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

Just a quick shout out to our friends at Yahoo! Travel who just developed a new mapping prototype using the Yahoo! Maps API. They’ve essentially layered off-network maps of national parks and airports on top of the maps already incorporated into the Travel Guides. It doesn’t change any of the other mapping tools like panning, zooming and satellite view, but does add a bit more detail. Check out this example of the Grand Canyon:

The full capability isn’t in alpha yet, but it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves. You can play with a couple of the map prototypes here and here.

Also check out the Yahoo! Local/Maps Blog for more detail.

Raj Gossain
Yahoo! Search

Thanks to the use and feedback of beta users over the past 9 months, Trip Planner from Yahoo! Travel is now ready for prime time. Today marks the general availability of the new service, along with many cool new features.

We introduced Trip Planner a few months ago – it?s a tool that simplifies the research, planning and sharing of trips online so that you can create a customized, printable take-along travel guide. It allows you to tag information found on Yahoo! Travel and the rest of the Web and bring it into one slick AJAX interface. You can choose to share your trip with anyone – from one friend to the whole world. If there is another user?s shared trip that you like, you can copy it and build from there instead of starting your travel planning process from scratch. The result of this online community sharing travel experiences is a living atlas of travel information for users to add and take from.

New Features Galore

• My favorite new feature is the Trip Planner explore option where the top trip plans from thousands of destinations, as chosen by other Yahoo! users, are plotted on an interactive map using the new Yahoo! Maps AJAX API. You can pan and zoom to find the trip that?s right for you.

  

• The Trip Journal interface allows users to share their first-person, post-trip narrative, the good and the bad, with fellow travelers. The Trip Album within the Journal is fully connected with Flickr, so your photos can be displayed with just a few clicks.

  

• Users have the ability to rate Trip Plans based on how helpful they are, and to bookmark their favorite trips for easy reference
• Trips are connected to the user?s Yahoo! 360 profile so when you?re browsing for a trip you can get more info on the trip author
• Trip items can be viewed in variety of formats including plotted on Satellite, Hybrid and Street Level maps
• Recommendations from Yahoo! Travel Guides for hotels, things to do, restaurants, shopping and entertainment are automatically served up for users who want easily accessible information as they add new objects to their trip plans.

Starting from the Search Box
You?ll now also be able to connect with Yahoo! Trip Planner directly from Yahoo! Search. By entering your destination + the word ?trips? (e.g. Atlanta trips or Las Vegas trips) you can link directly to the top community ranked Trip Plans for that destination in Yahoo! Trip Planner.

We hope you like what you see! Check it out and let us know what you think. You can post either here, or on the Yahoo! Trip Planner forum.

Vivek Hariharan
Yahoo! Trip Planner