Staycations are, like, so last summer, according to the Annual Summer Travel Survey by our sister site Kayak.com. Of the 4,100 people in this year’s survey, an impressive 95 percent said they plan to travel this summer. And while travelers remain concious of the economy, more than 41 percent of respondants said the recession would not affect their summer travel plans in any way.

Why the enthusiam for travel this summer? For one thing, lower airfares and frequent fare sales are making it more affordable to fly in ‘09, while an abundance of travel deals are taking some of the burden off lodging at resorts and hotels.

For summer trips, major U.S. cities and European countries are among the most popular destinations, while domestic beaches and the Caribbean are close runners up.

Even though they plan to travel this summeer, travelers say they are embracing all the cost-saving strategies they can find. To help travelers stay on top of extra fees and find the best deals available, Kayak has launched new tools that include a baggage fee calculator to instantly add additional fees and update airfare prices on its search results page, a hotel rate calendar that shows the average daily rate over the last two months for any of its 197,000+ hotels and an option to select the airports you want searched when you look for airfare.

Along with its own travel tools, Kayak offered up the following tips and reminders for recession-proofing your summer 2009 vacation:

- Try a cruise if you’re looking for a serious bargain

- The Caribbean offers many deals during summer months

- Visiting Europe is much cheaper this summer now that fuel surcharges are gone and the dollar is strengthening against the Euro and British Pound

For more ways to save, try Kayak.com tools such as Kayak Flexible Search, Weekend Search, Buzz Calendar, Airfare History charts and Fare Alert tracker.

Keep reading the TravelPost.com Insider’s deals section for more ways to save on your summer 2009 travel….

We’re proud to tell all that our sister company Kayak recently received the Webby Award for Travel Site of the Year.

Now in their 13th year, the Webby Awards always remind us how much great content there is out there on the Internets year after year, and we’re honored to be related to a company that’s a part of this year’s action. Congrats to our big sis!

We can’t wait to see which carefully chosen words make the cut next month during the official Webby Awards ceremony, famous for its five-word cap on winners’ acceptance speeches (and its funky trophies).

We at TravelPost.com are oh-so excited about our sister site Kayak being nominated for a Webby. It’s the last week to vote for nominees in over 70 categories to win this year’s People’s Voice Webby Awards, which we’re pretty sure we don’t have to tell you are like the Oscars of the Internets.

Voting is easy. You can vote for one site or go through and cast votes in every single category – it’s up to you.

You have until Thursday to help your favorite online destinations win this prestigious award. Winners will be announced on May 5, 2009.

The film industry has the Oscars, television has the Golden Globes, theater has the Tony Awards and the Internet has the Webby Awards. Nominees were announced this week for this year’s Webby Awards, which celebrate and honor the top web sites in over 70 different categories.

We are happy to announce that our parent company Kayak.com has been nominated for a Webby in the travel category! We hope you’ll vote for Kayak.com before the April 30, 2009 deadline. When you hit up the site to fill out your ballot, be sure to check out all of this year’s Webby Awards nominees to learn about some of the best sites on the internet.

Kayak (our parent company) has launched a new free application for the iPhone. What’s cool about it:

- It’s free

- Travelers can search over 200 travel sites for flights and hotels right from their phones

- Sort and filter flight and hotel results easily

- Airline phone numbers are built into the application to allow users to immediately contact the airline by phone (a great tool to have if you’re stranded in the airport and trying to rebook a flight)

- An iPhone-friendly version of the Kayak Buzz feature, now called Trends. This feature lets users see the best fares found by other Kayak users to a particular destination from the user’s home airport.

iPhone users can download Kayak’s new application for free from the iTunes app store. If you’re into the techie backstory behind the application’s development, you can get the inside scoop on the innovation process via the Kayak blog.

Behold the timely additions from our parent company:

Kayak travel tools to fight the recession

With bad economic news piling up, it pays to be frugal. While travel may not have found its way into the stimulus package, Kayak has prepared a set of click-ready features to jumpstart your travel planning and provide the best return on your travel dollar.

Best Fare Calendar: Airfares can vary by several hundreds of dollars just by the day of the week you travel. Enter departure airport Enter return airport Best fares calendar will appear Go ahead, try it out.

Updated Fare Alerts: Think of us as your personal and FREE travel assistant who emails you the cheapest fares we find on your specific itinerary. We are proud to introduce new options in the fare alerts, such as selecting non-stop flights, one way flights, and filtering by cabin selection.

Create an alert to track fares now.

Toolbox: Kayak’s most popular tools, such as fare alerts, airfare history charts, a matrix view of fares sorted by airline, and collaboration are now offered in one place–the top left corner of the results page.

Can I save with different travel dates?	Is it time to buy?	Powerful collaboration
Displays fares found by Kayak users for every day of the month, helping you find travel dates that might be cheaper.	Shows prices paid for your same flight over the past 90 days. If fares are down, you might want to book!	View, sort and filter search results with friends at different computers. Share the goods!

Helping you kayak over troubled waters,

Steve and Paul, Kayak.com founders

Wherever you are in the world, we at Travelpost.com wish you a happy, happy New Year. We’ll be putting a lid on our usual wanderlust for the day, but never fear. We’ll be back tomorrow with more travel news, advice and musings from around the web. See you then!

Merry Christmas from all of us at TravelPost.com. We’re so glad you’ve been reading our little blog for the last few years and look forward to bringing you more great content, travel advice and tips in the coming year. As always, we hope the winter season holds good luck, joy and many happy travels for you and your friends and families. We’ll be back tomorrow with more travel news, tips and advice from around the web.

Kayak.com (our parent company) CEO Steve Hafner dishes about the travel industry, Kayak.com and his own travel beefs in Five Questions with Kayak CEO Steve Hafner posted today on USA Today’s Today in the Sky.

Check it out to learn Hafner’s take on upcoming travel industry consolidation, changes to Kayak.com’s web site, answering 1000+ emails a day and the drudgery of airport security lanes.

Wondering where the TravelPost.com Insider went? Come visit us at the Kayak.com blog, where we’re serving up travel advice, deals and other tidbits every week.