Time to hit the beaches

I visited the Search blog not too long ago to share in my summer vacation planning, and now that I’m back from my two-week European tour — Barcelona, Provence, French Riviera, and London — it’s time to think about my Christmas vacation plans. So, I thought I’d come back here to share my trip planning once again and show off the new Travel Destination Shortcut that’s making it even easier this time around. I’m thinking a beach getaway. So far my top choices are Phuket, Thailand and Acapulco, Mexico.

To help me decide between the two destinations, I started my research on Yahoo! Search. A single search for Phuket pulls up the below shortcut.

The beach looks so serene. Clicking through to the slideshow, there’s a number of pictures to view, including user-generated candid photos from the Flickr community. The mix of hotel and commercial photos along with individual’s personal experiences gives me a couple different perspectives on the location. I can just see myself sitting in those lounge chairs!

Switching gears a bit, I tried a search for Acapulco and got the following result.

I’m definitely tempted now. I wonder if Acapulco is better for the adventure seekers. Clicking on the top rated attraction — based on total ratings and user reviews written — the daring jump from a 110-foot cliff in Quebrada sounds intriguing. A bit scary, I’ll admit, but intriguing nonetheless. The user reviews included on each attraction also give me a better sense of whether I would like the destination or not. I mean, what better way to find out how a place measures up than by hearing from folks who’ve experienced it?

I definitely need to read up on reviews and activities before making my decision, but having the Travel Destination Shortcut makes the process that much easier.

With this release, we’ve got shortcuts for hundreds of the most popular and unique US and international destinations and we’re working to grow that into the thousands over time. So where do you want to take your next vacation — Paris, Hanoi or Sydney, perhaps? Start your research on Yahoo! Search and let us know what you think in the comments below.

Lingxian Ding
Yahoo! Search