search for the best websites for travelling to book our vacations ahead. What makes a website the best of all? What do you expect to find on such websites? Online travel sites make it easy to arrange everything for your trip, including airport transportation, accommodation, and excursions.

Although many of what these sites offer are similar, what is important is how they do it. The last thing you want to challenge is a complicated website when planning a trip to chill and unwind. 

What’s an OTA?

“OTA” refers to Online Travel Agency, a travel agency whose main presence is on digital channels. Consumers can use a website or mobile device to book their trips without contacting a travel agent. OTAs connect to the full range of travel providers, giving travellers access to everything they may need for their next trip.  

Online travel agents are the travel industry’s most comprehensive source of bookings. They often use package deals such as airfare and special offers to transport more bookings to airline and hotel partners. These great travel websites, including Booking and Expedia, have millions of monthly visitors.

How do OTAs Make money?

Most OTAs earn money by taking a commission per booking, which ranges from 5% to 25%. The actual commission rate is discussed on a brand-by-brand, property-by-property basis. More prominent hotels and larger brands with many properties use their influence to negotiate lower rates. 

Why do Travellers Use OTAs?

More than a fifth of travellers use OTAs to book all or part of their travels, which makes OTAs famous among all age groups. There are six significant reasons travellers use OTAs for:

• Choice: Online travel agencies are a “one-stop shop” for travel-related. From air travel and hotels to short-term rentals, vacation packages, and cars. You can easily find whatever you are looking for on an OTA. 

• Price: OTAs have done a great job developing a perception of value, although they aren’t always the lowest price or the best deal. The actual value here is in comparison shopping. It is easy to compare offers on an OTA, and that information is precious to consumers.

• Convenience: OTAs are the Everything Store for Travel, accessible on any device. It’s a suitable place to book your hotel, car rental, and flights all through a single reservation. It is much easier to book through that one point of contact rather than dealing with many people and calling various numbers to book your trip.

• Hygiene: Travellers can expect a specific level of quality by using a reputable online travel agency. The brand’s features make a huge difference in the perception of quality.

• Privacy and security: Privacy and security are also essential. Travellers also have a specific level of trust in the OTA brand to provide a quality experience that won’t expose them to a breach of privacy or physical harm.

• Reviews: Social proof has a significant impact on why travellers use OTAs. The certainty that others enjoyed a good experience helps draw more consumers into the OTA ecosystem.

Check a list of the top sites based on prices, friendly use, and clarity. Some of these sites offer rewards schemes depending on the website’s frequent use.

Expedia.com- One of the Top Websites for Travelling

Expedia.com is one of the top sites, with different ways of planning your trip and various good deals. Also, it is a landmark in travel websites and hotel booking services. It owns many famous sites, such as Hotwire.com and Hotels.com. 

Expedia.com features a straightforward user interface. You can add up to five connecting flights from the package section on the site. You are free to book accommodation for a part of your trip or the whole trip, airport transportation or car rentals.

It’s all adequately well-designed, and it only takes a few seconds to start putting your plans together. If you are a cruise lover, you can also find it on the site.

Expedia.com offers extra discounts for reserving multiple parts of your trip on the site. The Things-to-Do section provides recommendations to plan the whole trip in one place. To sum it up, Expedia offers:

• Reward scheme
• Price Guarantee
• Customer support: Online chat, phone
• Easy-to-use interface 
• Adding up to five flights 
• Cruises

Booking.com: Best Website for Ease of Use

Booking.com is a well-known name in the world of holiday bookings, provides more than half a million properties in over 207 countries and offers car rental and flight services. You can plan the whole trip on one website easily. 

Booking.com’s great rewards programme encourages you to keep coming back to familiarise yourself with the site. You can even arrange your drive from this site, meaning a more stress-free vacation as you plan the smallest details. 

You can also avoid paying a booking fee for many hotels, allowing you to stay flexible – perfect if you travel a lot on your journey. So, Booking.com offers:

• Rewards scheme
• Customer support: Online chat, phone
• Easy-to-use interface 
• Massive selection
• Great rewards programme

CheapTickets.com: Top for Finding Things to do

CheapTickets is another site obtained by Expedia, but it does things differently. Under the packages section, you can easily add flight, hotel, and car, but multiple flights are under a different section.

CheapTickets allows you to buy event tickets from the site, which helps as a one-stop-shop site to purchase your trip. Other sites offer the same service, but CheapTickets keens to lure you into the process, even if the site is a little cheesier looking than others as it is not as modern as other sites. 

The site also features the Vacation Value Finder, which allows you to adjust your budget and what you plan to do during the vacation. It is the right site for a last-minute deal if you are not settled on one place. 

Students can also benefit from the students’ section that offers them extra discounts once they verify being students. In general, it’s an excellent site for multiple diverse needs. CheapTickets.com offers:

• Reward scheme
• Price Guarantee
• Customer support: Online chat, phone
• Extensive services available to book 
• Student discounts 
• Vacation Value Finder

Priceline.com: Top for User Reviews 

Priceline is a landmark in the online travel site world for a good reason. You do not make any effort to use the options available for flights, hotels, cars or all three. 

It is a little annoying that Priceline’s super cheap price-breaker deals are unavailable in bundles. So, you will not get as an excellent bargain as booked separately. However, combining the whole set is still a good deal; the more you book, the higher the discount. 

What is appreciated about this site is the excellent reviews from verified customers. You can get a well-accurate picture of what to expect from wherever you are looking to book in a blink of an eye.

Priceline is well-designed, so you are stress-free while booking. Finally, it cares to make the VIP scheme easily accessible with direct discounts offered over time. So, it provides:

• Reward scheme
• Price Guarantee
• Customer support: Online chat, phone
• Extensive bundle deals 
• Easily found rewards scheme 
• Numerous reviews of locations 

Kayak.com: Top for Accumulated Results

If you need more time, Kayak is somewhat helpful. Simply enter your destination, and it aggregates results from many different sources. Although you never book directly with Kayak, it shows the results quickly and without having to look around on many sites.

While Kayak.com looks a little bare, there is a vast number of various filters and all the essential information you need, even if you go to another site for the full details. 

The site includes a deals section, which provides excellent bargains for things you can do upon arrival at your destination as well as amazing car rental deals. 

It might not be the best, but if you don’t want to do the preparations, Kayak does it on your behalf. It is a real time-saver, offering you the following:

• Customer support: Online chat
• Time-saving
• Loads of filters 

Hotwire.com: Top for Renting Properties 

Hotwire keeps things precise. Just enter what you are searching for, and a somewhat dated interface offers you what is available. It does not have a dated layout like some sites but features vast property-type filters. Based on your choice, hit the related filter, and see if it is an available option in your destination. 

Hotwire offers discounts to compare reasonably fast. Besides, most locations have many reviews. You can also search for specific deals with the site willing to provide discounts to significant destinations if you are not decisive on where to go next. Although the place seems like it needs updating, it works well and at a reasonable speed. The site offers:

• Price Guarantee
• Customer support: Online chat, phone
• Extensive property types
• Well-laid-out discounts 

Agoda: Top for Private Home Rental in Asia 

Agoda is an ideal option if you want to look for accommodation apart from hotels, as it specialises in offering apartments and private rentals. There are dedicated market managers that handle finding properties, especially in Asia. 

So, you can find unique destination rentals at appropriate rates. If you change your mind, it features a valid 24-hour free cancellation policy. 

The site is user-friendly, and you can save a lot if you go for more than one booking. Customer support is also an advantage, as 24-hour multilingual customer service is available. With millions of reviews, you have peace of mind finding a property on Agoda. It offers:

• Customer support: Online chat
• Free cancellations
• Private properties 
• Reviews

Skyscanner: Best Budget

Skyscanner allows you to compare prices of hotels, airlines, and car rentals, to get the best deal. It uses a metasearch engine to compare prices.

You can filter using fixed dates, monthly airfare prices, “Cheapest Month”, nearby airports or non-stop flights only. 

As for accommodation, you can choose from properties with free cancellation, 3- or 4-starred hotels or a cleanliness rating of 4.5/5 or higher. For car rental searches, you have the option of returning the car to a different location.

Once your mind is set, click the link to be redirected to the third-party site to confirm your booking. The “Search Everywhere” button on the homepage lists the cheapest flight deals for local and international destinations. It features:

•  A simple interface
• Filters by specific dates or a monthly calendar
• Search Everywhere button 

Hopper: Top price Predictor

Hopper is a travel app on iOS and Android that tends to help travellers save on airfare by using historical data and their algorithm to predict the times flights would be cheapest.

Just type in the destination and time you would like to fly, and Hopper will provide you with a colour-coded pricing calendar showing the predicted cost of the tickets. Green means the least expensive, while yellow, orange and red are the costliest.

It will also recommend whether to buy or wait. It features an option to watch a trip and get notified of the best buying time. Additionally, the app offers hotel and car rental price predictions.

There is a great option to “freeze” a price for a limited time, with an additional fee and exclusive app-only discounts. It is a free app, and you can book directly through it. The company maintain a 95 per cent accuracy rate at predicting flight rates for a year ahead. It features:

• The colour-coded system 
• User-friendly interface
• Option to track flights and receive notifications when it is the ideal time for booking

Kiwi.com: Most Innovative

Kiwi is a metasearch engine that looks for and works together itineraries from different airlines (even without a codeshare agreement). Also, it counts multiple airports (even if your arrival airport is not the same as the departure) and provides booking options for specific dates or unspecified ones.

Some travellers consider making more than one booking for a specific trip more convenient than going at it manually multiple times. You can choose the Kiwi guaranteed programme to access rebooking and refund protections if you want to change or cancel your reservation.

Kiwi’s Nomad option allows you to enter a bunch of destinations you’d like to visit and the duration of your intended stay. The website will come out with the cheapest itineraries for review. It features:

• Creative itineraries 
• Kiwi Guaranteed rebooking or cancellation protections
• Nomad option 

Kind Traveller: Top for Best Ecco-Conscious

A give-and-get business model refers to booking accommodations with exclusive perquisites, donating to environmental organisations, and more. 

In 2022, Kind Traveller, focusing on hotel bookings, reported an increase in environmentally- and socially conscious hotels, voluntourism opportunities, charity donations, and additional gratuities like waiving resort fees or a welcome facility. In other words, you make donations to charity organisations to get offers and discounts. 

Choose over 140 participating hotels from the Hawaiian Islands to Bozeman, the Maldives and Montana. Charities include human rights, wildlife, education, arts and environmental protection organisations. Kind Travellers features:

• Local give-back feature
• Exclusive savings and bonuses
• Hotels in the most stunning places in the world

I Like Locals: Top for Social Impact

Select from a host of travel experiences without the stress that 100 per cent of the cost goes directly to local partners. The website offers travel experiences in countries including Kenya, Indonesia, and Cambodia. 

Experiences include almost everything, homestays and culturally- oriented wellness experiences—from cycling tours to weaving classes.

To check an experience, choose from the drop-down list experience categories or travel dates, or have a look at a global map and click on a country to check backgrounds.

The platform started in 2014 and expanded to 4,000 local hosts in over 20 countries. As a social impact organisation, 100 per cent of each reservation fee is for the local hosts. So far, 16,000 travellers have reserved with I Like Local.

Top flight Booking Websites for Cheap Flights

We all love travelling and exploring new countries, but there is always the budget issue, especially when it comes to flight booking, but we’ve got you covered. Here is a list of websites where you can get the best deals.

Momondo: Best Website for Cheap Flights

Momondo is excellent if you are searching for flight deals and flight tracking. It features many useful filters that help you efficiently find what you are looking for on a flight. You can choose your favourite airline, flight duration, and stop time. 

The mode features overnight flights, and you can also look for hotels, activities, package deals, and car rentals. You can plan it all at once.

The best feature of the site, which makes it different, is the visual flight tracker at the top of the search results. It simply comes up with the exact days your route would be the cheapest, so you can change your arrival or departure date and save a lot of money.

Google Flights: Best Website for the Cheapest Travel Dates

Google Flights is a search aggregator and is one of the greatest tools when searching for cheap flight prices, as it uses the effective ITA Matrix search engine created specifically for travel agents.

It is simply a search engine that provides a broad range of flights. When you add your flight route in the search bar, Google Flights automatically comes up with the cheapest airfare on the calendar. You can also check how the price differs a few weeks or months ahead.

Plus, when you add your departure city, Google Flights lists destination airports with low prices. You can also select filters to search areas or continents for a broader range of results.

Remember to look at the price graph to see how things are trending or enable easy price alerts with a quick button. Google Flights even lets you know when luggage fees are extra. 

Scotts Cheap Flights: Top Website for Flight Deals

If you’re the type of person ready to go just about anywhere when the right deal comes up, try Scott’s Cheap Flights. However, you must know that Scott’s Cheap Flights now only provides packages from airports in the US.

It is an email subscription service that gathers flight deals domestically and internationally within the United States. Most of their sales feature 40-90% off average airfare prices, and the results are not computer automated. Scott’s Cheap Flights has a team of people exploring the web for deals daily.

There is a free subscription and a paid subscription on Scotts Cheap Flights. The free option is called a “freemium” subscription which means you receive free emails for flight deals limited to international economy deals from five preferred origin airports.

The Premium or Elite membership allows you to receive those same flight deals 30 minutes before the free subscribers. With premium, you’ll also receive emails about domestic flight prices, error fares or deals on premium seats.   

Airfare Watchdog: Best Website for Last-Minute Flights

Like Scott’s Cheap Flights, Airfare Watchdog has an entire team of flight hackers that explore the Internet for the top deals on cheap fares. The deals include error fares and last-minute deals that may come up at any time.

You can save some money if you decide on a fixed travel date and book a flight immediately.

The website is wonderfully user-friendly. As soon as you enter your city, Airfare Watchdog offers you a list of deals available directly on the homepage, which is updated daily.

At the top of the page, you can find “Today’s Top Deals” and “Weekend Deals” under the flight’s category. The weekend deals are beneficial if you decide on a quick getaway. You can choose the “Take Me Anywhere” option to check the available discounts from your departure airport.

Best Hotel Search Engines and Booking Sites

When the flight is booked, it’s time for the hotel booking. Here’s a list of the best hotel search engines to help you with this step.

• Booking.com
• Kayak
• Agoda
• Google Hotels

Google’s hotel search engine is an excellent place for hotel booking. Check your “Google My Business” listing to ensure it is up to date and that your map shows the right place. The Google Maps integration is essential to appearing in search as this metasearch engine depends mainly on location.

Conclusion

If you have a comfortable flight, a hotel that suits your needs, and a good deal, you are ready to enjoy your trip and look forward to more future trips. We provided you with the best websites to book your flight and hotel and websites to do it all together.