Travel

Here’s yet another Bing magazine family member. Like News, Finance, and Sports, it’s an attractive, horizontally scrolling “magazine.”

As you’d guess, the theme of Bing Travel is getting away. As you scroll to the right, the various blocks include Tools and Tasks (flight schedules and hotel searches), Trip Ideas (profiles of various vacation spots), Local Destinations (less-exotic travel spots, nearer to you), and so on.

As usual, the most interesting stuff is hiding in the App bar:

  • Destinations. It’s vacation porn: page after page of photo tiles, each depicting a glamorous tourist destination. Select one for details.

  • Flights, Hotels. Yep, Microsoft’s mighty Expedia travel Web site is built right in. Search and book flights and hotel rooms, right from inside the app.

  • Best of Web. An excellent motley assortment of travel-related Web sites and tools. The various blocks of tiles feature sites dedicated to Road Trips, Food and Wine, Sustainable Travel, Family Travel, and Frequent Travel. Select any tile to open that site in Internet Explorer.

    Don’t miss the Tools section of “Best of Web,” which includes links to currency converters, time/distance/cost calculators, language translators, and, perhaps most important of all, TheBathroomDiaries.com, a global directory of public restrooms.

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