Got Travel? Travel Blogs and Travel Bloggers, Unite!
For some time (100,000 years in internet dog years), I’ve wanted to collect *all* the travel blogs in one spot and organize them by destination. That’s not happening … yet … but I’m very happy to see so many great folks online blogging travel now as well as many lists of bloggers popping up.
An interesting issue in finding the holy grail of travel information is whether people would rather hear from *travelers* or from *locals*. I used to lean to the former – ie I wanted to hear from other folks who had visited a place to get the best information, but it’s become clear to me now that the best source for travel information are well informed local folks – ideally those who are in the travel industry and therefore familiar with a lot of attractions, hotels, restaurants, history, customs, etc. An example for Oregon is … me.
I worked in the travel industry for many years and I know a *lot* about Oregon, especially Southern Oregon. Unfortunately there are not very many people blogging “local travel” from a local perspective. Ironically pretty much all the travel writing blog folks (including me) are so busy talking about their own trips out and about, they are not writing much about their local places – the kind of information that would be simply wonderful if you were to visit a place.
So … my challenge to travel bloggers is to write a few posts about things to see and do in your own neck of the woods. Let me know if you do and I’ll be happy to feature it prominently at our heavy traffic site ”Travel and History”. Please include a bit of history in the travelogue if you can.
Here are some from some cool traveling folks:
Blogs/ Travelers list from Traveling Teri:
- 1step2theleft
- 20sTravel
- 501 Places
- Abigail King
- Adventure Girl
- Adventure Living
- Agent Cikay
- Alex Berger
- Almost Fearless
- Andi Perullo
- Andrew G. Hayes
- Andy Murdock
- Around the World “L”
- As We Travel
- Aussie Nomad
- Bairds Travel
- Beth Arnold
- Bike Raft
- Boots n All
- Border Jumpers
- Brendan von Son
- Brian Swan
- Brooke Schoenman
- Budget Travel Sacramento
- Cailin O’Neil
- Cal Bosch
- Candice Walsh
- Cara Lopez Lee
- CC Burns
- CG Travels
- Christine Amorose
- Couch Surfing Ori
- Dave’s Travel Corner
- David Lytle (davitydave)
- Diana Ellefson
- Docudramaqueen
- Don Nadeau
- Donna L. Hull
- Drifting Focus
- Dustin Main
- Earth Explorer
- Eat Live Travel Write
- Elite Travel Gal
- ELoren
- Erica Kuschel
- Everywhere Trip
- Fodor’s Travel Guides
- Fox Nomad
- Gadling
- Gerard Ward
- Girls Getaway
- GloboTreks
- Got Passport
- Got Saga Latino
- Got Saga
- Grumpy Traveller
- Happy Go Lucky
- Harriett Baskas
- Holiday Greece
- I Live to Travel
- Isabelle’s Travel Guide
- Janelle Norman
- Jason’sTravels
- Jeff Titelius
- JoAnna Haugen
- Jason’sTravels
- Joe Hunkins
- Johnny Vagabond
- Journeywoman
- Kevin May
- Kim Mance
- LandLopers
- Larry Blanken
- Legal Nomads
- LJ Rose Expeditions
- Lonely Planet
- Malaysia-Asia
- Margaret Kinney
- Monica Wong
- My Journey of a Lifetime
- My Melange
- National Geographic
- Neverending Voyage
- New York Times Travel
- Nomadic Chick
- Nomadic Matt
- Ottsworld
- ParisBuff
- PatriciaVance, GotSaga
- Pauline Frommer’s Travel
- Perrin Post
- Peter Greenberg
- Richard Escobar
- Rick Steves
- RTWDave
- Runaway Juno
- Sam Daams
- SaraKateTravel
- Secured Traveler
- Serendipity Traveler
- Shawnosaurus
- Smart Women Travelers
- Solo Friendly
- Solo Traveler
- Sosauce
- Soultravelers3
- Spencer Spellman
- Spunky Girl Monologues
- Stay Adventurous
- Stay Bank
- Sumit Gupta
- Susan Farlow
- Suzy Guese
- Technomadia
- Thank God I Surf
- The Jungle Princess
- The Longest Way Home
- The Mad Traveler Online
- The Planetd
- The Roaming Boomers
- The Tashinga Initiative
- The Travel Tart
- The Travel Tweeter
- The Trip Chicks
- Tiffany Travels
- Timesonline Travel
- Travel Answerman
- Travel Blogger
- Travel Bully
- Trailer Campers
- Travel Cuts
- Travel Designed
- Travel Dudes
- Travel Girl (smultronställen)
- Travel Happy
- Traveling Anna
- Traveling Perly
- Traveling Savage
- Traveling Ted
- Traveling Teri
- Travels of Adam
- Travelocity
- Travel Off the Cuff
- Travel Optimist
- Travel Maus
- Travel Muse
- Travel Savvy Mom
- Travel Squire
- Travel Susan
- Travelwriticus
- Trey Ratcliff
- Tuscan Blog
- Unbrave Girl
- Uncornered Market
- Vagabond3Italian Notes
- Vagabondish
- Velvetescape
- Wandering-off
- Wanderings of a Travelbug
- Wandering Trader
- Want to Go Travel
- Welcome Tuscany
- Wend Magazine
- Where I’ve Been
- Wild Junket
- World Nomads
Blogroll from Travel Answer Man John Van Kirk:
- Academic Earth
- Almost Fearless
- Around the World
- Art of Non-Conformity
- Blog Catalog
- BootsnAll
- Briefcase to Backpack
- Budget Travel
- Common Sense and Whiskey
- Cool Business Ideas
- Cool Tools
- Cool Travel Guide
- Cruise Reviews
- Curious Expeditions
- Development Blog
- Documentation
- Earthquake News
- Eating the Motherland
- Enduring Wanderlust
- Engadget
- Escape From New York
- Ethical Traveler
- Euro Cheapo
- Ever the Nomad
- Everything Everywhere
- Family Travellogue
- Gadling
- Geotraveler’s Niche
- Gizmodo
- Global Scavenger Hunt
- Global Security News & Reports
- Global Voices Online
- Go Nomad
- Green Blogs
- Gridskipper
- Happy Hotelier
- Health Ranger
- Hobo Traveler
- Hoosta Magazine
- Hostel Buenos Aires
- Hotel Blogs
- i Kangaroo
- Indie Travel Podcast
- Intelligent Travel
- Intrade
- Japan Visitor
- Jaunted
- John McCabe
- Kyle Keeton
- Las Vegas
- Legal Nomads
- Life Clever
- Life Hack
- Luxury Latin America
- Luxury Travel Blog
- Metro Blogging
- Miss Expatria
- MJ Perry
- Moroccan Mary
- Mr and Mrs Smith
- My Itchy Travel Feet
- National Parks Traveler
- New York City
- Newyorkology
- No Debt World Travel
- Nomadic Matt
- Notes from the Road
- One World Travel and Tourism
- Perrinpost
- Peter Greenberg
- Plugins
- Rick Seaney
- Roaming Tales
- Rolling Rains Report
- Routes International
- Saving Advice
- Science Daily
- Seat 61
- Seth Godin
- Slow Travel
- Small Time Traveller
- Smithsonian Journeys
- Southern Cone Guide Books
- Suggest Ideas
- Support Forum
- Synthesis
- The Dollar Stretcher
- The Travelers Zone
- The World By Sea
- Themes
- Travel Answer Man
- Travel Beautiful
- Travel Blog
- Travel Blogs
- Travel Booklocker
- Travelers Lunch Box
- Traveling Mamas
- Traveling Teri
- Travelizmo
- Tree Hugger
- Ubertramp
- Unearthing Asia
- Vagablogging
- Vagabondish
- Virtual Tourist
- Walking and Drinking Beer
- WalletPop
- Wandering Educators
- Wandering Justin
- Watching America
- What a Trip
- Whole Travel
- Wild Junket
- WordPress Planet
- World Hum
- World News
- World Reviewer
- World Weather
- Writing Horseback
From Elliot.org
Alaska TravelGram
Almost Fearless
Anders Meanders
Arthur Frommer
Brave New Traveler
Consumerist
Evan Sparks
Everett Potter
ExpertCruiser
Flight Wisdom
Gadling
Hidden Travel Gems
Hotel Blogs by Guillaume Thevenot
HotelChatter
Intelligent Travel
Jaunted
Jeanne Leblanc
LLWorldTour
Marriott on the Move
MaxaBlog
Online Travel Review
Peter Greenberg
PlaneBuzz
Rick Seaney
Roads Less Traveled
Safe Cruise
Ship Critic blog
Southwest Airlines
T2Impact
The BOOT
The Cruise Log
The Daily Traveler
The Practical Nomad
This Just In…..
Tim Leffel’s Cheapest Destinations
Towers and Tarmacs
Travel Babel
Travel Gear Blog
Travel Log
Travel Maven blog
Travel Post
Travel Rants
Traveler 2.0
Traveler’s Check
Tripinator – Travel 2.0
Tripso
Upgrade: travel better
USA Today’s Hotel Hotsheet
World Hum
WSJ.com: The Middle Seat Terminal
WordPress Publishing Problems with Flickr or other programs?
Another reminder (because I’ve needed this many times) that you must enable WordPresses “Remote Publishing” protocols if you want to blog photos directly from Flickr (a fantastic feature – I wish more people could do this but it remains a little tricky to set up both at Flickr and at WP unless you know this is needed (defaults have these boxes UNchecked). I think you only need the XML-RPC after correct configuration at Flickr, but do both so you have more ways to publish to your WP blog:
Remote Publishing
To post to WordPress from a desktop blogging client or remote website that uses the Atom Publishing Protocol or one of the XML-RPC publishing interfaces you must enable them below.
| Atom Publishing Protocol | |
|---|---|
| XML-RPC |
Business Power of Social Media cannot be overstated
I was watching a brief “internet marketing” bit suggesting how small businesses were spending too much money (! ?) on social media efforts when they should be focusing on their websites and using social media primarily to drive people to their sites. I winced at this, feeling that the opposite advice is probably better advice. I tell folks to focus on social media and use websites to drive potential customers to …. YOU…. or to Twitter or Facebook or email exchanges where they can interact with the business in the kinds of ways that don’t just make a customer – they make a LOYAL customer. Social media allows people to engage in the most virtuous business cycle – where customers and businesses develop a relationship based on mutual trust, respect, value, and quality.
The internet has always been more about PEOPLE than about TECHNOLOGY, but only recently has it allowed so much vibrant interactivity between many people in simple, fun venues.
Of course as with many pieces of bad advice, there’s is some truth to what the marketing consultant was saying about fretting over your website more than most small businesses do . Small Businesses should work hard to make sure their websites do a good job of serving their customers, converting to sales, and presenting their business in a very positive light.
However, social media is – at long last – the pure intersection of customers with the people at the business and for that reason you can’t overstate how important social media can be to a small business, especially because it’s an incredibly *efficient* way to do what most great and smart small businesses do a lot of – talking to customers.
Don’t agree? Cool, just Twitter me about it, leave a comment here, or email me. It’s an online social cornucopia and no business or idea needs to be left behind anymore.
Climate Science Scandal – will Paleo Dendrochronology survive?
For new readers please NOTE that I am NOT a climate skeptic, I am just wondering why groupthink seems so pervasive in the climate science community, especially over at the key climate blog RealClimate .
Update: Two very thoughtful and balanced pieces written – by climate scientist Judy Curry – and by Peter Kelemen at Popular Mechanics .
Here’s the Wall Street Journal’s take on this.
Here are the infamous hacked emails.
There’s a remarkable development today on the climate front [thanks to Glenn for the link in the earlier post]. A huge amount of climate data, including some remarkable emails between scientists, have been hacked from the University of Anglia in England. These mails and data may shed some light on some of the more contentious points in climate science.
The odd methods and math seem especially conspicuous in tree ring studies of climate trends. Called Paleo Dendrochronology, these studies are VERY often used either alone or with other data in climate studies and often are used alone or with other data to make the case that global climate change is potentially catastrophic.
The best scientific work critical of global warming science seems to focus mostly on attacking this weakest link – or should I say the weakest rings – over at ClimateAudit.org.
Here is a great balanced view at UK Guardian of the story so far: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/20/climate-sceptics-hackers-leaked-emails
A critical view of the implications of this data is here at ClimateAudit
A sympathetic view is here at RealClimate where I tried to post I posted this comment and I appreciate the good sportsmanship of them letting it through moderation. When they do allow me to post this type of comment I wonder if I’ve been too hard on them for what seems like censorship, but possibly could be the crappy posting system they have over there where moderation, timestamps, and other factors seem to confuse everybody.
Somebody naively wondered why there are so few comments on this post. IMO the answer is that RealClimate is effectively content-censored to a large degree for conformance with the prevailing ideas here.
Uninformed dissenters are sometimes let in so the comment crew can bash them around, but reasoned dissenters are usually banned outright. Many don’t bother trying to post here for that very reason.
Gavin in the interest of transparency would you at least roughly estimate how many of the comments have been moderated out for this post? I would guess 95% have been zapped.
<i>[RealClimate wrote] Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem” </i>
Could you give a few examples? I searched right here at Realclimate for uses of that term they tend to relate to “trickery”, not good science.
More climate updates: Here’s the Copenhagen Diagnosis, an excellent summary of the latest climate science since the last big IPCC report. For the record I do think this does suffer from the prevailing “somewhat alarmist” tone in some of the interpretations of the research. For example a key observation is the current pause in warming noted by satellite measures, and this is given short shrift here.
Bud Light Hardbat Classic at The Venetian in Las Vegas
The Hardbat Classic Table Tennis Ping Pong rumors are not only true, they are truly Table Tennis and it’s going to be Vegas, baby!
I’ll be competing in the Bud Light Hardbat Classic which starts this Friday at the spectacular Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Top prize is … wait for it … $100,000.00 That’s enough money to pay the interest on our blossoming national debt for … well…. a couple of seconds. But never mind that….
I’ll try to keep up with some real time reporting via Twitter or here at the blog, though this may depend on data access at the venue and my own good or bad luck in the tournament.
There will be about a thousand players of all skill levels competing – many after winning their regional bar tournaments held around the USA over the past several months. Even though I won our local tournament it wasn’t a qualifier for the big one, so I’m making my own way there after they opened it up to everybody.
There are also brackets for a special group of “stars” chosen by the Hardbat Tournament, another for walk in players, and one for “pros” who have a rating or have played in USTTA tournaments over the years. Although I haven’t played in tournaments recently I was actually the USTTA National Table Tennis Champ in the “1300″ rating category in 1992 (ratings in Table Tennis are kind of like handicapping in golf).
The Bud Tournament is “over handicapped” , meaning that the very best players will have to spot a lot of points to lower ranked players – as many as 17 out of 21. My take on this tournament is that it will tend to favor unrated players who are very experienced with the “pips out” type of rubber required at the Hardbat Classic.
Hardbat Classic Official Website
Follow the Tournament on Twitter
Follow the Killerspin Team on Twitter
Blogs are talking about the HardBat Classic in Las Vegas at the Venetian:
China shuts access to Twitter, Flickr, Bing, Live, Hotmail, Blogger via the “Great Firewall” filters
China is closing down access to various internet services as they approach they anniversary of the Tiananmen Square democracy protests in 1989. The early report from TechCrunch says that Twitter, Flickr, Bing, Live, Hotmail, Blogger have all been made hard to access via the “Great Firewall” filters. I did notice when in China last year that there are various programs like ‘Great Ladder” that allow people to bypass these filters, but obviously not many are going to have the combination of nerve and savvy to do this.
I believe that China’s censorship policies are probably counterproductive *even to the Chinese Government’s goals* in the long term, and I’d sure like to find a way for the internet community to make this clear to China’s leaders. Ironically China’s leadership has done a remarkable job transitioning away from the bulky, centralized, bureaucratic economy that had been stifling progress for decades. China’s citizens now enjoy a higher level of prosperity and *economic* freedom than they arguably have ever had in history. Much of this prosperity is the result of producing goods for the US market. What exactly does the government think will happen if they allow more open dialog in China? I’d suggest they’ll find this would tend to reduce the tensions created by unhappy citizens rather than increase them. Suppression of dissent in Tibet routinely brings international scorn to China, where a more open dialog will bring praise, respect, and support.
China needs to realize that the world’s fascination and respect for China’s culture and international influence will be enhanced by free speech, not reduced.
TechCrunch UK is reporting on this and I’m looking for more direct information now.
More from China’s CN Reviews
Sue the bloggers!? [gulp]
Thanks to Paul for pointing us ot this interesting article about blogger liabilities. I’d be interested in how folks here view this topic. Do I need “blog comment insurance”?
Wall Street Journal on Blogger lawsuits
Bloggers are increasingly getting sued or threatened with legal action for everything from defamation to invasion of privacy to copyright infringement. In 2007 — the most recent data available — 106 civil lawsuits against bloggers and others in social networks and online forums were tallied by the Citizen Media Law Project at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, up from just 12 in 2003. There have been about $17.4 million in trial awards against bloggers to date, according to the Media Law Resource Center in New York, a nonprofit clearinghouse that tracks free-speech cases.
Why Twitter matters … a lot. Clue = Soylent Green.
Twitter is moving into the mainstream faster than any major internet application in history, and is redefining online behavior as we continue to move away from “internet as information” and into the era of “internet as people”.
Obviously both information and socializing will play a huge role in online behavior for the duration, but like the ubiquitous and mysterious food source in the old Charleton Heston Movie, Soylent Green

Twitter is especially important because …. “Twitter is People”.
Some Twitter enthusiasts wrongly suggest that Twitter is important because it is breaking a few bits and bytes of news in real time (e.g. Hudson Plane Crash, CA Plane Crash) or providing a platform for discussion of pressing social issues (e.g. Gaza War). Meanwhile Twitter critics very foolishly point to the obvious about Twitter’s superficiality as if this was a defect.
Twitter is certainly largely superficial in terms of how people chit chat on the service, but this is the reason for it’s spectacular success. Humans by nature – ie by millions of years of evolution – are not designed well for thoughtful, reasoned discourse. Instead, for much of evolutionary history we were very UNintelligently designed by trial and error and random mutations to survive in sometimes hostile environments. This makes us a short term, superficial socializing thinker more than a long term planner. Sure, we sometimes do that long term stuff but if there are any lessons we can derive from history it is how poorly humanity has optimized our long term well being. One need look no further than the ongoing global financial crisis, global terror threats, tribal disputes across Africa, or global religious intolerance to see how poorly we cope with situations that would probably respond well with even a modest level of long term, optimal planning rather than the short term knee jerk nonsense that often stains our local and international finance, politics, and social relationships.
Twitter’s simplicity and superficiality are exactly why it will continue to thrive, diving into mainstream use faster than you can Tweet Ellen Degeneres, who yesterday challenged her viewers to become “followers” of her Twitter account. Although her goal of a million followers was not realistic, Ellen rose from zero to over 110,000 followers in a single day – perhaps a Twitter record and certainly a demonstration of a significant convergence of Television and internet audiences.
As internet activity stabilizes I think we’ll see people relying more and more on Twitter as their socializing platform of choice. There’s certainly room for many social networking sites, but I think Facebook needs to worry that Twitter may diminish the time people spend at Facebook in favor of the simpler, more intuitive interactions at Twitter. Twitter has done for social networking what Google did for Search – they created a super clean interface and made it extremely easy to participate, building a large and happy user base in a very short time. Unlike Google, however, Twitter will continue to face challenges monetizing their success, for as we’ve learned from Facebook’s experiences with ads and advertising fiascos it is not nearly as easy to make money in social networking as in information searching. I predict it never will be as easy and Twitter is likely to face some interesting challenges as they try to bridge the gap between user enthusiasm for Twitter and aversion to advertising. However Twitter will be a spectacular success with even a fraction of Google’s adverising revenue, so I see them thriving for some time.
TechCrunch’s Erick has this
ASUS new PC line at CES 2009
From CES Unveiled in Las Vegas – ASUS new line of PCs. More over at Technology Report
CES is fun so far with good tech and HUGE shrimp (holy oxymoron, batman!)
PictureMail
Originally uploaded by JoeDuck


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