Free Excerpt from World Business
Resources.com by Garrett Wasny
CHAPTER ONE: BORDER BUSTER TOOLKIT
ON THE ROAD
Reserve With Verve. Become your own travel agent. Use services such as Biztravel, Microsoft Expedia, TheTrip.com, and Travelocity. All enable you to check fares, book flights, and reserve hotels worldwide online.
Map it Out. Need a map for your cross-border travels? Mapquest offers maps on dozens of cities across the United States and around the world. Free to download and print, the maps can be customized to list places of interest such as hotels and automatic teller machines, and even zoom in on particular city sections and streets.
State of the City. For country and city guides, check out Click City, Excite Travel, and Lonely Planet. All provide free profiles and travel tips for thousands of destinations worldwide.
Miles and Miles. Take control of your frequent flyer programs with bizMiles and Mileage Miner. The services provide account summaries of your frequent flyer programs, highlight how to get more points, and report when miles expire.
Stay Alert. Never be late for a flight again with bizAlerts, an online paging service. Use the tool to receive pre-departure pager alerts before your flight, and updates on flight status, gate information and even weather conditions.
Under the Weather. Check out the latest weather information on hundreds of locations around the world at Rain or Shine Weather, Weather Channel, and World Climate. The services include satellite photos, Doppler radar images, weather forecasts, and climate data.
Hot Bed. Traveling to a political hotspot? Get the latest situation reports from Travel Warnings and Consular Information Sheets. A service of the United States Department of State, the site reports on unusual immigration practices, health conditions, political disturbances, unusual currency and entry regulations, and crime and security conditions in over 100 countries around the world.
Go to Town. You've just landed in an unfamiliar city and need to go downtown. What's the best way? Airport Information may have the answer. The service lists travel distances and times, and taxi and bus fares from the airport to downtown for more than 100 airports worldwide.
Chart Your Course. Need road directions for a trip? Use Driving Directions for North American travel and EuroShell Route Planner for European trips. Both provide point- to-point driving directions and maps.
Stake Your Claim. Need help with international travel expenses? Visit the Travel Expenses Calculator, a free online worksheet. The service automatically calculates your cross-border travel expenses based on credit card charges, foreign exchange rates, and other variables.
Far and Away. Need to calculate distances between two cities? How Far is It? measures the distance in kilometers and miles between any two points on the globe.
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