What's new for theme parks in 2011

Every year has its ups and downs. But how often does a volcanic eruption shut down air travel to Europe for several days? We take it for granted that we can jet off anywhere in the world on a whim. For a few days last spring, we were put in our place by The Volcano Whose Name Americans Can't Pronounce. Here's the spectacular video footage of Eyjafjallajökull's eruption: Iceland, May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo. MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL Video: How to Tackle San Francisco's Chinatown Video: How to Slow the World Down Video: Iceland Makes the Best Tourism Ad of the Year Video: The World Is Awesome

Looking for smart ways to book your trips online? Never turn to an established travel website. Major companies have a negative attitude toward innovation: It's too risky. A key executive at Priceline once summed it up: "We are rarely the first to anything. There's a great cartoon of the American West a long time ago: a man face down in the dust with an arrow in his back. He was 'the first mover.'" All of the major companies leave innovation to startups. That puts you in a powerful position. We know from surveys that the average Budget Travel reader is an early adopter and a frequent traveler. You're usually the first to try new things, and you love to travel. What's a new website or travel technology you really liked this year? Here are some innovations we've covered at Budget Travel: Hipmunk: Airfare search with a sense of humor New site Wanderfly will be wonderful at inspiring travelers New site TripAlertz is Groupon for travel New site TripTrace wants to be your travel muse TrustYou aims to use "semantic search" to highlight the most relevant hotel reviews Autoslash can track changes in your rental car rate after you book your trip MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL Test Lab: iPad as travel tool Test Lab: Kindle as travel tool

It still costs a premium to ship your luggage ahead, instead of checking it at the airport. But as airlines continue to hike their baggage fees, bag-shipping services look ever more appealing because they're so much more convenient. The biggest drawback, besides cost, is the delay. For a reasonably priced delivery, you have to wait up to three business days for your luggage to arrive. Sigh. These services work best domestically. Don't try to ship a bag overseas, or it may be detained by customs and you may be hit with duties and other charges. The most impressive third-party service for budget travelers is Luggage Free's luggagefreeeconomy.com. For $70 each way, you can send a bag weighing up to 50 pounds cross-country. (Some types of bags and itineraries cost a bit more.) The service includes free courier pick-up from your home at a specific time. The bag is delivered within three business days, to a residence, hotel, or cruise line. The service is well regarded. Wall Street Journal, for instance, tested the major luggage shipping services, and their top pick was Luggage Free. You can generally save even more money by dropping your bag off at a FedEx, UPS, or similar shipping service, skipping the courier service. As a rule, if your bag (or baggage collectively) weighs more than 55 pounds, it is generally just as cheap to ship your bag as it is to check it in, domestically. Case in point: On a New York City to Chicago route, UPS Ground, 2-business-day service is about $30 each way. FedEx Ground is about $20 each way. In comparison, Delta charges $23 each way for your first checked bag, and $35 for your second. (See AirfareWatchdog's shipping price comparison chart for more examples.) FedEx, UPS, and other shippers will deliver directly to a residence or hotel (if you call ahead to make sure a manager will sign for receipt; the hotel may charge a small fee for storing your bag). You can save more with these shippers if you pack your belongings in a box instead of a piece of luggage. SOME TIPS: Wrap your bag in advance in a cardboard box or a very sturdy plastic bag; otherwise, your bag may become dirty and handles and zippers may break. Most shippers will not pay damages for luggage that was not shipped to protect it. Address your bag to the hotel itself. Then call a hotel desk employee in advance. They can make a note in your reservation file. When shipping to a hotel, make sure the name of the person booking the room and their arrival date is on the package. When the bag arrives, they'll sign for it, after checking your hotel reservation record, and they'll store the bag for you. Keep in mind that, as of today, JetBlue doesn't charge for your first checked bag. And Southwest doesn't charge for your first or second checked bags. Thank goodness at least a couple of airlines aren't nickel-and-diming us to death. MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL Why Is the TSA Questioning Me? (30+ comments) Bizarre Traveler Behavior 6 Places Germs Breed in a Plane

Up until now, using a smartphone to "check in" at a location—meaning, publish on the Internet that you've been to a particular restaurant, hotel, or other attraction—has been too weird for most Americans. (Sample update: "Anton just became 'the Mayor' of B&O; coffee shop in Cebo City, the Philippines!") But watch out. Facebook, the site that Americans now spend more time on than Google itself, is popularizing the idea. Last month, Facebook introduced Deals, an app you can download to your smartphone and use to check in to a coffee shop or other location. The store's owners can then create a discount for users who check in. For instance, the Gap has used the service to give away free jeans to the first 10,000 people who used the tool at their store. This online record of where you've been is valuable information for travel companies, like the startup TripTrace, which would like to use your "check ins" and other bits of travel history to recommend new places for you to try—and to offer you discounts on products and services. Last week, the startup TripTrace came out of beta testing with a plan to put all of those "check ins," good use. Give the site access to the location-based service you use most—Facebook, FourSquare, Gowalla—and TripTrace will use the information to predict similar coffee shops, hotels, and other attractions that you might like to visit. The site does more than just that, though. It also aims to be the place where you store your trip planning information forever. Many travelers, after they are done with a trip, toss out the train schedules, forget the names of hotels, and lose their airline itineraries. TripTrace would save all of that information for you—for your eyes only, it says—and then use that information to help predict what you might like to do on a future trip as well as introduce you to easier ways to plan your future trips. TripTrace's most useful tool, I think, is a calculator that makes an educated guess about how expensive it is going to be to do something on your trip. Say you type in "bungee-jumping in New Zealand, for two people." The site would tot up an estimate of how expensive that will be. This allows you to budget for your trip more accurately. If you give it a spin for one of your upcoming trips, let us know what you think about it. MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL Hipmunk: Airfare search with a sense of humor New site Wanderfly will be wonderful at inspiring travelers TripAlertz is Groupon for travel