At first glance, Travelmuse looks like just another content provider site. I heard they raised a bunch of VC money, so I decided they were worth a second look to figure out what they’re doing that is actually unique.

They have a couple of unique things going on, but the thing I find really exciting is their TravelMuse Planning widget. It’s like a Delicious widget for travel planning. I’m a huge fan of Delicious, and can really see the value in this widget. The image below shows how it works (stolen from the TravelMuse site).

The widget is cool, but what I really like about it is that it works outside of TravelMuse. You can use the plan-it widget whether you’re searching Wikipedia, TripAdvisor or the LonelyPlanet forums. That makes the widget more valuable to the user, but also very valuable for other sites. Uptake (in many ways a competitor to TravelMuse) has even added the widget to their site.

There are a few other exciting things going on with TravelMuse, but you might as well go check it out for yourself.

Request for the TravelMuse team: can we get a TravelMuse widget that integrates with Facebook?

Recommended reading: Alex Bainbridge’s excellent post on TravelMuse.