Tripgems.com

What it does: It’s an online home for storing your memorable travel locations as well as sharing your favorite global secrets with others.

What’s hot: An easy-to-use tool, the site encourages users to share their destination hot spots — such as great restaurants, parks, museums and bars. When you "add a place," you can search by location, then write a short comment about why you like it. Click on "Popular Places" — such as Amsterdam, New York or Auckland, New Zealand — to see how a city looks. As the content grows, I hope it will add categories for quick links to travel topics such as hotels, restaurants, etc.

What’s not: It’s a new site, so there weren’t many gems in U.S. cities I was interested in. From a user perspective, I needed an easier path to loading photos. You can sign in by connecting through Facebook, but I didn’t see a way to add photos directly from Facebook. I had to upload them first from my desktop. Ugh.

—Jen Leo / Los Angeles Times