When I start a search I look at to www.travelocity.com, www.kayak.com & www.sidestep.com. If I am flying within the U.S. I add www.southwest.com as southwest airlines offers fares separate from some of these databases.

After finding a price what I STRONGLY encourage you to do is go to ebay. When you put in the search term "Travel Voucher" you will get a list of auctions from people selling unused vouchers. *A word of note, before bidding make sure that the travel voucher is transferable, most are but not necessarily all. To get the deal, you not only need to find the best price on one of the aforementioned search engines, but if you can take that lowest price and then receive an additional discount by say, purchasing a $400 voucher for $300, you can substantially increase your savings.

When it comes to hotels www.hotels.com is the main place I go. That said, I will check out the individual websites of large chains (Hyatt, Hilton, etc...) as they sometimes offer deals only available via their website.

While you didn't mention it in your question I do want to add that if you are searching for car rental deals go to www.priceline.com. Check around first to see what companies are charging for the dates you want to rent a car and then start bidding via priceline at around 50% of the average rate.

With these tips you should be able to keep a little extra "green" in your pocket which is not a bad thing at all during these trying times.

As to your final question regarding where I travel, I only "normally" travel within the U.S., especially since the value of our dollar has decreased so much. I have traveled extensively in Europe, Africa and the South Pacific. Costa Rica and Peru are my only two ventures into Latin America. Best of luck on your future travels!
Source(s):
www.travelocity.com
www.kayak.com
www.sidestep.com
www.southwest.com
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37.l1313&...
www.hotels.com
www.priceline.com


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