5 Ways Travelers Can Avoid Crowds This Holiday Season

Thanks to Facebook, we're no longer six degrees of separation from everyone. We're now only four friends-of-friends away. In other words, most pairs of Facebook users are socially connected through four intermediate other Facebook users. How can travelers take advantage of this level of interconnectedness? Three new sites aim to help. Certainly anyone can use social networking site Facebook to post a status update asking friends and family for advice about a particular destination—and then wait for the responses to roll in. But nowadays, hundreds of messages clutter people's Facebook news feeds, so your message may get lost. Sometimes it helps to instead take a more targeted approach to tapping Facebook friends for travel tips. A few new Facebook applications aim to help travelers get the most travel advice and help out of the site without spamming their friends. Uptake: An easier way to ask for trip advice from your Facebook friends Earlier this month, Uptake, a travel information aggregation site, debuted a free tool for more easily sourcing travel advice from friends. Go to Uptake.com and sign in using your Facebook account username and password. You'll be then be invited to type in a destination name. With one click, Uptake will show you pictures of your friends that probably have travel advice about your destination, based on Uptake's scanning of their Facebook profiles. For example, when I type "London" into Uptake's search box, I find out that about a dozen of my friends know something about it. If you like, you can ask Uptake then to ask these selected friends about the destination by posting a question of your own wording directly on their Facebook walls—a technique that increases the chance of your friends actually seeing your message. InBed.me: A tool for choosing a hostel that has a crowd you'll feel comfortable with. Officially launching next week after a few weeks of beta testing, InBed.me is a new "social booking site" for 25,000 properties—hostels, beds, and couches—worldwide. Before budget-conscious travelers visit a city, they can visit InBed.me to check out the top hostels in each city according to other travelers. The site allows backpackers to do a little bit of screening to see who else will be at a hostel they're considering on booking. Facebook integration is a key part of the process, though you can use InBed.me without it. Using the site is straightforward: Enter a city to see listings of hostels and homes. Click through to see amenities, rates and online booking availability, a photo and profile of the host, and information on any other site users who may be visiting. Twigmore: Connect with locals at your destination, through friends, to get the inside scoop while planning your vacation. Earlier this week, Twigmore arrived as an app for Facebook. After a few months of testing, the tool claims to have built up a database of more than 1.7 million local contacts in over 38,000 cities around the world. The idea is that when you search for a destination, you can find locals on the ground who can offer you helpful advice. Booking a trip to Bangkok, for instance? Type "Bangkok" "India" into Twigmore, and it will reveal a friend of one of your Facebook friends who lives in the city—assuming that such a match exists. Check out their profile details to see if you share anything in common, such as music interests, and reach out for advice. What do you think of the new wave of social networking apps? Helpful, or do they create more "noise" and "spam"? SEE MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL Talking Travel on Facebook Can Cause Trouble New Sites Will Tell Other Hotel Guests Who You Are New Site Advises on How Not to Be a "Tourist"

Perhaps the only thing more associated with Thanksgiving than turkeys and pilgrims is airport-induced rage. Hours of delays, lost luggage, and never-ending security lines can surely leave a bad taste in your mouth. A major part of your holiday happiness, therefore, can be tied to the airports through which you travel. If you're lucky enough to get a good one, flying can be a breeze: the sunny halls, central-hub design, and easy-to-navigate tram system at Tampa International Airport means I never have to worry about being a Thanksgiving Grinch on my way home for the holidays. But millions of other travelers aren't so lucky. CNN.com compiled a list this week of the most hated airports around the world, with reasons why each earned this dubious distinction: 10. São Paulo-Guarulhos International, São Paulo, Brazil: "just 41 percent of all flights leave on time" 9. Perth Airport, Perth, Australia: "a reviled pair of domestic terminals (home of two-hour taxi-line queues, atrocious check-in lines, overpopulated gates and meager lounges)" 8. Tribhuvan International, Kathmandu, Nepal: "primitive yet officious check-in procedure, starring a roulette wheel of underpaid security agents" 7. John F. Kennedy International, New York, United States: "a dim, surly, unbearably congested airport reeking with attitude and unapologetically long immigration lines" 6. Jomo Kenyatta International, Nairobi, Kenya: "cramped spaces; long lines; inadequate seating; frequent power outages; tiny washrooms hiding up several flights of stairs; shabby duty free shops; overpriced food outlets; and business class lounges worthy of a shelter in mid-city Los Angeles" 5. Ninoy Aquino International, Manila, Philippines: "ground crew strikes, unkempt conditions, soup kitchen-style lines that feed into more lines and an overall sense of futility" 4. ToncontÍ n International, Tegucigalpa, Honduras: "second most dangerous airport in the world" 3. London Heathrow, London, England: "long walks (or, more commonly, runs) between gates to a frenzied soundtrack of ‘last call' announcements" 2. Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, United States: "a dramatically undersized and moribund one with the architectural élan of a 1960s correctional facility" 1. Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris, France: "the baffling circular layout is worsened by warrens of tunnel-like structures, dismissive staff and seething travelers waiting forever in the wrong queue...the worst part may be this airport's aura of indifference to it all" More often than not, we don't hate an airport for something major, such as Tegucigalpa's spotty safety record. It can be the little things that bug us: long taxi lines, lengthy walking times between terminals, uncomfortable seats, too few outlets. What's your least favorite airport—and what makes it so terrible? SEE MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL: Replace Heathrow? London Just Might Survey: Travelers Just Love Alternative Airports 5 Airport Innovations Worth Praising

We've heard about the trouble with snow globes. And wrapped gifts. And even big hairdos. And when I checked in at Washington DC's Reagan National Airport last weekend, I probably should have known I was setting myself up for scrutiny. After all, our story "7 Surprising Items That Set Off Airport Security" pointed out that even the tiniest bit of gum-wrapper foil wadded up in a pocket can set off airport metal detectors. And yet, it never occurred to me that my snazzy gold sweater—shot through with lurex threads—would earn me a TSA patdown. "Cute top, but not airport friendly," the TSA agent said as she searched me for weapons. Apparently, the metallicized thread in the sweater yarn was making the scanner go crazy. That got me thinking about all the other ways a festive holiday sweater could cause a travel delay: jingle bells dangling from Rudolph's harness, tiny metal ornaments, and the worst offender of all—battery-powered mini-lights strung on an intarsia Christmas tree. Okay, so probably no savvy Budget Travel reader would be silly enough to try to fly in a battery-powered sweater, but gold threads? An easy mistake to make—and lucky for you, reader, one that I've made for you. Have you ever been singled out for a similarly silly-seeming reason? What are the most surprising things you've been pulled aside for by the TSA? SEE MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL: 8 Most Common Air Travel Snafus Top Budget Travel Destinations for 2012 8 Items You Never Pack...But Should

London's Heathrow Airport is the world's busiest international airport, but it's too full and it can't grow any further. Protests by local residents have prevented an additional runway and terminal from being built. Rival airport Gatwick faces a similar problem. So, government officials have turned their eye south to the idea of building a brand new airport where no local residents can possibly protest it—in the middle of the Thames Estuary. Earlier this month, the plan for a new airport was unveiled to the public by famous British architect Norman Foster. The Thames Hub would be set on an island near the mouth of the Thames River. It would be connected to the city by a $10 billion "orbital shuttle train," says the Times of London. The airport could be partly financed by private investment or international sovereign wealth funds, claim officials. This weekend, the Financial Times reported that the idea of building an alternative hub airport south of London has won support from key players: Chancellor George Osbourne (who oversees the British Treasury), the new Transport Secretary Justine Greening, and the prime minister's main policy advisor Steve Hilton. The mayor of London Boris Johnson has been advocating for a new airport since he released a report in January saying the city's economic future depends on such expansion. Air passenger numbers are expected to double in the next 20 years, and British officials worry that airlines may re-route their flights to rival, larger airports, such as Schiphol in Amsterdam, Charles de Gaulle in Paris, Frankfurt am Main, and Dubai International. Unlike these airports, Heathrow has not been expanded since it was first built in 1946. Its two runways already operate at 98 percent of capacity on the typical day. Britain isn't the first to consider moving its main transit hub to a larger airport. Moving a hub airport is something other cities, such as Milan, Hong Kong, Paris, and Tokyo, have done successfully. Governments have talked of expanding London's airport capacity since the 1960s, though. The debate is likely to continue for another couple of years before a final decision. So travelers shouldn't expect relief any year soon. What do you think about Heathrow? Does it deserve replacing? SEE MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL London: Heathrow Airport Debuts Driverless Pods Avoid Heathrow! Pod Hotel Lands at Heathrow