Five Great Websites to Use When You Travel

Alright, alright, I know Travel Blurbs is probably your favorite travel website (right?), but there are a ton of great ones out there, from those that'll help you score great travel deals to those that figure out that pesky exchange rate for you. Here are a few sites I use frequently when I'm traveling.

1. MenuPages.com: If I'm in a strange city and looking for somewhere to grab a bite to eat, this handy compilation of local menus helps me decide what I'm in the mood for. And if I want to order pizza to my hotel room but can't find the pizza joint's menu on its website? MenuPages steps in again!
2. Hopstop.com: With subway or bus directions in nine cities (from San Francisco to London!), this is one site I fire up time and time again before I leave the airport or my hotel. I'm always getting on the wrong train in unfamiliar cities, so this is huge.
3. Xe.com: Want to figure out how many Vietnamese dong are in a dollar? Grappling with whether that diving tour listed in pesos is really cheaper than it would be at home? Enter Xe.com, a fantastic currency exchange site that sorts it out for you once and for all.
   
4. IgoUgo.com: Excellent reviews on hotels, restaurants, nightlife, and activities have me coming back to this one time and time again. Wondering if that museum's worth it? There's only one way to find out--well, one way apart from going there, of course. IgoUgo also lets you compare rates on great travel deals too.
   
5. Seatguru.com: Think you've scored when you choose seat 12A? Think again---it might not recline or (worse!) be near the toilets. This site shows you layouts of hundreds of planes, leaving you to decide if a seat's as good as you think it is.