1. Opodo.co.uk has upped the ante with a raft of fun new tools on its site. Among them is Escape Map, which asks for a departure airport and continent of choice, then suggests a host of live flight prices. You can then filter by star rating and holiday type such as beach, arts, history or shopping. There’s also the MyAirline tool under the new Opodo AirTools, which allows you to pick your favourite airline and find out when the fares are cheapest, and CombiFlight, which lets you book a return journey with different airlines in a single transaction. All very helpful stuff if you want that smug feeling of knowing you paid less for your flight than the passenger sitting next to you...

2. With rivals like Travel.co.uk, you can see why Opodo is picking up the pace. The newly launch travel.co.uk site also has an intuitive holiday search with added filters such as combination of adults and children, and a list that includes holiday pictures, some video and reader reviews and live prices. We also love the option to book over the phone with a home-working travel agent – you can even choose your agent by location so you can speak to someone who lives nearby.

3. Have you got the next face of travel? We’re not talking Judith Chalmers here – be it a person, animal or art, send your pictures into intuitive online tour operator Black Tomato, and they’ll post it on their growing interactive wall. The judges’ favourite wins a Black Tomato trip, and as the entries pile in, the prize gets bigger. Plus, every person who enters gets £100 off a Black Tomato holiday.

4. Already pulling your hair out over what to do with the kids this summer? Car rental firms Auto Europe is offering a free downloadable guide to keeping your children entertained. “The Great British Break” features child-friendly destinations, days out for under £10, and tips on planning a road trip, plus the inevitable plug for its own products - the best family vehicles to hire. Also take a look at our article, Britain’s 50 best days out, for ideas.

50 best travel websites of 2007

Another year of innovation and refinement as travel websites continue to become more niche, focussed and useful

Background

• The 10 hottest travel websites to watch

• 10 travel websites to watch: July

• 10 travel websites to watch: June

• 10 travel websites to watch: May

• 10 travel websites to watch: April

Times Online's top 100 travel websites

We've crawled, clicked and crashed our way around the world of internet travel to bring you the top 100 websites

5. Perhaps the best tonic is to escape the kids altogether? Want a sybaritic spa break not far from home? Irealnd is a corking spa destination – and to navigate its many spa delights, there’s now a devoted website, www.spa-ireland.com. The independent website has been launched following Tourism Ireland's implementation of a new spa rating system across the country. The site offers an in-depth spa search by products, treatments or facilities, and each spa is listed with map, images, description and link to the spa website. I defy you not to be inspired – there’s even an option to buy vouchers for a friend if you’re feeling generous.

6. Postcards. Still trendy apparently. But don’t settle for that cheesy shot of a dreary crumbling monument – a personalised postcard is the way forward. Use www.ppme.co.uk to upload a photo to appear on the front of your postcard, with an option to add “Wish you were here” or some other suitable missive, then fill in the address and text. The font is scrawling enough to look vaguely like handwriting – it might fool a long-sighted aunty anyway, and even better – they post it for you with a real stamp (a UK one). They cost 99 pence including postage to deliver in the UK.

7. Worried about your gapper tackling foreign shores alone? With so many gap travel websites out there it’s hard to know which to trust – so when two solid names like the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Lonely Planet come together, it’s got to be good news. Following the collaboration, the FCO’s www.GoGapYear.com has launched a Google mash-up that links users to text, photographs and podcasts of Lonely Planet (which, by the way, is being relaunched by the BBC later this year) content plus FCO travel advice for every country. The site is also a handy port of call for advice on inoculations, visas, insurance and money. It’s a good looking site and easy to navigate – a handy portal for first-timers.

8. Like to stay ahead of the crowd when it comes to the latest travel happenings? If you don’t want to be bombarded with RSS feeds from various travel sites, there’s a new site that’s aggregating content from esteemed travel publications such as ourselves. Straightuptraveler.com offers a link to the latest travel articles online from sources such as Gridskipper, Globorati and National Geographic. Gen up on these gems and you’ll be streets ahead at your next dinner party travel debate.

9. If you’re already offsetting your holidays and recycling your boarding passes, there’s another way to reduce the guilt of your carbon-belching break. Voyager Insurance Service has launched www.ResponsibleTravelInsurance.co.uk to offer travel insurance to greenies. You’ll be contributing towards the Travel Industry Carbon Offset Scheme if you buy insurance through them. It’s an industry-wide scheme to try to make sure tourism has a positive impact on its host destination. Of course, you could always buy your travel insurance elsewhere and donate yourself to a scheme like TICOS, but this cuts down on the clicks…

10. Calling all travel nerds. Want to pick a holiday that’s got guaranteed sunshine? Weather2flights.com is a spin-off of one of our favourite gloating travel sites, weather2travel.com. It offers a destination search with details of average weather conditions, a list of which airlines fly there (one of the most comprehensive we’ve seen) and a flight search for people who don’t know where they want to go, based on weather, flight times and preferences.

Times recommends

• The Green Spaces Travel Awards, 2008 - the winners
• Britain's 12 best winter walks
• The insiders' guide to bohemian Paris