Los Altos, CA based TravelMuse (www.travelmuse.com) today unveiled a new travel planner and Trip Widget, along with a contest which offers TravelMuse users a chance to win a free luxury vacation in Hawaii.

TravelMuse

Russ Lemelin, CEO of TravelMuse, said that the new TravelMuse Planner “makes the chaos of travel planning easy and fun by providing a central place to save, organize and share all your travel research for any destination.”

After giving all the new TravelMuse tools a once-over, I have to say that what Russ Lemelin claims is pretty much accurate.

Create Trip:- Type in the destination name and click the create button. You now have a trip folder where all your research from both within and outside of TravelMuse will be available.

Bookmarker:- Get the new TravelMuse Bookmarker, and you now have the ability to save pages, photos and text from any website into aforementioned trip folder. 

Organizing, Schedules & Map:- When you’re browsing through a ton of links and pages, the TravelMuse Planner makes it easy by helping you tag and sort everything into categories and schedules (Day 1, Day 2, etc.).

You can see the result of all your research on an interactive map, and get more recommendations for popular items – attractions, hotels, shops, restaurants - based on what you already have.

Collaboration & Sharing:- If you want to show off your trip plan or need advice, you can invite people over to view or edit your masterpiece. Ask for advice on facebook, and comments made by your friends will automatically end up saved in your trip folder. Use the TravelMuse Trip Widget to display the trip plan on your site, blog or on your social networking pages.

All of this – the destination guides, the trip folder, bookmarker and the widget are useful enough. But what makes the whole thing likeable, or as Russ Lemelin says “makes the chaos of travel planning easy and fun” is that the user experience is positive.

- Pages and tools load fast, and its easy to use. Just click on what you see and like, and you’ll end up with a planned trip.
- Ads are discreet, with no bells & whistles to interrupt or divert you from trip planning.
- Pages from outside not only get saved, but the tools also recognize the page and translate it into a physical address, so you can see all your selections on the map.
- Your research at every stage is safe. It won’t vanish if you accidently click something or close the window.

Free trip to Hawaii:- TravelMuse has partnered with the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau (HVCB) to give away a luxury trip for two to Oahu through the “Create a Trip on TravelMuse, Win Your Perfect Moment in Hawaii” sweepstakes.

Winner gets round-trip airfare for 2 to Honolulu, a 5-night stay at the Hilton Hawaiian Village and free admission to four hot attractions in Hawaii. All you need to do is register on TravelMuse and create a trip. More details here.