This final section discusses miscellaneous travel sites that can help make your next trip smoother. Before you depart, you may want to check most or all of the sites listed below. These range from security wait times to pictures of airline meals, but all can help you make your next trip more predictable, more comfortable, and smoother. The first two sites are operated by the government, and allow you to get information about airport delays and security line wait times that can help you prepare for your trip.

FAA Airport Condition Map: This interactive map allows you to see the real-time conditions for flight operations from airports nationwide. Each airport is color-coded with their operational conditions. This map shows if an airport as a whole is experiencing delays. Typically, if your origin or destination airport is experiencing delays, then your flight will likely be delayed but the map is not flight-specific, it can only hint as to whether your specific flight will encounter delays.

TSA Wait Time Estimates: The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has compiled historical data on passenger wait times at their security checkpoints. On their Wait Time Estimate site, you can enter in your airport, day of the week that you depart, and departure time. The site then gives you historical average wait times for the various airport checkpoints. Beware, this site does not offer real-time checkpoint waiting times and you may need to find out what gate you depart from in order to find which checkpoint you will most likely use. But, the site is helpful in helping you plan your arrival time at the airport.

The two sites below offer airline seat maps. If you can select your seat online when you buy your ticket, you may want to use either site as a guide when selecting seats. The maps these sites offer are color-coded, have comments for particular rows of seats, and tell you which seats to book, and which to avoid. However, each site offers different maps, read on to ensure you go to the right site.

SeatGuru: Seatguru.com offers airline seat maps for most aircraft that American carriers operate. SeatGuru offers seat maps for some foreign carriers, and is adding new maps each month. SeatGuru is the online leader in airline seat maps, and has the best information to help you make an educated decision about where to sit. SeatGuru also offers convenient information about seat pitch, entertainment, food, and laptop powerports. SeatGuru has accurate information about amenities that vary widely between aircraft in an airline's fleet such as entertainment and laptop power ports.

SeatExpert: Seatexpert.com offers a similar service to SeatGuru’s, but SeatExpert focuses on maps for foreign carriers such as Air China that SeatGuru doesn’t offer. If you can book seats in advance on a foreign carrier, SeatExpert may have the seat maps you’re looking for. SeatExpert doesn't offer the information about amenities that SeatGuru offers, which is too bad since amenities are more important on international flights. Even though the site is crammed full of ads and a worn-out logo, it still offers reputable seat maps.

Airline Meals: Airlinemeals.net offers the best photographs and reviews of airline meals on the Internet. Yes, many passengers have taken photographs of the mystery meat that lingers on their tray tables. While American carriers are offering less free food, they still are offering food, but now with a nominal cost. Since you’re often paying for that meal out of pocket, reading comments from previous tasters about that meal may tell you whether you should buy or not. Next time you eat onboard a plane, consider aiming your camera down at your tray table and adding to the collection of meals.

Citypass: Next time you visit a major American or Canadian city and want to do some sightseeing, consider purchasing a Citypass. With a Citypass, you pay for admission to several tourist attractions at once, and receive a booklet with admission coupons inside. You can purchase Citypass booklets at most of the attractions that are in it or you can purchase it online at Citypass.com. But, since you’re buying all your admission at once you receive a discount of up to 50% than if you were to purchase admission to these attractions separately. If you’re traveling with children, you can buy a children’s Citypass for most cities for less than the adult booklet. Citypasses are currently offered (as of June 2006) in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco, Hollywood, Southern California (the booklet includes Disneyland and SeaWorld among other attractions), and Toronto.

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