I use CTRL-j and CTRL-k to cycle through my tabs. It's like j/k except for tabs instead of lines:

    map <C-j> :tabn<CR>
    map <C-k> :tabp<CR>

I also alias ":split" to ":tabe", because my fingers will be forever wired to type ":split <filename>" when I want to open a new file.

    cnoreabbrev split tabe