There are many useful tools on the Internet for doing travel research, whether for business or pleasure. See below for some pricing tools, review sites, maps, and more....

Travel regs for judges and judicial staff are available on the JNet web site. If you'll be travelling abroad in the near future, the State Department's travel site is a must-see for procedural and safety concerns.

There are many comprehensive travel sites to choose from, but Travelocity and Expedia have been highly rated by travel newsletters and consumer reports for pricing results, booking tools, customer service and privacy/security policies.

Airfare/Flight Tools: Mobissimo and Orbitz DealDetector are pricing tools that are recommended by various travel newsletters. Farereport provides info on average airfares as well as lowest average fare and largest market share for travel between particular cities. OAG is a great resource for flight schedules.The St. Louis and Kansas City libraries have current print editions of the OAG Flight Guide and the OAG Airport Guide. When the weather looks dodgy or you want to know how long you might be stuck at an airport, you can check for airport delays at the FAA's Air Traffic Control Center.

Hotel Tools: Check out HotelsAtPerDiem from OAG and GSA for hotels that provide per diem rates.Travelaxe is a search engine for hotel room discounts. Check out HotelShark for helpful reviews of various hotels. For a directory of hotel phone numbers and web sites, see this site from eHotelChain.

Maps/Directions: Yahoo has a great maps & directions site, as does Expedia and Mapquest. If you need an aerial image of a particular address, check out TerraFly, a public service from Florida International University and NASA.

For travel tips and news, consider bookmarking these sites: The OAG Official Traveler Update (you can subscribe for free or just look at the archived issues), SmarterTravel, MyBusinessTravel, or LonelyPlanet.