Leading a healthier lifestyle is something most people aspire to, with losing weight, quitting smoking, drinking less and exercising more often included on millions of people’s New Year’s resolutions lists. While “travel more” also is a popular desire, should it too be considered good for one’s health?

New Year's Eve, Times Square, NYC

In the American Travel Behavior Survey, conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of travel discount site Hotwire.com, results found that 81 percent of travelers feel energized and productive after returning from a leisure trip. While this isn’t surprising news—vacations are supposed to be for relaxing and reenergizing—there may be evidence to suggest that leisure travel also is medically beneficial.

“Travel stimulates the brain and promotes the growth of new synapses, heightens creativity and may even resist Alzheimer’s disease,” says Dr. Matthew Edlund, director of the Center for Circadian Medicine and author of The Power of Rest. “Your brain, like the rest of your body, rebuilds itself constantly, but it needs to be given the regular opportunity to do so. Taking frequent leisure trips at regular intervals continually rests and rejuvenates you, increasing your productivity and sense of satisfaction.”

The Hotwire survey also found that the average American employee has 6.2 paid vacation days left unused at the end each year, so for those vowing to travel more in 2012, they have a good reason to get started with a New Year’s vacation. The discount site has listed its 10 most popular New Year’s travel destinations, based on Hotwire hotel bookings made from Nov. 1 to Dec. 5, 2011 for stays over Dec. 31, 2011 to Jan. 3, 2012.

Do you have plans to travel on New Year’s? How often have you vowed to travel more in the new year and then actually followed through on it, or not?

Photo: Times Square Alliance/Countdown Entertainment LLC

Related posts:
New Year’s Eve Means Big Business for NYC’s Hotel Industry
New Year’s Resolutions for the Hotel Guest in 2011

You could be in your desired hotel room for less by using a few hacks.

Although hotels use “opaque sites” like Priceline and Hotwire to unload unsold inventory without diluting their brand names, with a little sleuthing customers can often figure out what hotel they’re booking. But as I recently found out, sleuths like me should beware, because if you play the game long enough, once in awhile you’re going to end up in the “wrong” property.

For my blog Frugalista, on Chicago Tribune partner site ChicagoNow, I summed up the techniques I use to figure out what no-name hotels are being offered on Priceline or Hotwire. These techniques are for using when you hope to stay at a specific property but don’t want to pay the publicly available rate:

1) Check the site you’re shopping on and other booking sites to find out how many stars your desired property is listed at. Note whether there are other properties with the same number of stars listed in the city or neighborhood.

2) Check whether the site you’re shopping on offers your desired hotel as a named property. I don’t know if this is a hard and fast rule, but I’ve noticed that if Priceline is offering a property upfront, you’re likely to find the very same place on the “name your own price” section.

3) Check a forum such as BetterBidding or BidonTravel to find out what hotels others have gotten recently by bidding in the same area you’re looking in. Usually you will notice that in a certain star category, everyone has gotten the same property. If this ISN’T the property you want, don’t bid because this is the property you’re likely to end up in!

4) If others are indeed getting your desired property, go ahead and figure out what to bid. This is something you can also learn from BetterBidding; people post the amounts of their winning and losing bids, often revealing the lowest possible price that will “win” the room. If you’re not sure what the lowest possible price is, and you have enough time, bid lower than the lowest price you see others have paid and try bidding again when allowed 24 hours later.

5) If you don’t get winning bid information from other travelers, just try bidding 50-75% less than published rates. BidonTravel’s tip sheet suggests checking rates for the same day of the week you’ll be traveling on.

In the past, I have used these techniques to get into the same hotel as other family members for a wedding and to get in the preferred spot for an urban getaway.

However, the techniques are NOT foolproof. Take this weekend, when my family is heading to a wedding near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I did my research, and felt pretty sure that the Hilton Garden, where the family was staying, was the only 2-1/2 star hotel in Oconomowoc, a small town west of the city. I went on Priceline and bid for 2-1/2 stars, only to be informed after bidding that I had been “upgraded” to a 3-star property across the freeway.

Oh well — maybe after a weekend of wedding activities, we’ll have had enough family togetherness by the time we hit the hotel anyway. And at least I paid less than half of what I would have paid through my desired hotel’s Web site or on the phone.

There was a warning that my scheme was not going to work out: Priceline had marked the 3-star category as the “best value” before I entered my bid. If you’re bidding and see such a mark on a higher star category, I would expect to be upgraded to the category Priceline is pushing, whether you like it or not.

Photo by Oakbrookterracehotels, used via Creative Commons license.

The hotel deals are getting sweeter on Priceline and Hotwire.

According to the New York Times, travelers are getting better deals than ever on “opaque” travel sites like Hotwire and Priceline, so called because the consumer can’t see the hotel or airline’s name until she has purchased their product. Retail prices are down and more rooms and flights are going unsold, so more inventory ends up on these sites at steeper and steeper discounts.

Travel companies feel they can unload inventory on these sites without tipping off competitors to their discounts or undercutting their regular prices. But I wonder. For the first point, I think travel providers must have a pretty good idea what discounts their competitors are giving on Hotwire. After all, savvy consumers know what hotels sell for what on these sites – they can find out from other travelers on forums such as Biddingfortravel.com or Betterbidding.com.

The second point may be an even bigger worry. As companies in all fields look to cut costs, you can bet some are using Hotwire and Priceline to book corporate travel. And once they find out that it’s easy and generally satisfies, who says they’ll go back to paying premium prices after the economy picks up again? Even if the traveling employee sometimes looks up reviews of the hotel and objects, if she’s not the CEO, the company will probably care more about the money they’re saving.

It seems like in every recession, companies learn how to operate more leanly and don’t necessarily forget that learning in good times. I remember when the in-house travel agent at the company I worked for didn’t even bother looking at Southwest fares. He had his regular agent at United, and he just went ahead and booked a refundable, top-tier fare. How many companies ignore discount carriers today?