A weekend getaway planner

Travel + Leisure has a new Weekend Getaway tool ( www.travelandleisure.com/weekend-getaways) to help you plan your next escape, even if your travel style is fickle. Take the kids or a lover, or leave both at home and take an adventure-laden journey all by yourself.

What’s hot: The fast and easy three-step process. Travel planners don’t get tripped up on a huge website that takes you to a bunch of destination pages. With the T+L Weekend Getaways tool, you just plug in your base location; so far, the site lets you choose from Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Santa Fe, N.M. Next, select how far you want to go -- two, four or six hours. Last, choose your trip type: romance, family, affordable or adventure. Your search will return three possible trips with suggestions on where to stay and eat and what to do. There’s even a Google map and, of course, links back to Travel + Leisure for more info on its picks.

What’s not: The suggestions are so great, why stop at three? Part of what I love about this widget is its simplicity, but when I’m looking for adventures that are up to six hours away from Los Angeles, I want to see more than three options. Also, it’s nice to get the hot spots pinned on the Google map, but there are no direction links. Because many of these two- and four-hour jaunts can be car trips, I’d love the option of door-to-door directions.

-- Jen Leo