Find Hotels By Proximity to Food, Nightlife, Price
A while back I told you about Hipmunk, one of the most exciting new flight search sites I've seen in many an Internet Year. Hipmunk uses a very visual way to let you search for and sort your flight options. If you haven't yet tried Hipmunk, you're missing out on a fun and efficient way to make travel plans. This week, Hipmunk added hotel search, and travel planning will never be the same again.
To use Hipmunk's hotel search, be sure to switch to hotels using the link at the top of the page and then enter the city or airport to which you're traveling, and then specify your arrival and departure dates. Hipmunk displays your hotel options visually on a map of the city. You can get details from the sidebar or by clicking on any of the hotel's thumbtacks on the map itself.
The coolest twist is that you can overlay a half-dozen heat maps on the city; choose food, tourism, shopping, nightlife, or vice. Make a selection, and you see color-coded swaths on the map which indicate the density of your selected criteria, be it restaurants, local attractions, shopping, or, in the case of vice, "bars, casinos, and adult entertainment."
You can also filter the hotels by price, and add filters to show only hotels with specific amenities, like ATMs on the premises, coffee makers in room, 24 hour front desks, and a slew of other factors.
I predict that if you try Hipmunk once, you will be forever spoiled and not want to use any other travel search site again.
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