As we approach the holiday season, many people will begin planning their end-of-year vacations. Perhaps you’re contemplating a trip to somewhere warm or traveling to see your loved ones. Either way, it’s a good time to start thinking about where you want to go—and how much money you have to spend.

Timing is everything when it comes to travel. Everybody knows that buying airfares in advance will save you big bucks—but how far in advance should you make the bookings? Are there any special days or times you should be hitting the airline websites? There are more myths and rumors surrounding this topic than just about anything else to do with travel, but we’ve done the research. When you’re looking to book, keep these tips in mind.

The 21-day advance
If you have the ability to book your flight more than 21 days before your departure, you have a great chance to scoop the biggest savings. Many airlines use a discount cycle that increases incrementally—the closer to the date, the more you’ll pay.

Can’t make 21 days? Obviously, giving the most notice possible is advised, but many airlines use additional discount tiers with intervals of 14 days, seven days, and three days. Booking on the day of your flight can sometimes result in absolute last-minute bargains, but more often, it will leave you waiting for someone else to cancel.

Tuesday and Wednesday
Traditionally, these are the cheapest days to travel by plane. Vacationers have returned from their weekend destinations, and most people who travel for work have headed off on Monday. By Thursday and Friday, people have started taking their long weekends, and the end of the week is the most convenient for most people to travel, which means it’s also the most expensive.

If you have the flexibility to travel on Tuesday or Wednesday, you can save money on flights, as cheaper rates will often still be available right up until a few days before take-off. An added bonus: Because the plane will be less full, the chances of you having an empty seat next to you is higher, and airline staff are often more attentive, as there are fewer people to check on.

The stroke of midnight
A persistent myth suggests that Wednesday at midnight is the golden time to book your flights. If it’s not Wednesday, it’s midnight Thursday or midnight Friday. There are just as many people who swear by these times as there are those who think it’s ridiculous.

However, some airlines do send out fare updates three times per weekday (and once each on Saturday and Sunday). If you’re a believer that the early bird gets the cheap tickets, head to your airline’s website just after 10 a.m., 12:30 p.m. or 8 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday. On weekends, the data is updated for each airline at 5 p.m. Eastern but not uploaded to the website until midnight the following day.

Friday’s all right
While the Wednesday night argument has been debunked as often as it has been proven, there is another day to keep an eye on. At the end of each week, airlines often experiment with prices. Some may drop their airfares to see if the others follow suit. That doesn’t automatically make Friday the best day, though—other airfares can experiment the other direction by raising ticket prices to see if its competitors will do the same. Even if one airline drops its prices on Friday, rivals may not drop theirs until Monday or Tuesday.

Any day ending in ‘y’
Unfortunately, there are no hard-and-fast rules about when to snag the best airfares. Cheap tickets can be released at almost any time of day, any day of the week.

Rather than playing the calendar game, it’s often a much better idea to subscribe to your preferred airline’s online mailing list. The airlines send out discount deals, bonus offers, and occasionally package holiday information that isn’t offered to non-subscribers. Sign up for a few mailing lists and potentially a few aggregator websites as well, to keep your bases covered. A cheap flight’s a cheap flight, regardless of which carrier it’s with.

There are plenty of people who will sing the praises of last-minute bookings, and indeed, there are some bargains to be had. However, if you want to minimize your stress (and maximize your savings!), it’s often best to plan ahead.

Travel Mysteries: What’s the best time to book an airline ticket? The Saturday Evening Post

While Yelp’s a handy little thing, claiming the broadest range of restaurants in its database, sometimes it’s refreshing to try something a little different. We’ve rounded up six of the best food-spotters, including a couple you might not have heard of.

1. Urbanspoon

Admittedly, this app is almost as well-known as Yelp, but it comes with such a great gimmick that we couldn’t leave it out. If you don’t know quite what you want to eat, Urbanspoon’s “shake” feature makes the decision for you by randomly picking a restaurant from the area to match your criteria.

In addition to that handy feature, the database itself is well stocked with information on all sorts of local eateries, including reviews from fellow diners and professional critics. Urbanspoon is really the granddaddy of dining apps—it has been around since the iPhone App Store launched in 2008.

Download: Urbanspoon for iPhone, iPad, Android, and Kindle Fire
Price: Free

2. Zagat to Go

This is the most pricey app on the list, coming in at $10 for iPhone and iPad users and $25 for Android users. It’s important to realize just what you get for your money—this isn’t just another variation of the same features offered by everything else.

Based on the best-selling Zagat books (which retail for about $15), this app compiles the same amount of information that you would find in 45 individual city guides. That includes detailed info on each of Zagat’s rated restaurants, of course!

It also features one very, very handy feature that makes it well worth the price of admission: offline mode. When you’re traveling overseas or somewhere without access to 3G service or Wi-Fi, offline mode is invaluable. All of the information you need is stored directly on your phone, so you can search, browse, and choose to your heart’s content.

Download: Zagat to Go for iPhone, iPad, and Android
Price: $9.99 for iOS; free for Android (but $24.95/year after a six-month free trial)

3. Eat St.

Taking a slightly different approach to searching for eateries, Eat St. comes courtesy of Food Network, which has created a searchable database to help you find the best food trucks and street food in your city. Perfect for your inner foodie hipster, the GPS-enabled app shows map locations for stationary food carts plus any mobile trucks that pop up from time to time. (It’s worth noting that the accuracy may vary for mobile units.)

Where possible, detailed vendor information is provided, including menus and even Twitter contact details, plus the ever-helpful specials and deals on offer.

Download: Eat St. for iPhone and iPad
Price: Free

4. LocalEats

If you’re not a fan of big-name, multinational corporations’ sticking their fingers into your burgers, then this is the app for you. LocalEats only provides information about dining locations that are truly local—not a national chain to be found.

In addition to searching by price range and operating hours, you can even get really crunchy and look for the best local vegetarian eateries. With this in mind, LocalEats is ideal for people who like to try new things, find unique places, and get to know a city’s hidden highlights. If you just want a Big Mac, you’re going to have to keep looking.

Download: LocalEats for iPhone or iPad
Price: 99 cents for iPhone; free for iPad

5. OpenTable

One of the more practical apps on this list, OpenTable helps you find restaurants that have tables available at your chosen time. Enter the restaurant name to find out when tables are available, or enter a date and time to find places nearby that have a spot for you.

Well-suited to spontaneous types commonly in a “What’s for dinner?” quandary, OpenTable does have the ability to search in the future, but it’s better suited to people looking for somewhere to eat right now.

Download: OpenTable for iPhone, iPad, Android, and Windows Phone
Price: Free

6. Foodspotting

For fans of Pinterest, Flickr, and food porn in general, Foodspotting is a heavenly combination of social networking and photography, with a handy restaurant-finding app thrown in as well. When you load it up, you’re treated to images of dishes other people have submitted. If you’re in the mood for eye candy, you can simply browse the pretty pictures. Otherwise, filter things to show only the latest uploads, the nearest geotagged spots, or the “best” pictures as voted by the community.

It’s a twist on the traditional food finder, as you’re looking for specific dishes rather than restaurants—but sometimes you don’t realize you’re craving a slice of pie until you see it in front of you.

Download: Foodspotting for iPhone and iPad, Android, and Windows Phone
Price: Free

Looking to go off the beaten path?

After all that, if you’d like to find something a little more unusual for your next meal, turn to the masters of the Travel Channel, Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern, and your trusty iOS device. Regardless of which chef you’re more fond of, both Layover and The Bizarre Foods Locator will help you find tasty treats around the world.

Bourdain’s app, inspired by his hit show The Layover, shares his personal favorite hotels, bars, restaurants, and hot spots from 10 major cities. The Bizarre Foods Locator, on the other hand, has presented fans with a list of more than 700 restaurants that Zimmern has eaten at, complete with GPS locations, contact details, and menu suggestions.

Six Apps for Dining on Vacation The Saturday Evening Post

Photo by Thomas Euler.

As Facebook continues to take the world by storm, many scammers are also spending countless hours lurking around the network — and they’re not looking for their friends from college. Instead, there are nefarious types who are more than happy to use Mark Zuckerberg’s creation to their own ends: making money, stealing personal information, gaining access to bank accounts, and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

Fortunately, there are some simple ways to keep the bad guys from getting hold of your information, time, and hard-earned cash. All you need is a little common sense and a little less haste when it comes to clicking links.

1. Ignore anybody asking you for money.

Unless it’s your little sister and she’d like you to spring a $50 so she can buy gas, most people asking you for money on Facebook are up to something.

The most common form of digital panhandling is advance fee fraud, also known as the 419 scam. It’s a variation on the scam from everybody’s favorite African royalty, the Nigerian prince. This time around, rather than spending money to receive your share of someone’s father’s inheritance, you’re asked to transfer cash to help a friend in danger.

If a chat window ever pops up from a friend claiming, “Help! I’ve been mugged in London!” (or Sydney, or Madrid, or Kansas), you should close it again — and contact your friend via another means to let them know their account has been hacked.

Similarly, keep an eye out for charity scammers, particularly around times of natural disasters or national holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving. To ensure your money gets where you want it to go, do not donate money to any organization that you do not completely trust. You’re much better off going directly to the charity’s website and using one of the listed payment options.

2. If it sounds too good to be true… guess what?

Has a friend of yours “won a new iPad 2 OMG”? Could you win one too, if you just go to a certain website and hand over a bunch of personal details? Chances are, probably not. Look at the person’s post carefully, and you’ll see a few telltale signs that all is not what it seems.

Are there spelling errors from a person with typically impeccable grammar? Are they the sort of person who would enter a competition for, win, or crow about a new piece of technology? How does the “via” indicate the post was sent? Particularly if it’s been sent from an app you don’t recognize, you should delete the post and let your friend know their account has been compromised.

3. Look before you log (in).

Photo by Johan Larsson.

Phishers are very good at making their fake websites look very similar to the real thing, in the hope that they can steal your username, password, and other personal details.

If you receive an email that looks like a Facebook notification, check the link that it takes you to. If it’s anything other than http://www.facebook.com, do not enter your login details. Simply close the window and take no further action.

4. Resist temptation.

If a private message pops up or a friend posts on your wall that you “won’t believe” what’s being written about you on a blog, take a deep breath and do not click the link. Delete the post and (you guessed it!) let them know that they’ve been hacked. These links, just like the ones about the video you just have to see or the photos of the girl at the party, are all ways of preying on human nature — you can’t help but want to know what’s behind the curtain.

We’ll spoil it for you: There’s probably nothing there. Perhaps a pile of advertising, perhaps a lengthy survey (and a pile of advertising), perhaps a form for you to enter all sorts of personal details (with a pile of advertising on the side). There’s definitely no scandalous blog, no terrifying photographs, and no information on who’s been looking at your profile. Sorry.

5. Use your common sense.

If a friend’s Facebook post seems not quite right, don’t follow the link. Instead, send them a quick message (or contact them using another method) to let them know their account may have been compromised.

The weakest link

Of course, sometimes you’ll slip up. Curiosity may get the better of you, and before you know it, you’ve installed an app that’s posting bizarre messages all over your friends’ Timelines.

Don’t worry, you can still recover from this. Head to Account > Privacy Settings > “Edit your settings” (under Apps and Websites) > Edit Settings (under “Apps you use”), and then click the X next to any apps you want to delete. Take a few moments to go through this list while you’re there, and remove any apps you do not still use or those that you didn’t mean to add in the first place.

Then delete any posts that the app has made in your name; they should be listed on your Timeline, too. If you want, you can make a post on your Timeline about what’s happened, but there’s no need to send everybody a private message.

Finally, change your Facebook account password — and next time, be more careful.

5 Tips to Avoid Facebook Fraud The Saturday Evening Post