all talk and no action

I learnt to make use of user reviews before booking hotels after arriving at a Florida motel that some friends and I had booked online, on the basis of it being a. cheap and b. reasonably ok-looking in the photo. On arrival, we realised that it was also the perfect place to get shot. Since then, I've relied on the excellent VirtualTourist and TripAdvisor for a heads-up on places I'm visiting, but now Yahoo! has come up with something I can see myself using instead.

The Yahoo! Trip Planner (in public beta) lets you build a complete schedule for an upcoming trip. It's nifty: simply log in, choose your destination and travel dates and then browse for hotels, restaurants and activities. Clicking a hotel name, for example, takes you to the relevant Yahoo! Travel page where you can read user reviews, check prices and make reservations. Back in Trip Planner, you can get driving directions to the places you want to visit, schedule activities for specific times and dates, add your own notes, and then share the resulting itinerary with your travel companions or the entire Yahoo! Travel community.

If you don't want to build your own schedule, or you're after inspiration, there are already over 700 public trips listed, including the Sideways Movie Wine Trip and the Cracking The Da Vinci Code Trip.