Holiday polama?

A website by the name polama.com, meaning 'shall we go?' in Tamil gives you options of getaways, packages and group holidays and lets you compare them

Polama.com, a city-based travel websiteu00a0 might initially seem a little hard to navigate, but soon enough you will get a hang of comparing holidays, services and packages and could even stand the risk of getting addicted.
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Two IIT Madras alumni, avid vacationers themselves realized one fine day that none of the travel websites provided adequate comparisons of holidays. Polama.com was born out of this simple idea by MD Ramaswami and Dilip Panicker.



What strikes one at the first mention is the name, Polama that in Tamil literally means 'Shall we go?'. "We thought of many other names before we came up with this one. We were once at a game of golf, when we saw that most domain names created after everyday objects like ladders and staircases, etc. were taken.

Dilip then suggested polama and we connected instantly," says MD. "We are glad that some part of South India will understand the meaning, for the rest it's just another name that will grow on", he adds.

Panicker has been an entrepreneur through his life and MD juggled many jobs until the start of this travel portal. However, it seems that the wish to explore the unknown is what connects them.

"We have both been avid travellers. As we vacation at least three times a year, we also end up sharing travel plans and ideas sometimes. When planning a holiday, we realized we spent a lot of time exploring options on websites of different service providers," says MD.

"That is when we discovered there is no technologically enhanced website that lets you compare options in an accessible format," he adds.

The website is user friendly even though we could do with some drop boxes and pictures displaying vacations upfront on the homepage. The homepage consists of a search option where you can choose from getaways, packages and group holidays.
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Once a location is picked, options by different service providers will be displayed. You can then narrow your search based on travel time, budgets and even service providers.

A checkbox appears next to each one of the holidays that with the option compare. Once this option is checked and you are exploring for more holidays, you can compare each one those you have selected previously by choosing to compare now.

What we like: The website provides a trailing comparison of all the holidays you have selected throughout your visit there and will not trash any unless you deselect.

What we didn't like: The list of service providers is large and destinations many though we found some prices needed to be requested for and were not available upfront. In no time, you will be glued to holiday shopping even if you aren't planning any.
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The most popular destination for the season, MD confirms are European tour options as opposed to Goa during the December holiday season. Talking about their favourite location, the duo tells us, "We love the Himalyas."

Log onto www.polama.com