Our pick of the best websites for preparing for your family fortnight in the sun, a weekend city break or a stay-in-the-UK trip
Want to find out where to get travel insurance, cheap flights and research your destination? Here are some useful websites
Travelling with children
www.babygoes2.com. This site offers a completely independent, free, recommended-by-parents selection of villas and hotels worldwide, with or without childcare, along with advice, information, tips, location reports and features and essential shopping - from swim nappies to insurance.
www.family-travel.co.uk. This £1.20-a-mnth-subsrciption site has well-researched information on 'everything on holidays and travel with kids', including health, eating, getting around and reader reports.
www.travellingwithchildren.co.uk. Online since 2001, this site provides provides parents, carers, childminders, nannies, schools, midwives, health visitors etc with useful information and fantastic products.
Finding flights
There are several different website types. 'Screen scrapers' use technology to analyse all the flights available by electronically asking airlines' websites, and other flight-checking sites. The results are displayed with a clickable link through to the relevant airline or travel company. Try:
www.travelsupermarket.com
www.traveljungle.co.uk, which checks budget airlines as well as traditional ones.
www.kelkoo.co.ukIf you're flexible on date and destination, try the Flight Checker on Martin Lewis's website, MoneySavingExpert.com, which lets you find the cheapest flights from budget airlines Ryanair, BMIBaby, Norwegian Air, SkyEurope, Thomsonfly and Flybe, and allows you to enter flexibility around dates and your maximum price.
Putting together a package
Package holidays from major tour operators can often be cheaper than a DIY flight plus hotel combination. However, if you can't find a package to suit, www.expedia.co.uk lets you book flight plus hotel, as does www.opodo.co.uk.
Accommodation only
www.venere.com helps you find hotels, apartments and B&Bs worldwide, and you can browse through over 350,000 reviews of where people stayed.
User reviewsIf you like to do your research before you go, or even while you're still thinking about it, www.tripadvisor.co.uk is for you. There are over 10,000,000 reviews of accommodation, resorts, attractions... you name it, someone's written a review of it.
Train travel
In the UK, check train journeys, including timetables, and those oh-so-complicated fares at www.qjump.co.uk. Unlike many other train search sites, this one doesn't require you to enter your name and password just to find out a fare.
For international train travel, if you've ever wondered whether it would be easier/cheaper/greener to go by train, visit www.seat61.com/. This great resource explains how to travel across continents - and even between them - with tips on finding the cheapest fares, and handy advice like how to get between the mainline stations of Paris.
European health insurance
The European Health Insurance Card, or Ehic, replaces the old form E111. It entitles you to reduced-cost (sometimes free) necessary state medical treatment in all EU countries, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. It's free and could save you money and hassle. Each traveller needs one. It's not a substitute for travel insurance.
Click here to apply for your Ehic online: www.ehic.org.uk.
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