As We Begin a New Year, Here's My Selection of the 10 Most Useful Travel Websites for 2012

How many websites attempt to help you make the right choice of travel products? The answer is:  tens of thousands. But as I prepare for my own  trips, or respond to inquiries from friends, relatives or readers, I find myself returning over and over to just 10 of that mammoth array. They are set forth below:
 
My favorites include:
 
1) For finding hotel rooms in the United States: www.getaroom.com . Though only a fraction of the size of its larger rivals (it accesses hotels in more than 200 cities, but concentrates on bargains in the 57 most heavily-visited ones), Getaroom claims to supply unique room rates, and actually encourages you to phone them for even better unpublished rates.
 
2) For finding hotel rooms in Europe: www.venere.com . From its headquarters in Rome, Venere accesses over 50,000 hotels all over the world, but does best -- and offers special bargain rates -- in European cities, for which you should primarily use it.
 
3) For finding low-cost overnights in private homes worldwide: www.airbnb.com . After only three years in existence, this San Francisco outfit is handling tens of thousands of bookings in private apartments and homes all over the world. Usually, the owner remains in residence while you occupy a guest bed or room.
 
4) For snaring a free-of-charge overnight in the home or apartment of gracious, generous people worldwide: www.couchsurfing.org . It reveals an awesome number of people who will put you up as a free guest.
 
5) For vacation homes or rental apartments: www.vrbo.com . VRBO.com eliminates the middleman by putting you in direct touch with the landlord, but therefore requires that you carefully check references. If you do, you'll often obtain remarkable values for your next vacation stay.
 
6) For unbeatable airfares both here and overseas: www.momondo.com . This Danish-based aggregator of flights, operated by a handful of people aided by what is apparently a remarkable computer program, has frequently provided me with airfare bargains that no other website revealed.
 
7) For sharp discounts on your next cruise: www.vacationstogo.com . Though more than a dozen cruise brokers compete for your business, this one presents its offerings in such clear, understandable fashion as to win my vote.
 
8) For discounted prices on your next auto rental: www.autoslash.com . In addition to revealing low rates, it also draws your attention to special coupon offers that can reduce your costs even more.
 
9) For lower-cost shore excursions on your next cruise: www.shoretrips.com . In addition to offering lower rates in nearly every major port at which the big cruiseships stop, it also places you in 12-passenger vans instead of the 45-passenger motorcoaches used by the cruiselines themselves.
 
10) For bargain rates on air-and-land packages to the Caribbean and Mexico: www.vacmart.com . Vacation Travel Mart lists heavily discounted prices for departures from Fort Lauderdale and Miami, but will actually handle such packages from any major U.S. city.