ReadWriteWeb

My girlfriend and I are renting an apartment in Paris for a week this summer, which is the first real vacation I have taken since 2006, when I went to Dublin to run a marathon then spend a week recovering in Irish pubs and on Irish seashores. (Word of advice: no matter how enchanting it seems, don't rent a bicycle on the rocky Aran Islands off the coast of Galway two days after running your first marathon).

The only thing that is further in the past than my last, "real" week-long vacation was the first time I turned to Orbitz as my first and last shopping destination when booking air travel for business and the weekend getaways. According to Orbitz, the first trip I ever booked through the site was in November, 2001 when I flew from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia.

That says a lot about how good Orbitz has been at maintaining my loyalty, but not so much about my savvy shopping skills. With a pair of $1,200+ flights to purchase (based on originall search of Orbitz), I decided it was time to figure out a better way to buy airfare online.

Recent images of a newly rebranded cosmopolitan Mecca show Islam's holiest site lit by skyscrapers towering over the Ka'aba, the shrine built by the Patriach Abraham and his son Ishmael. The Ka'aba is a modest but overpowering, cubed brick building, referred to as the House of God, towards which millions of Muslims turn to pray five times a day. It is also the focus of the Hajj, or Muslim pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam. It is obligatory for every Muslim (who can afford it and is physically able) to perform the journey, one taken by millions of people over almost 1500 years. But the daunting new urban infrastructure proposed by Saudi Arabia has led to expressions of both pride and disgust. It has been both hailed as a needed reform and condemned as the "Las Vegasization" of the holy city of worship at the expense of Islamic heritage.

Does technology have a place in a sacred space? It seems as though there might be little choice.

Amtrak has announced an expansion of its free AmtrakConnectSM Wi-Fi service to 12 more East Coast routes. 60% of Amtrak passengers will now have free Wi-Fi access. Service is provided to trains via cellular data networks along the routes, and Amtrak is trying to maximize the use of existing infrastructure to expand Internet service on trains.

The high-speed Acela Express trains in the Northeast Corridor already have Wi-Fi service, as well as the Cascades line in the Pacific Northwest. By the end of 2011, Amtrak will expand Wi-Fi service to Amtrak California's state-supported trains, giving 75% of all Amtrak passengers onboard Wi-Fi.

In January of this year, mobile travel management app TripIt was acquired for up to $120 million by Concur, a company founded in 1993 that provides "integrated expense and travel management solutions." TripIt, founded in late 2006, was one of my favorite 'web 2.0' apps. At the end of 2007, ReadWriteWeb named it one of 10 Semantic Apps to Watch. From the early days, TripIt had managed to pair its sophisticated technology with an easy to use interface. The back end was technological fairy dust, but for the user it was almost deceptively simple. As I described the app in 2007: "you forward incoming bookings to plans@tripit.com and the system manages the rest."

Last month in Seattle I met up with TripIt co-founder Scott Hintz and Concur co-founder Michael Hilton (currently Executive VP, Worldwide Marketing). I was most interested to find out how a trendy consumer-focused travel app found its way into the more rigid, paperwork ridden world of corporate travel management - and how it's faring.

When it comes to traveling, I'm a terrible planner. Figuring out the logistics of going from one place to another leaves me flustered and frustrated to the point that I avoid planning at all costs. For my next trip, however, I'm going to give Plnnr a try.

Plnnr asks you for a couple simple preferences and a location and puts together a full itinerary for a trip to any of 18 cities around the world.

A quick little experiment for you if you haven't tried this before: Go to Google Maps and ask it for directions from San Francisco, CA to Beijing, China. Now, you wouldn't imagine any other way than to hop on a plane, right? Instead, Google figures you'd like to drive, takes you to the beach and then, somewhere around step 32, advises you to make the 3,879 kayak trip across the Pacific Ocean. While the cross-Pacific directions are a perennial joke, they're literally useless for travelers.

Rome2Rio, a site built on top of the much-loved Google maps interface, offers up directions by plane, train and automobile rather than telling you to hoof it to the beach and get to paddling.

Travel search company Kayak has just announced that it will begin handling hotel reservations itself, rather than just referring customers to its partner sites when they are ready to book a room. This marks Kayak's expansion beyond just aggregating travel information, so users can research and reserve their travel needs.

Kayak is introducing the "Book Now" feature in limited beta, but the simple booking process will be available on its website and mobile apps in the coming weeks. Customers will still have the option to book their hotel rooms elsewhere. But the move will help keep users on the Kayak site, rather than driving them elsewhere to complete their purchases.

Microsoft has today announced that its Bing search engine has added a new partner, the popular travel search site Kayak. Going forward, Kayak will provide its flight search and pricing data to Microsoft which will be then integrated into Bing's search results. What that means for Bing users is that they will now have access to flight search data for more cities, more airports and more airlines, in more locations around the world thanks to Kayak, says Microsoft.

This is the second travel-focused update to Bing in less than two weeks, and is notable in light of Google's attempted acquisition of ITA Software, the system powering travel pricing for dozens of airlines and flight tracking sites. If that deal went through, it would strike a direct blow to Microsoft's attempt to innovate within the travel search vertical.

Flight search Hipmunk is on a roll. Hot off the launch of its iPhone app and the award for Best Design at Launch 2.0, the company is announcing today that it's expanding its search to include lodging.

The move makes sense as airline travel usually necessitates booking a hotel as well. And much like Hipmunk's option to let you search for flights by "agony" - that is, a combination of price, airline and number of spots - you can now look for lodging by "ecstasy." In this case, ecstasy is a combination of price, amenities, Yelp reviews, and location.

Google does almost nothing interesting in travel search. Bing offers a much more compelling travel search experience and today added a new little feature that makes me want to use it even more.

Search on Bing for the phrase "fly to..." and the name of a major destination city and you will now see an automatic display of the best dates to fly from where you are to that place, with the lowest price for a round trip ticket and advice about whether the price is likely to go up or down if you waited to buy the ticket later. It's really cool.