Rooms at Venice's Bauer Hotel, which Conde Nast Traveler readers have voted one of their favorite properties in the world, can be booked on Jetsetter.com for $250 to $300 per night, vs. the rack rate of $384 to $589 per night.

by Wendy Perrin

For years our only online options for booking top-rated hotels and resorts at steep discounts were pretty much limited to Luxury Link and Tablet Hotels. That's why I'm happy to see Jetsetter land on the scene. Jetsetter is a flash-sale site that negotiates with noteworthy hotels, cruise lines, and other luxe travel suppliers to offer slashed rates unavailable to the general public. It just launched in beta a few hours ago and, I must say, it's refreshing to see a travel booking site that not only caters to sophisticated travelers--a group that has been grossly underserved in the online travel space--but is also, thanks to its large photos and uncluttered layout, actually appealing to look at.

Like its parent company Gilt Groupe, Jetsetter is a members-only site. You need to be invited to join. Lucky for you, I've finagled just such an invite, specifically for Perrin Post readers: Click on this custom link to register, and every night at 8 p.m. you'll receive an e-mail announcing the latest sale. Each sale should include no more than a handful of select travel experiences -- hotels, resorts, yachts, luxe cruises and tours -- that will be available at a significant discount for either a two-day window or until dates are sold out.

by Wendy Perrin

I'm hoping somebody can help me answer this question from reader Dina:

"What is your opinion of Zicasso? I was thinking of using this site to help me plan my trip next year to Paris and Italy. Would you recommend it?"

My understanding of how Zicasso works is that travelers looking for customized itineraries fill out a lengthy list of parameters (destination, dates, favorite activites, etc.) and Zicasso's global network of tour operators and travel agents respond with up to three trip options. You peruse the itineraries and book the one that's right for you.

I haven't used Zicasso, though, nor have I heard feedback from any Conde Nast Traveler readers who have, so I can't tell you how well it works. What I can tell you is that, after 20 years of interviewing thousands of tour operators and travel agents for projects for Conde Nast Traveler, the best I've found for France and Italy are on my annually updated list of the world's top travel specialists. You can read reviews of these travel planners, from Conde Nast Traveler readers who've booked trips through them, here.

Meanwhile, does anyone have feedback about Zicasso to share with Dina? I'd love to hear. Thanks!

Nighttime in Sin City.

by Wendy Perrin

Thanks to an oversupply of hotel rooms and an undersupply of business travelers, Las Vegas is one of the biggest travel bargains out there right now. Fortunately, a new blog called VegasChatter, sister site to Jaunted and HotelChatter, has arrived on the scene to keep us in the know about all things Vegas. 

I'm not telling you this because VegasChatter is owned by Conde Nast Traveler's parent company. (Well, maybe that's one reason.) I'm telling you this because, if I were Vegas-bound, I'd want to know such insider tips as where to find free Wi-Fi, how to book a luxe Grand Canyon helicopter tour, and how to watch the high rollers without actually rolling yourself. Yet another travel blog to add to your RSS feed!

The Guardian's Benji Lanyado TwitterTripping through Paris.

by Wendy Perrin

Check out what's unfolding over at the online water cooler known as Twitter: U.K. Guardian travel writer Benji Lanyado is in Paris with no advance plans, basing all his travel decisions--where to stay, what to see, where to eat--on tips sent to him, in real time, by the people following him on Twitter. Yes, folks, it's the latest, greatest, most cutting-edge form of travel: the TwiTrip. Click here to follow Benji's progress and here to read the Paris recs he's been receiving.

Twitter is not just changing people's trips. It's changing people's lives. But I don't need to tell you what a big deal Twitter is because people like The New York Times' Clive Thompson and MSNBC's Chris Elliott already have. And I don't need to tell you who the travel twitterati are -- the people you should be following on Twitter if you want to know what's going on in the world of travel -- because several lists have already been published, including this one and this one.

So instead I'm going to list some of the non-travel-world people who make Twitter such a fascinating destination. Following their Twitter updates ("tweets") allows me to see inside the brains of some of today's most influential thinkers and find out what's going on in the world almost before it happens. Here are just a few of the "tweeple" every smart twitterer should know about:

by Wendy Perrin

Here's something pretty cool: The Telegraph in London named The Perrin Post one of "the world's best travel blogs." (I'm hoping it had nothing to do with yesterday's photo.)

by Wendy Perrin

Note to any of you who are on Facebook: There's a fun new game I discovered this weekend called Geo Challenge that tests your knowledge of world geography--specifically, countries, cities, and flags. Check it out. (But if you get addicted don't blame me.)

That's me and the kids in Tuscany during the grape harvest 3 years ago.

by Wendy Perrin

If you'd like to know my answers to the following questions . . .

1. How did you get your start as a travel writer?

2. How did you start blogging?

3. Have you had mentors, and how did they help you?

4. Is there one article or accomplishment you are most proud of?

5. Why do you think there are so few women in visible positions in this industry?

6. Do you think that being one of the few prominent women travel writers gives you a different perspective?

7. How did having kids change your career path? Were there things you gave up, or did you change your focus?

8. How do you balance the need to be on the road with the need to spend time with your family?

9. What is your favorite travel memory with your kids?

10. What do you hope that your children learn from their travel experiences?

. . . then click over to Delicious Baby, the great blog written by longtime Conde Nast Traveler subscriber Debbie Dubrow, who has published an interview with yours truly.

by Wendy Perrin

Big news: Conde Nast Traveler's Web site, CNTraveler.com, will be spinning off from the Concierge.com mother ship next year and voyaging into cyberspace on its own.  We're building our brand-new site from scratch--which has us all very excited--and I've been in a lot of discussions lately about what the new CNTraveler.com should be and what features it should have. Of course, we'd love to hear from YOU as well.

Are you interested in having input into the new CNTraveler.com? Just click here if you have thoughts to share about what would be most useful for our community of travelers. Of course, if you'd prefer to post a comment below sharing suggestions for the new site, that works too. Thanks for your help, everyone!

by Wendy Perrin

Thank God for the Olympics. With my husband and sons glued to the TV for much of this past weekend, at long last I got a chance to make the tiniest of inroads into catch up on my travel-blog reading.  Of the insights and opinions I stumbled upon, here are my faves:

Price of Oil Falls, so how about a Flight Surcharge Refund? asks Darren Cronian of TravelRants. With fuel surcharges adding $300 or $400 to air fares overseas, that's a great question.

In his Seat 2B column on Portfolio.com, Joe Brancatelli writes about the spirit-crushing runaway devaluation of airline miles: "Frequent-flier miles are becoming the Zimbabwean dollars of business travel--increasingly worthless." Alas, he's right on the mark (as always).

I discovered air-fare god Rick Seaney's killer U.S. Domestic Airline Fee Chart, which should be required reading for anyone buying a domestic ticket these days.

And I learned from Jeanne Leblanc's Coach Class that a row of seats broke loose on a United Airlines flight and slid into the passengers in the next row.  Jeanne points out a FlyerTalk thread in which one FT member joked, "Well clearly it's their own fault .. the passengers in that row refused to pay the seat anchoring fee . . they got what they deserved."  I'm still laughing. And crying on the inside.

The one piece of spirit-lifting news? Pam over at Nerd's Eye View has started a Travelbloggers' Forum "in response to the call for a more cohesive community of travelbloggers."  Apparently travel blogging is now important enough to have become one word, so you can bet I'm gonna join.

Attention, coach fliers:  Delta's new "Cozy Suite" seats, from Thompson Solutions, are on the way.

by Wendy Perrin

For your weekend reading pleasure, here are five nifty posts that I stumbled upon in the blogosphere this week:

(1) Wired's Autopia blog on The Cozy Suite -- Building a Better Airplane Seat. These seats, to be introduced in 2010 on Delta 767s and 777s, will provide more legroom, a place to rest your head, and two armrests for each passenger. They won't recline but, personally, I consider that a huge plus.  (By the way, it's amazing to me what the airline, cruise, and hotel industries get away with calling a "suite" these days.)

(2) Delicious Baby on Easy Hack for Getting a Refund From Your Credit Card. Attention, digital-camera shutterbugs who traveled abroad between 1996 and 2006: Here's a surprisingly easy and fun way to get money back for the foreign transaction fees you were unfairly charged by your credit card.

(3) HowStuffWorks on What happens to weapons confiscated at the airport? Collecting and reselling the thousands of items confiscated daily turns out to be a profitable business. The article even explains how to "become a millionaire! Sell confiscated weapons on eBay!"

(4) The Juggle, The Wall Street Journal's blog about the choices and tradeoffs people make as they juggle work and family, on Breastfeeding on the Move and Other '"Bad Parent" Shortcuts.  Any mom who's taken a road trip with an infant can relate and will probably find the thread of passionate comments riveting.

(5) Eileen Ogintz's Taking the Kids on How to Find the Perfect Beach Getaway because her post introduced me to a nifty Orbitz tool for finding your ideal beach vacation. Love it!

Enjoy your weekend, everyone.

My family sometimes has trouble following the "rules of in-flight etiquette."  :)

by Wendy Perrin

For your weekend reading pleasure, here are my five favorite recent posts from around the blogosphere:

1. Lost Weekend on The Unwritten Rules of In-flight Etiquette. I'm still laughing. My favorite: "If I'm in the middle seat, I own both armrests."

2. The Cranky Flier on the Playmobil Security Checkpoint -- a miniature version of those airport X-ray stations we all know and love  --  and the hilarious customer reviews that the toy has elicited on Amazon. e.g., "I was a little disappointed when I first bought this item because the functionality is limited. My 5-year-old son pointed out that the passenger's shoes cannot be removed."  And "There's no brown figure for little Josh to profile, taser, and detain . . . . And shouldn't someone be forcing a mother figure to drink her own breast milk?"

3. Paul Brady on Jaunted's Guide to NYC Shopping For Brits, which recommends stores for the legions of Europeans who are taking advantage of the weak dollar by going on Manhattan shopping sprees. Paul even lists prices in pounds sterling.

4. On a more serious note, Chris Elliott on 6 Secrets Car Rental Companies Don't Want You To Know. Love the fact that it's a former car rental agent who spills the beans. Hate the fact that this scoops my upcoming June Perrin Report which, thanks to print magazine lead times, I wrote back in February yet can't be read till June.  Aaarrgh.

5. Politico on Congress Has History of Travel Woes. We (at least, I) tend to think that people in positions of power don't face the same air travel nightmares that we plebs are forced to suffer, so it's refreshing to read about what various senators et al. have had to contend with.

Happy weekend, everyone!

by Wendy Perrin

Where's Brook?  Where's Guy?  Where's Barbara?  They and the Perrin Post's other sometime contributors have a new home called Daily Traveler. Yes, Conde Nast Traveler has finally launched its editors' blog (it's about f***ing time!) where, hopefully, more and more of the magazine's editors will eventually be posting their news and views as they travel the world. For now you'll find Brook's weekly Responsible Traveler posts there, as well as Guy's and Barbara's airport and airline coverage. As for Stephan, he's currently too busy trying to fix his Porsche, but maybe once he gets the car to start he'll want to come back and contribute. The Perrin Post will return to being written solo, as often as I can swing it.

That's me, blogging from baggage claim at the Fort Lauderdale Airport. At right are my bags, at left my kids.

by Wendy Perrin

Where he gets the time, I don't know, but Mark Ashley over at Upgrade: Travel Better is running the Travvies again this year. Nominations for these awards, which honor the best in travel blogging, are now being accepted. You have until the end of this week to nominate up to 3 blogs in each of 8 different categories. Every blog that's nominated, even if only once, will be in contention -- which is great because this frees everyone up to nominate some of the underdogs and lesser-knowns that may have little chance of winning but deserve props.

In the category of Best Single-Author Blog, for instance, instead of nominating great but already wildly popular blogs such as Cheapest Destinations or View From The Wing, I nominated Rick Seaney, Don George, and Musings of the Global Traveller.  Their blogs may not be the coolest thing out there, but I trust their advice. Trusting the writer is what dictated my choices for Best Informative/Practical Travel Blog too: Seat 2B from Joe Brancatelli, Flight Bliss from Matthew Bennett, and -- because of the blood, sweat, and tears I've poured into it, not to mention the huge amounts of my own money I've spent, and freebies I've turned away, so I can report to you free of conflicts of interest -- The Perrin Post.

For Best Big Media Blog (isn't that an oxymoron?), I nominated three from USA Today: Gene Sloan's The Cruise Log, Ben Mutzabaugh's Today In The Sky, and Kitty Bean Yancey's Hotel Hotsheet. Gene's the one I'm in awe of: How he manages to balance his full-time print-journalism job, travel schedule, and three kids is beyond me. Every minute I spend blogging is a minute I'm not spending with my two sons who already don't see me enough because of my full-time print-journalism job and travel schedule (which is why I'm blogging less often and have given up hope of winning the Big Media slot.)

It ain't easy blogging with six- and four-year-old sons in tow.

As for the overall award for Best Travel Blog, I nominated Seat 2B (which technically may not even be a blog, but who cares? Joe Brancatelli's the best), The Gate (because any tool that points you quickly and easily to the best wisdom in FlyerTalk is doing the world an important service), and Girl Solo In Arabia (because what Carolyn McIntyre has accomplished is nothing short of amazing).

So who will YOU be nominating?  Even if you don't care to vote, it's interesting to check out the lists of nominations and introduce yourself to all the travel blogs you never knew existed.

Visitors to Auckland, above, and other cities can get insider tips from a network of city-based bloggers around the world.
Photo: Jon Arnold Images, Alamy

by Brook Wilkinson

Avid Perrin Post reader Seafarer just hosted the latest Carnival of Cities over at Home Turf Media, a network of city-based blogs with in-the-know advice from locals living around the world. In addition to mentioning Wendy's post on Burma/Myanmar, she also highlighted a number of other helpful travel blogs that you should all check out. I particularly liked The Seattle Traveler's route recommendation -- Route 11 to Bellingham, a great little town I visited last spring -- and wholeheartedly agree with Doris Chua over at Life, Travel, Passion, & More that Ponsonby is Auckland's chicest, most interesting neighborhood.

Are you itching for a weekend away, but don't want to drop a ton of cash? Kayak now lets users search for airfares between the same cities over multiple weekends, all at once. If you don't specify certain weekends or days of the week, Kayak will search for the lowest fares leaving Thursday or Friday and returning Sunday for the next five weekends. Not surprisingly, the lowest fares are typically on the weekends furthest out, but I found that having all the information on one page is really helpful. If I wanted to go visit my grandmother in Naples, Florida, for instance, Kayak showed me that I'd get the lowest fare into Fort Meyers by leaving San Francisco on Friday, October 5th, and that I'd pay almost $100 more to leave just one week earlier.

Kayak won't help you find a destination with a great deal, but if you already know where you want to go and are flexible about the dates, it's a quick way to see the lowest weekend airfares.