3 Ways to Get the Most Out of TripAdvisor
If you’ve used TripAdvisor only to check hotel availability, you’re missing out on a lot of what it offers. This post is not an advertisement for TripAdvisor; we don’t get paid by anyone to include or exclude their businesses (but if you’re looking to spend some money, call us!).
We just want to share the ways we’ve used TripAdvisor to achieve more socially conscious travel.
- Hotels and Other Accommodations. Wherever you’re planning a trip, check out travelers’ accommodations reviews first. We have been able to rule out several seemingly awesome offers once we are clued in to what the accommodations are truly like. On the other hand, we’ve found excellent off-the-beaten-path lodging also using TripAdvisor. Finding what you need is best when you know which hotel and/or which city you’ll be staying in. You can search by city to find the top rated bed & breakfasts, etc and then read what travelers say about them. Of course, you need to take the reviews with a grain of salt and there may be fine places that occasionally get bad reviews but if there are enough reviews, you’ll see themes – good and bad. We have also posted our own reviews of places we’ve liked and want to recommend to other travelers. Many smaller and locally-owned lodges report that the majority of their reservations are made due to TripAdvisor reviews.
- Forums. Most of the TripAdvisor forums have Local Experts that moderate the discussions. But there are usually also past travelers reading forum questions who give helpful advice. It’s a good idea to review several pages of past forum discussions before posting your own question; it’s likely you’ll find either answers to the question you were planning on posting or other information that will be useful in your travels. Also, make sure the title of your post is specific enough that people will actually read it. Don’t title it “Restaurants in China.” People also post trip reports on the forums – some can be quite illuminating. Even the ones that are far from the type of travel you’re looking for can be useful – to see what not to do.
(The best way to get to both of these sections is by going to the homepage and clicking on the “browse by destination map area” of where you’re planning to go. Then click on the hotels or forums sections on the subsequent page’s left-hand sidebar.)
- TripAdvisor’s Partners. TripAdvisor has grown a lot and has many corporate travel partners including Booking Buddy, Cruise Critic, Smarter Travel, etc. The only one we’ve used is Virtual Tourist, something of a travel community. Virtual Tourist has forums but also has member pages, tips from “community members,” meet-ups, etc. We found some useful information on our Italy trip through VT members’ reporting, photos, and tips. For example, without VT help, we wouldn’t have known where to buy the local Italian book that had maps of the hiking trails we wanted to check out.
Now, go forth and culture! (Get it? Get it? Oh brother.)
I used it extensively for the reviews during the planning phase of my last trip to Spain (and also for planning trips here in the States too), and it certainly helped. One thing I noticed though is that the reviews seemed to be overly critical, as least from my perspective. So when people were saying a hotel was average and had some issues, really it actually seemed to suit my needs quite nicely. Of course I’m never looking for luxury, just a good value for my money. I didn’t have any experiences where the hotels were worse than any of the reviews, so as long as you take them with a grain of salt I think they are extremely helpful.
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