Tech Tuesday :: Unravel Group Travel

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Traveling with friends is a blast, but organizing-smorganizing a 10 - 20-person bachelorette, mancation or family trip can turn into a full-time job!

Fear not, like most travel conundrums, the internet has an answer. Tech Tuesday for the win!

Travelstormer Travelstormer likens amateur group travel planning to herding cats, so it helps group travelers get their ducks in a row from idea to itinerary!" I WISH this existed when my girlfriends went on a 14-person triple-bachelorette to Vegas. Sure, we made 'do' with email and phone planning {via hours of conference calls and gazillions of emails}, but this website would have made the process so much more organized and streamlined! Next time...

How It Works Sign up for an account and add friends. Every detail is coordinated from a central and simple dashboard {pictured above}. Brainstorm and discuss with the group or via private message, then enter your dates and destination, build an itinerary and track expenses. Genius.

I'm going to use Travelstormer for another girls trip in the works for 2012. I've already set up an account. For now, we don't know our dates or destination, but we'll input those details as the process takes shape. Time to brainstorm and discuss!

Happy planning.

More Tech Tuesday Virtual Shopping Get A Callback Google Flight Search Hotel Tonight Getting There Direct

[images via travelstormer]

Tech Tuesday :: Google Flight Search

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If Google was a pilot, she just got her wings!

Until now, Google's been quietly working as a first officer, but last Tuesday the company who made the term googling a verb, soft-launched Flight Search, a full-featured extension of the quick flight lookup they announced in May.

Playing around with the feature I notice: a} it works very similarly to Kayak's flight search, b} is easy to use and c} is fast as lightning.

This is big news and a potential travel game-changer, but not a surprise. I've been waiting for the annoucement since last July when much to Expedia and other travel goliaths' chagrin, Google purchased ITA Software---the developer of airfare search and pricing software and the back-end behind Kayak, Orbitz and many airlines.

The Skinny

• Find the flights feature on the left-hand sidebar, or by typing in google.com/flights.
• Feeling spontaneous? Like Kayak's Explore feature, type in your home airport in the "from" search bar and you'll see flight prices for destinations all over the USA. If you find a flight you like leaving that day and book it, use the Hotel Tonight App to book a last-minute hotel!
• Locations outside the US are not currently supported, but likely will be in the coming months.
• It is not easy to book a one-way flight.

PS - Even if you can't search flights from other countries in google.com/flights, you can search flight schedules in google.com's search bar by googling "flights from YVR to LAX" {example}.

Video How Google Flight Search works in 1 minute, 56 seconds. Trouble viewing this video?

Related Kayak Explore {Visual Flight Search} Travel Apps :: On The Fly {ITA Software's App} Master Of Flight {Re}Search Google Hotel Finder

[Images of Google Flight Search]