My friends aren’t that impressionable, but they’re plenty mean.

My friend Elissa takes vacation taunting to new lows by posting photos of beautiful beaches on Facebook and tagging an empty spot with my name. My other Facebook friends like to post resentful remarks under my vacation snapshots, often threatening bodily harm. Hawaii seems to really set them off.

The website BiddingForGood hosts online auctions for nonprofit organizations. Among the items auctioned off by schools, civic organizations and other nonprofits around the country are hotel rooms and restaurant certificates.

Don’s most recent winning bid was for two nights at the Hotel Andaluz in Albuquerque (its lovely lobby is pictured here) for $75 a night. That was about half the lowest rack rate.

Want to try this site to save money and do good at the same time? A few tips:

Search wisely. If you’re planning a trip to a particular destination, you can search, for example, on “hotel Miami.” But if you’re open about where you might go, try browsing the site’s travel section.

Plan well ahead. You have to leave enough time for the auction to close and your winning gift coupons to be mailed, probably by volunteers who are not in a rush.

Prepare to lose. Local supporters of the auction sponsor may bid the item above its value, something you may not want to do unless it’s for a cause you particularly support.

Read the fine print. Many offers have restrictions of one kind or another. Make sure the deal is one you can use.

In advance of an upcoming trip to New Mexico, I started to look not only at the Hartford area deals but also those for Albuquerque, which includes some offers for Santa Fe. (Groupon says a separate site for Santa Fe is in the works.)

I found not only restaurant bargains but deeply discounted tickets for the Road Runner Express, the light rail system between the two cities.

Groupon has also announced a Groupon Getaways travel site in partnership with Expedia, but that doesn’t seem to be up and running quite yet.

The deal, a £250 voucher toward a Club Med vacation at select resorts for £20, was available only through direct sales on the Groupon site. Club Med seemed unmoved by the travel agents’ complaints that they were cut out of the deal and described it to Travel Weekly as a test.

Groupon also recently announced a partnership with Expedia in the United States and Canada called Groupon Getaways. I just signed up for email alerts, but so far I can’t tell what is being or will be offered.

This could get interesting.

Momondo says the hotel search covers 450,000 hotels around the world and seeks out price comparisons across various hotel booking sites. Tnooz reviews it here.

I have used Momondo mainly to find air fares outside the United States, where it seems to do a better job than some of the U.S.-based search sites in finding good fares on small, regional airlines.  It will be interesting to see if the hotel search delivers the same advantage on foreign hotels.

The recycled soap products are distributed to homeless shelters in the United States and to needy people in poor countries, where soap can save lives by halting the spread of infectious diseases.

You can help by sending leftover soap products you’ve accumulated, donating money and asking hotels to participate in the recycling program. The Clean the World Web site has more details.

Gamirasu Cave Hotel

HotelsCombined.com has released a list of the 10 quirkiest hotels in the world and, much to my surprise, it includes a hotel I’ve stayed in.

The Gamirasu Cave Hotel in Ayvali, Turkey, is third on the list. I didn’t really find it all that quirky when I stayed there in 2008, but these lists tend to be pretty subjective, anyway.

The rooms at the Gamirasu are dug into the soft rock of Cappadocia, where people have lived in caves for thousands of years. It’s a beautiful place and a great value, plus the breakfast buffet is fabulous. Quirky or not, I highly recommend it.

As for the Jumbo Hotel in a grounded 747 in Stockholm or the Alcatraz Hotel in a former jail in Kaiserslautern, Germany, I’ll let you know what I think if I ever get there.

Travelzoo specializes in travel deals the way Overstock specializes in remaindered merchandise. Every day the site adds new bargains: reduced hotel rates, last-minute cruises, airfare sales and discounted vacation packages.

Every Wednesday, Travelzoo releases its Top 20 list on the site and in a newsletter. Recently it included a $699 package trip to Moscow, a $105 rate at The Omni Los Angeles and a seven-day Caribbean cruise for $464.

A caveat: like most travel sites, Travelzoo generally doesn’t include taxes and fees in the rates it promotes. And those may be substantial. Also, many rates are per person, based on double occupancy, so a single traveler will pay substantially more.

Travelzoo is a commercial site and its listings are advertisements — hotels, tour operators and airlines pay to be included. Nevertheless, the listings tend to represent good values, and Travelzoo says it rejects offers that don’t.

The listings are mostly for well-traveled destinations: Las Vegas, Hawaii and Orlando figure prominently, along with the Caribbean and European hot spots. A recent search of the site for Nepal turned up nothing, but a search on Paris turned up 32 listings.

Travelzoo is a great first stop if you’re trying to figure out where to go on the cheap. Even if you don’t book one of its deals, the distribution of the offers will tell you where demand is weak and discounts are strong.

It’s also a good site to check out whenever you are going to a popular tourist area. I wouldn’t dream of booking a hotel in Hawaii without having a quick look through its Hawaii deals, for example.

There are other sites that aggregate good travel deals, and are well worth checking out. Budget Travel’s Real Deals section often has very good offers. And the Frommer’s site lists bargains in its Deals & News section as well as in Arthur Frommer’s excellent and opinionated blog.