Explore Brooklyn By Bike With 'Get Up And Ride'

Hotels can take up a big chunk of your vacation budget. Luckily there are websites out there designed to save you money at the hotel that's right for you. I chatted with Kevin Fliess, the Chief Operating Officer of Room 77, to find out how his site helps travelers score the best available rate—and get the amenities they want as well. Similar to Kayak, Room 77 acts as a metasearch, scoping out deals on thousands of websites at once in a matter of seconds. Room 77's search engine is able to access rates being offered by online travel agencies (think Orbitz or Expedia), prices being offered directly by the hotels themselves, and special rates offered to members of the military, AAA, and AARP (if you qualify), helping travelers find the lowest prices available. Period. You can also book through Room 77's mobile app (available in The App Store and on Google Play), or through their partner site, Expedia.  What also makes Room 77 stand out is their super-detailed hotel pages. Once you track down the perfect price, Room 77 shows you photos of the hotel (including rooms) so you know exactly what you're getting. You can also search by popular freebies like WiFi, parking, breakfast, and airport shuttle, effectively cutting out those extra expenses that can really add up. You can also view the hotel via Google StreetView, explore the hotel floor map, and get a quick preview of what your view will be like from the hotel room. Another useful feature is the Insider Tips on the Best Rooms at this Hotel section, where you'll get advice about where the quiet rooms are, which have the best views, and where to find the oversized rooms.  Narrow it down by preference—do you enjoy staying on a higher floor compared to a lower floor? Is the view an important factor? Do you prefer to be close to the elevator or further away where it's quiet? Will you be needing a connecting room for a family vacation?—to help find the room that works best for you. Room 77 also offers a free room concierge service for bookings on all four or five star hotels or on hotel reservations that total $400 or more made directly through their website—just select your room preferences and Room 77 will request them from your hotel on your behalf within 24-48 hours of your stay. (If you end up booking a lower-tier hotel or through another site like booking.com or hotels.com however, you will have to contact the hotel directly to see if you can get the exact room you want according to your preferences.)

Online travel agents make booking plane tickets and hotel reservations a breeze. But that's usually where the relationship ends. A new free service through Travelocity aims to help you plan all aspects of your vacation—and will even help if disaster strikes. Here's how it works. After booking a vacation package that includes air and hotel through Travelocity, you will be emailed a phone number for a concierge that can help with everything from restaurant recommendations and theater tickets to tee times at local golf courses. Concierges can also assist with travel disasters like stolen luggage and lost passports. Travelocity is the first OTA to introduce a concierge service, but if the program is successful, we bet more sites will follow suit.

Let's face it: We're not in the business of covering luxury tours. Just look at our name. So why is Abercrombie & Kent—perhaps the luxest of the luxe for 50 years—on our radar at the moment? We like to say behind the scenes that Budget Travel is more about "value" than bargain-bin savings. Sure, we care about the bottom line, but the more important question for us is, "How can you get the most bang for your well-earned buck?"Abercrombie & Kent has unveiled a new line of Connections journeys, small group tours (24 to 28 people) that are priced on average about thirty percent lower than their normal offerings. If your idea of "luxury" involves fluffy robes and spa days and Champagne and caviar, you might end up being a little surprised. The Connections program, as its name implies, is surprisingly intimate and focused on hands-on cultural experiences.True, a tour with A&K Connections will still feel upscale. Hotels are 4- or 5-stars, with the occasional 5-star GL (that means Grand Luxe) thrown in for good measure. But there is also an attention to detail when it comes to choosing lodging. On their "Spain: Seven Cities" Connections tour (10 days from $5,495), for example, you might stay in the Belle Epoque Hotel Ritz in Madrid, literally feet from the Prado, or the Moorish-influenced Hotel Alfonso XIII in Seville. These are not, by any means, sterile corporate chains.  But what sets these tours apart is how close you'll get to the action. Activities on the Spain trip are focused on getting you away from the tourist circuit to experiences you'd never be able to have otherwise: a private recital by Andalusian musicians in Granada, in a style based on North African music from over 1,000 years ago; a flamenco show and a dinner at a private palace in Seville; sherry tastings at a bodega in Jerez. Guides are local, and you get the sense that they're approaching their subject from the point of view of a passionate academic (that college professor who, through her sheer enthusiasm, actually made you care about Plato or Pythagoras) rather than a tour guide for hire. The A&K Connections program will offer 17 trips around the world, always with an intimate, hands-on focus: eating oysters with a Croat fisherman, visiting a special-needs school in Kenya, exploring an Australian rainforest with an indigenous guide, or meeting Peruvian weavers in the Andes. In a sense, the luxury of access. Let us know below: What kinds of special activities are worth a splurge? Would you pay a little extra for a trip like this?

Budget carriers like easyJet and Ryanair revolutionized air travel in Europe back in the early and mid-2000s. Last year, Asia underwent its own budget travel renaissance with the launch of low-cost airlines like Scoot and AirAsia. Now, Africa's getting in on the action with the launch of the continent's first low-cost carrier, Fastjet. Fastjet's inaugural flights took off last week, traveling from the company's hub in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to airports in Mwanza and Kilimanjaro from as low as $20 a ticket. While the airline is operating only those two routes for the time being, it will expand within the coming weeks to Zanzibar, Tanzania; Entebbe, Uganda; and Mombasa and Nairobi in Kenya. South Africa may be added to the airline's roster shortly, if negotiations with the bankrupted carrier 1time are successful. Fastjet is likely to be a come as a welcome relief for travelers in Africa, where regional flights can be particularly costly (flights between Dar Es Salaam and Mwanza on other carriers start at about $400), and alternative means of transport (buses, trains) can be slow and difficult to navigate. With seasoned budget airline execs such as easyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou, former Air Uganda CEO Kyle Haywood, and former Ryanair training chief Harun Cordan on board, Fastjet is in experienced hands, and if turnout on last week's flights is any indication, things are looking good. "Fastjet is delighted to see how the people of Tanzania are embracing the Low Cost Carrier model," CEO Ed Winter stated in a press release. "Clearly, as predicted, our low cost model is stimulating a whole new market of people to fly."