about your holiday

Where can you go to get good unbiased information about a holiday quickly before you book it? Well read on, we have some great places, all free of course.

Honest and unbiased information on your holiday accommodation?
All travel agents have a directory called the 'Gazetteer', which gives a factual, honest and unbiased opinion on most holiday accommodation. If you are booking at a high street travel agent you can ask to see it. However, most are 'backwards at coming forwards' with it - they don't like to share its sometimes bruising reviews.

But, you can get access to it online - free. This is one of our favourite online travel resources. When you go to the travel section of the virgin website you get a busy travel home page. Ignore the holidays and offers (we've never found a cheap deal there) and click on the 'Resort Finder' link (in the index in the left hand margin). Then enter your holiday destination and search and find the holiday accommodation you've been offered. You'll find an honest, unbiased opinion. Then decide whether you want to book the holiday!

Information about the general area?
Most holiday destinations have a 'tourist office' charged with promoting the area. They provide lots of good information and free advice to potential visitors. Much of it is available online. You can find your holiday destination's tourist office at the 'towd' (tourist offices worldwide directory) website.

What's on whilst you're there?
Check if your holiday coincides with a 'must-see and do occasion' with the whatsonwhen searchable database of festivals and events.

Want to see where your accommodation is compared to the 'attractions'?
Then get a map. Or rather look at a map online and print it if you want. We like the multimap website. Not only does it have good worldwide coverage, it's easy to navigate and, unlike some 'free' online map websites, allows you to print them (it even has printer friendly pages).

Want information about travelling to a specific country?
Try the Foreign & Commonwealth Office website. It has the government's view on around 160 countries.

Four of the best travel guides are Lonely Planet, Time Out, Frommers and Rough Guides. Want most of the information from their guides for free?
All four publishers have great websites, very generously giving you free access to much of the information in their guides. They don't give you all of the information and you won't want to (or be able to) print it out to take with you on holiday, so you'll still need to buy a guide (as you probably already know, if you can wait for delivery amazon offer the cheapest prices), but you can get a great deal of information about the country and the resort by combining the free information from these four travel guide websites.