Traveling to some of the country’s most popular destinations just got a lot easier for web-savvy tourists and business travelers.  There’s a wealth of information out there on recommended places to stay, restaurants and bars to frequent, and resources for finding travel deals in any number of destinations, but who can one trust when they need an insider’s perspective? When guidebooks and travel guides aren’t enough, travelers can turn to Twitter for up-to-date travel information from local businesses, venues, news sources and residents to find out where to go, and what to do.

Of course, not everyone on Twitter is a valuable resource, that’s why Best Travel Deals has created several comprehensive Twitter lists of profiles for specific destinations, including Las Vegas, Orlando and San Francisco. Money-minded travelers will find these lists extremely helpful, as many of the profiles included feature deals and last-minute sales via their Twitter accounts. Very few people travel without a laptop these days, and with Best Travel Deals’ detailed lists of people and places to follow, Twitter might just be the best place to find the most relevant information for those about to embark on a trip.

Even the experts recommend Twitter as a resourceful travel tool. Journalist and consumer advocate Christopher Elliott was kind enough to answer a few questions we had about the benefits of using Twitter as a travel companion.  “Being an active member of the Twitter community can make you a more informed and enlightened traveler,” Elliott said. “Twitter is great for communicating with your network of friends who are traveling. It can give you a ‘heads up’ when something is happening at your destination or along the way that you need to be aware of. It’s also an effective way of communicating with hotels, car rental companies or airlines when something goes wrong.”

Case in point: In a recent article, travel columnist Joe Brancatelli (of Joe Sent Me) made a poignant argument on why business travelers should use Twitter if they are looking for up-to-date travel information in real time. He pointed to the slew of bad winter storms that have recently affected hundreds of thousands of travelers during and after the holidays. When airports and airlines weren’t updating their official websites, it was their Twitter accounts that notified customers on travel conditions, and offered advice on how to rebook their flights.

Utilizing Twitter to suit your traveling needs isn’t as hard as you might imagine. Elliott suggests creating lists of your favorite users, preferably those who give good travel advice. Many Twitter applications allow users to manage their accounts in such a way that only the profiles in their lists will show up in the feeds. You can also create a separate account and just follow the people and businesses who offer relevant information for your trip. You can “weed out” unnecessary tweets by staying as local as possible. For example, our Essential Twitter Lists for people traveling to Chicago and Seattle feature profiles centered in (and around) these destinations. Our lists are conveniently divided into five categories to ensure a user-friendly experience: Restaurants, Bars & Venues, Things To Do, Places To Stay, Local & Regional News, and Tweeple & Bloggers. Follow as many or as few of the suggested profiles as you like.

Be sure to revisit our Ultimate List of Twitter Travel Accounts, which contains sections including Airlines, Airports, Trains, Subways, Rental Cars, Hotels, Cruises and more. Both Elliott and Brancatelli have compiled their own lists of various travel types with Twitter feeds, which you may also find helpful when traveling.

Traveling to another popular city not previously mentioned? Don’t go anywhere without visiting Best Travel Deals first. We’ll be adding more Essential Twitter Lists to the most visited destinations across the country! And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter for even more amazing travel deals.

Twitter recently launched a Beta version of it’s new feature Twitter Lists.  This new feature allows tweeters to organize lists of people that others can easily follow.  Best Travel Deals is using this exciting new Twitter application and created a list of travel deal tweeters that we’d like to share with the travel community. We’ve named the list “Travel Deals” and it’s available here: @bestraveldeals/travel-deals.

With so many individuals and companies on Twitter it’s becoming increasingly difficult for travelers to distinguish sources for legitimate deals.  Our list includes some of the best sources for travel deals on Twitter. Many of the deals announced on Twitter are last minute and short term so being able to easily keep tabs on the latest travel tweets will help you score more last minute travel deals. From millions of Twitter users, we’ve hand-picked some of the most valuable travel deal tweeters and we will continue to update as we find more sources. We’re also open to suggestions – if you have a Twitter account that is primarily (at least 50%) focused on sharing legitimate travel deals, direct message @bestraveldeals and we’ll review and add you to our list or just leave us a comment with your Twitter ID.

This new feature is especially useful for Twitter newbies who can quickly become overwhelmed by the amount of “noise” fellow tweeters can make. The list feature allows users to keep tabs on topics without including those users in their Twitter feed. These lists are easy to find or create and they provide users with the option of tuning into the conversation (and tuning out!) at their leisure.  If you’d like to occasionally receive updates on a certain topic such as travel deals follow a list like @bestraveldeals/travel-deals or surf on over to listorious and search for lists on topics that interest you.

For so-called Twitter addicts, the sheer amount of information generated by the users they follow can be equally as overwhelming, especially if they tweet about many different topics. Savvy users have organized the users they follow into several different, topical lists. They’re also using lists created by other user to find “Tweeple” with similar interests. Not only are lists organizational, they’re informational as well. It’s another great way to connect with like-minded and interesting tweeters.

Whether users are novice or experienced, lists create an easy way to organize interests and tweeters and with the travel-deals list, even occasional travelers will have access to Twitter travel deals without cluttering their Twitter feed.