Top Travel Social Networks

~ One of the methods I have been using for help with research into my forthcoming trip is social networks geared around travel enthusiasts.

You will no doubt be familiar with social network sites like MySpace, Facebook and the more recent phenomenon – Twitter. These sites are very general in their nature and makeup in that they attract and appeal to a huge broad range of users. However, if you are currently researching your next vacation, these sites (and the many others like them), may not be the best way to connect with travellers who have already visited the locations you are planning to travel to.

To connect with travellers all over the world, you need to join one or more of the many travel related social networking sites available online. I myself am a member of the Trip Advisor forums, BootsnAll, and the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree forums. But there are many more. Thankfully, John Van Kirk, the Travel Answer Man has put together a list of ten of the best travel social networking sites, which includes the three I am signed up with.

Along with the three already mentioned, John includes Dopplr – a site which lets users create trip itineraries and find travel tips created by other travellers; Trip Wolf – which is similar to Facebook for travel because of its “friends” and “travelers” features; and Virtual Tourist – which John claims is the web’s largest travel community and social network, although I suspect Trip Advisor might question this claim.

All these sites have many common features such as the ability to ask questions in location specific forums; the ability to post reviews of hotels, café’s and restaurants, and almost anything else; space to upload trip photographs; the capacity to plan trip itineraries, and many more features. Of course these sites work best when you contribute to the discussions, reviews, and other areas of the sites where input is encouraged by travellers just like you.

Even if you are yet to travel away from your own home town, you can make positive contributions by joining discussions related to your home town or city. After all, those who are best placed to write about a particular location, are the locals. So get involved, and join a world wide community of travellers. You’ll be glad you did.

John Van Kirk has broken his list of top travel social networks into two posts on his blog. Click here for Part One; and click here for Part Two…

The Week That Was #7

~ Welcome to my weekly collection of The Odd, The Useful, and The Downright Bizarre.

The Odd: Top 5 Naked Events And Top 5 Nude Beaches. I bet that got your attention! Those people over at Tripso.Com have a feature on the top nude events and beaches around the world. They even mention Maslins Beach (Australia’s first official nude beach), here in South Australia, which apparently hosts the Nude Beach Olympics in January. I wonder if they will let me down there with my video camera to film a clip for this blog?

The Useful: Ten Tips for Planning a Round The World Trip.

Planning a trip is always part of the adventure of travelling, and even more so if it’s a round-the-world (RTW) trip across many countries on various continents. Planning a trip around the world is a fun experience but keep in mind that there are various distinct aspects involved that are usually a non-issue for a typical ’single-destination’ holiday. These include varying costs and climates in different countries. When I prepared my RTW trip last year, I made many notes along the way, organising them by region. My notes included things I wanted to see, transportation, costs and accommodation options. I also created a checklist for other important aspects such as travel health insurance and things to pack. Read more here...

The Downright Bizarre: 35 of The World’s Most Bizarre Hotels. Hot on the heals of last weeks entry about 21 strange and unusual hotels, comes Newsday with their online feature about the very same thing. Not to be outdone, Newsday has photographs and information for 35 out of the ordinary hotels including covered wagons,

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing – enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Friday Photo#5 ~ Private Property

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I couldn’t resist taking a photograph of this tree, slowly devouring the Private Property sign, when I encountered it on State Street in Teaneck, New Jersey. I had gone to Teaneck to see one of my favourite American singer-songwriters, Steve Forbert, who was performing at the Mexicali Blues Cafe at 1409, Queen Anne Road (201-833-0011‎).

This tree gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, nature was not on the retreat. What if instead, nature was on the attack? What if nature, in a million surreptitious ways was slowly claiming back its rightful place on the planet, and we were too blind to even notice. Well, after all, it wouldn’t be the first time that people where so preoccupied with their own petty greed and jealousies, that nature was able to exact some type of revenge for years of neglect and abuse.

Or maybe this was natures way of saying, Neither this tree or this planet will ever by your ‘private property’. It belongs to everyone.

Photograph: Private Property Tree, by Jim Lesses
Location: Teaneck, New Jersey, May 18, 2008.