The New Travel Website Winners

this is a wise piece of info from wirednews.com 's rants and raves...this is a trend that could help gonomad grow much larger.

Joe Buhler (jeb@buhlerworks.com)

Subject: Travel Upstarts Take on Top Sites

To claim that these new travel search engines represent Travel 2.0 sounds like so much hype -- maybe Travel 1.5 at best. Of course, as long as online travel is pure price-based comparison shopping, these companies enable easy comparison of travel components ("Travel Upstarts Take on Top Sites," Nov. 26, 2004).

The fastest growth in online travel, however, is in the sale of travel packages with components bundled into a total price. This will make it practically impossible for the comparison engines to do their job. In addition, this package will increasingly be priced and packaged dynamically, making comparison even less of a possibility. This development into true Travel 2.0 will also bring more focus on added value and branding.

The winners will likely be those travel providers that are able to offer an effective one-stop shopping travel-purchasing experience combined with competitive pricing. These winners might well be travel suppliers offering dynamic packaging capabilities on their own websites, or even destination sites.

The complexity and fascination of RSS Feeds

We are entering a new age at gonomad, we have added an RSS feed to our site so that we can offer a stream of stories piped right into a reader's desktop "aggregator," that means they can get all of the new stories as they are put up.

Part of the attraction of these feeds, that are now commonplace at NPR, NBC and most major news outlets, is that they push the content to those who choose to hook up for it. That makes each post more worthy, as it has been requested....specializing in whatever a person wants to keep up with. there are feeds of every single possible subject, like email newsletters that come out with the news.

we fed our feature story on hiking in austria as our first test, followed by a set of links of airport parking lots. this may be the start of something BIG! You read it here on readuponit first.

Listening In to Talk Radio

listening to one of my favorite talk show hosts, Howie Carr. He is bit extremist at times and I am not in agreement with his presidential or most political views, but again and again I have to appreciate his broad knowledge of Mass politics, the Law, recent news and trivia of every stripe. Today he's sort of chuckling about Don Imus, who apparently has been slapped by a lawsuit from a housekeeper he fired way back in the 9/11 frenzy, accusing her, loudly no doubt, of being a terrorist. The goods are all on the Smokinggun.com.

Is this a sign that yet another riduculously rich, famous and pompous star of the airwaves goes down? Or will Imus bury the truth and settle it all in a rich expensive quilt of a settlement, a la Bill O'Reilly? Howie thinks the tabloids are gonna blast old big mouth IMUS. who to me always seems to be either whining or fauning over the son he has with his much younger wife.

the other hot news of the day concerns Ken....DAMN Ken! Ken Jennings is going down on tonight's Jeopardy....apparently he chokes on a final Jeopardy that asks what the biggest company that employs more temporary workers for short period than any other..

Guess?

No it is not FED-X, it is HR BLOCK!

GoNOMAD.com--Alternative Travel

GoNOMAD.com--Alternative Travel This is the mothership, the raison d'etre, the main event the meat in the bun. GoNOMAD brings together writers, webmasters, tour operators, lodge owners, internet experts and mostly, travelers. All share the interest in getting on with the voyage, setting sail at midnight, waiting for the limo to take them up in the sky, embarking on their journeys, seeing the other sides of the world, hiking around the bend over the mountain.

This passionate interest in travel is what ties the whole thing together and makes reading my email so fascinating to me. People are taking journeys every day, and many of them share their trips and their observations with gonomad. com.

In READUPONIT you can sample some of the thoughts of those who journey far from home. send us a comment about what you'd like to see here.

The Top Ten destinations 2004

bootsnall.com is a very well made website full of links and good info. i am envious as they have 92,000 inbound links, that means they are doing everything right. i have often tried to reach the people who run this site, but never have made contact. this snippet was picked up from one of their RSS feeds. we want to add this function to gonomad so that people can pick up our feed and see all of the new stories we add. here is an interesting chart from a recent story in the washington post about where people are going.

Top Destinations 2004
According to Elissa Leibowitz of "The Washington Post," the top 10 travel destinations of 2004 are:
International:
1. Athens
2. Bahamas
3. Botswana
4. Bulgaria
5. Ecuador
6. Honduras
7. Montserrat
8. New Zealand
9. Northern Manitoba
10. Taiwan

DOMESTIC
1. Boston
2. Fort Lauderdale, FL
3. Fort Worth, Texas
4. Golfing in Alaska
5. Hawaii cruises
6. Lake Cascade, Idaho
7. Las Vegas
8. New York City
9. Sacramento
10. Trailing Lewis and Clark

Go Read her Justifications and Descriptions of Domestic Sites Here

letters from readers

being a travel editor we get sent letters every day. part of the fun of my job is to answer them, and provide assistance for people's trips. Here is a letter i got today from Candace.

Dear gonomad
Hi, I'm backpacking through europe next summer with acouple of friends but the coordinator's parent's thinkthat it's important to travel in even numbers forconvenience in rooming arrangements. in which case, wewould need to find someone we'd want to come who canmake such a big commitment... Is it really thatimportant for us to travel in even numbers before wemake this into something to worry about?
Candace

I wonder about that. If you are staying always in hotels, then yes that would make sense, to double up in the rooms...but you can also rent a hotel room with two twin beds and a cot, or a double bed and a single. Hotels are pretty flexible. If you stay in hostels, they have dorm rooms, so that would be irrelevant.

Mostly, I think you have to think about who the people are who you are embarking on the journey with. Do you really like being with them, do they get on your nerves, what is their vision of the trip...is it like yours? I always want to be able to get out on my own and see things that I want to see, are you going to be trapped in the Louvre for three days while your friend gazes at the Mona Lisa? Do you want to get out to the countryside and pick grapes, do they want to do that too? Only pick someone who will share your vision and let your trip be yours.

I'd suspect that the "adult" who is saying you need to have an even number has more in mind than just accommmodations. Maybe she/he wants you to get a more responsible party on board to keep track of things.

Let us know how you end up, and if you see wonderful things worthy of sharing with our audience, send us a story. If you are in the US, send us your size we'll send you a shirt to wear on your trip. How did you find GoNOMAD.com?

i also got a story sent in by a woman from India who saw Amsterdam's Red Light district for the first time ever. It was a sweet little tale but i told her that i thought it wasn't right for gonomad but that she could send us a new story if she liked.

readuponit, Max's New Blog

hartshorne, 46, publishes new blog following the trend set by the 04 elections. promise to share interesting things i read and find out and extend to these pages the essence of my life.

today had an interesting talk with a friend, neighbor and sales guy and possible candidate for sales position at gonomad.com, my website. he offered to just work and sell and if we made money he would be happy asking for some. very smart, just what a business owner wants to hear.

i got many of my earliest jobs like that, just going to the employer and coming up with an idea...hey hire me, here's why. When i was 21 I designed a whole newspaper before i was hired to do so. i figured i could send them a bill if they didn't end up hiring me. moved up to portland, me that year 1981.

thinking a lot about our upcoming trade show in NYC. Javits center, big time. adventure expo. talked today with ksj, he is the senior travel ed and top writer for gonomad. he will be there again this year.