Kayak.com, the comprehensive travel search engine, kicks off the New Year by today announcing that a number of leading media outlets, including the New York Post, BusinessWeek Online and U.S. News & World Report, have recognized Kayak.com as one of the Best Travel Web Sites of 2005.

On December 27, 2005, the New York Post ran its annual Web Guide of the top travel Web sites and selected Kayak.com as the “Best New Web Site” with the following review:

“First there were Expedia and Travelocity. Then there was Orbitz. Now, a team that had its fingers in all three is giving the world of discount travel a sound thrashing with the development of this 11-month old meta-search engine… It doesn’t book your travel — it just leads to the sites where you can. It’s also possible to look for air, hotel and car rental deals. Each search utilizes more than 100 sites …Viva la revolucion!”

Editor’s of U.S. News & World Report recognized Kayak.com in the December 5 “Best of the Web” issue noting that the site outperformed other travel search engines in a series of tests, “In the end, we preferred Kayak. Its results page allows travelers to find exactly the flight they want. And best of all, the prices on Kayak were typically $5 or $6 cheaper…because it doesn’t pass booking fees on to you.”

Editors of BusinessWeek Online also named Kayak.com as one of the three top travel Web sites in their September 25 “Best of the Web” survey.

Kayak.com was also recently recognized by Flavorpill, a publisher of email magazines about culture and lifestyle in major urban areas, which awarded Kayak.com a spot on its coveted list of “Up-and-Comers.” Flavorpill applauded Kayak Buzz for its unique and industry leading destination map features by stating, “There are loads of services that track down cheap airfares, but this is the only one we’ve seen so far that mashes it up with Google maps. Drop in your departure city, the region you’re traveling to, and even a theme (skiing, golf, or gambling of course) then map it all out.”

Kayak.com also topped the charts on two other distinguished awards in 2005, including Laptop Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award (August) and MasterCard’s Usability Excellence Awards (August).