Twenty years ago the hostels of Kathmandu and beach bars of Ko Samui were full
of young backpackers scrawling notes in well-thumbed diaries. When they felt
the need to communicate with home – perhaps to ask dad to wire some money –
they would take a bus to the nearest poste restante office.
Then in the 1990s thousands of travellers put aside their journals and stopped
writing letters. With internet cafes appearing on every street corner from
Bombay to Bangkok, they signed up for Hotmail accounts and started emailing
friends and family with news of their latest adventures.
Now, in the 21st century, many backpackers have little time for email.
Instead, they blog, uploading messages, photos, movie clips and podcasts to
their personal online journals. One of the advantages of blogging over
emailing is that you can create a document to keep and revisit in future
years. It also allows you to contact fellow travellers and share tips, flick
through each others’ photo albums and perhaps even arrange to meet in real
life.
More than a dozen travel community websites have sprung up over the past
decade – many of them hoping to become the MySpace or FriendsReunited of
travel. Which are worth a visit? First, let’s identify the different types
of travel community sites.
Blogging sites
If you want to share your travel diaries and photographs with friends and
family – and a bunch of strangers – you can join a blogging site. Once you
sign up, you can skim through other members’ diaries and, if you like the
look of them, make contact. Examples include Globenotes.com,
Travelblog.com, RealTravel.com,
Mytripjournal.com and Travelpod.com.
Networking sites
The latest generation of travel community sites take their cue from MySpace,
Bebo and Facebook. Travel tips and diaries take second place to the primary
business of social networking. At sites like Wayn.com and Gusto.com you can
browse through galleries of members’ photos, learn about their favourite
places, send them messages and “make friends” with them – all without
leaving the comfort of your desk. If it’s real-life encounters you want, try
sites such as Couchsurfing.com,
where you can find people to put you up for the night, and Virtualtourist.com,
which claims to have close to 900,000 members and arranges regular meetings
around the world.
Peer review sites
It is said that 10% of people planning a trip consult TripAdvisor,
the most successful travel review site on the web. It claims to have more
than 5million write-ups of hotels, restaurants, attractions and resorts, all
given ratings out of 5. Tripadvisor and rivals including Priceline.co.uk
are not for bloggers, but they do allow you to let off steam. And if used
judiciously, they are useful research tools.
The lines get blurred
The lines between these three types of sites are becoming increasingly blurred
as review sites and blogging sites dip their toes into the world of social
networking. TripAdvisor, for instance, now allows users to pen their own
personal profiles and upload videos. Some sites – including Travbuddy.com
and Tripconnect.com – now straddle
the line between blogging and social networking. They allow you to upload
your travel diaries and photos while collecting new online “friends”.
Mylifeoftravel.com is a UK based travel blogging platform which is not only free, but hosts significantly more user travel content than the sites reviewed above.
The website hosts over 30,000 travel journals and interactive maps of user's trips, and allows unlimited uploads of journals and photos.
Calan, London,
You can also use PC2Paper.co.uk to send real paper letters from the internet to friends and relatives who don't have access to the internet. The service allows you to include pictures and as letters are sent from the UK they usually arrive next day.
Karen, Egham, Surrey