( Budget Travel ) -- The following five sites have proven the most consistently useful for the editors of Budget Travel , who do thousands of searches a year . Budget Travel editors reveal favorite online resources to book flights , hotels and other needs . Dohop.com . Strictly for booking plane trips entirely outside of the U.S. , such as a flight between Paris and Rome . The site runs simultaneous searches of multiple airports serving the same city -- five airports in London , for instance -- and it retrieves fares from no-frills independent carriers like EasyJet and Ryanair , which many better-known travel sites overlook . That said , be warned that Dohop does n't work nearly as well for booking airfares leaving the U.S. Kayak.com . The all-time best site for finding the cheapest plane tickets in the U.S. Our biggest beef with Kayak 's competitors is that when you click to book a fare , they typically direct you to a new page . Sometimes it 's only then that you find out your actual departure time -- or worse , you 're forced to plug in your dates and departure cities all over again , only to discover far different results . Kayak stands apart . Once you 've found a good flight on Kayak , click on the price and you 'll be sent directly to the airline 's Web site , where the exact price for the exact flight you selected unfailingly appears . Another perk : If you are flexible on your travel dates , we recommend you try Kayak 's flexible-date search tool , which covers the broadest scope of routes and airports of any site we 've tested . Budget Travel : Staying in touch while on the road . Priceline.com . The granddaddy discounter helps hotels , car-rental agencies , and airlines unload all sorts of inventory at well below published prices . We admit that Priceline 's name-your-own-price option -- in which travelers do n't know specific details until after their bids have been accepted -- is n't for everyone . But as flexible travelers , we 're fans of using Priceline to bid blindly . You 'll find the best results when bidding for upscale hotels in large cities , paying up to half off what other guests pay . The trade-off is that your hotel 's location will be something of a surprise . But in many big cities , it does n't really matter which neighborhood you 're staying in , because you 're hopping all over town sightseeing anyway . Of course , Priceline also sells travel the straightforward way ( with the price and details quoted up-front ) , but , in our opinion , it 's no better at doing that than Expedia , Travelocity , Orbitz or CheapTickets . TripAdvisor.com . Harnessing the power of the masses , the user-hotel-review site TripAdvisor is the top way to hunt for hotels . We admit that the site 's spectrum of good , bad and mixed reviews for the same property can be confusing . But you know what ? After reading the reviews and disregarding ones that seem off or biased , you get a decent sense of what to expect in a hotel -- which is the point . For now , TripAdvisor is the top dog in user-generated hotel reviews , but we 're also watching Kayak-owned TravelPost , a newly-launched site that offers a similar service ( though to date it posts only about one-tenth as many reviews and opinions as TripAdvisor ) . Venere.com . Spotlights independently owned properties overseas , many of which never show up on American travel sites . Any booking site can point you to large , widely known hotels . But you might prefer to stay in a charming inn or a small property on your next trip , especially if you 're traveling to Europe . Well , Venere is the go-to source for this type of mom-and-pop lodging , which usually provides better value for the money than hotel chains . A recent search on Venere for hotels in Nice , France , for example , turned up 20 spots charging nightly rates of less than 60 euros ( $ 82 ) . That 's well below the typical rates for large hotels in the resort town . Venere also offers other kinds of alternative lodging , such as apartments , pensions and farmhouses . Get the best travel deals and tips emailed to you and enter to win a free trip - CLICK HERE ! Copyright © 2009 Newsweek Budget Travel , Inc. , all rights reserved . Note : This story was accurate when it was published . Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before planning your trip .
The Travel editors list their favorite travel booking sites . On Priceline.com they have the best results bidding for upscale hotels in big cities . Venere.com lists independently owned properties overseas .