Visit the 'Zoo, or Kayak your way of town

With the travel season revving up, it's a zoo out there, but it doesn't have to feel like one when you're planning a trip.

Sorry, for the cheesy intro, but I had to!

Alright, in addition to the multitude of travel sites offering reduced prices and package deals, like Hotwire, Travelocity and Expedia, a resource I recommend is a place called TravelZoo. According to the travelzoo.com, " ... TravelZoo is the most trusted publisher of travel deals. Our team researches, evaluates and tests thousands of deals to find those with true value. We recommend only deals whose accuracy and availability we can confirm. With over 18 million subscribers, we are the largest publisher of travel deals on the Internet. More than 2,000 travel companies from around the world list their very best offers with us."

TravelZoo publishes a Top 20 list, self-proclaimed as the "definitive list of the week's best travel deals." One can sign up for notifications by email. You can do that here.

Other cool stuff include a destination of the week, weekend getaways, vacation specials, car rental deals and cruise sales.

If TravelZoo doesn't work out for you, you may want to try Kayak.

The Web site has a cleaner layout, with options located on the left-hand side of your screen. I haven't tried kayak.com, personally, however, it has iPhone support and the reviews are off the chart. According to Kayak's site, "Everybody knows what a search site is, and everybody knows what a travel site is. KAYAK is like both, but it’s different in some important ways.

Like a search site, we help you find what you want. What makes us different is that we’re specialized. Our tools are made to deeply understand things like airfares and hotel stays. And like a travel site we have flights and hotels. But we’re very different from most travel sites because we don't actually sell plane tickets, hotel rooms, or anything else."

So there are two options to get your creative juices flowing. Bon voyage!