The best way to unwind after a hectic work schedule is to travel to a destination that helps you relax. Be it domestic or abroad, a change of place plays a vital role in rejuvenating both mind and body. Besides, travel and tourism help boost cultural relations and local economies too. However, at times the tedious work behind planning a vacation might make us rethink our decision.
There are tens of thousands of online outlets trying to help you find an ideal travel destination. But a major portion of these so-called travel recommendation engines tend to be just Google ads plastered spam sites.
Travellerspoint takes a different approach that’s actually useful. It claims to be one of the web’s largest and most active travel communities with members representing every country in the world. I tried to plan my vacation at Travellerspoint and came up with some interesting choices. Care to know more?
Overview
Overview
The objective of Travellerspoint is to enrich the travelling experience by offering numerous services, content and products of significant perceived and added value for travelers worldwide. From being a travel blogging ecosytem to offering recommendations, maps and being a quasi social network, the web app tends to do a lot of things. But the app does succeed fulfilling all the aspects of the goal without overwhelming the visitors. The app is free for everyone.
Ease of Use
Major Highlights of the App
When I first landed on the site, it took me some time to figure out a way to review it in a streamlined manner without missing any of the features that might of be interest to our readers. In addition to being a social network travellers, they have a separate blogging network and a bunch of old school forums as well.
I guess the idea is to ensure that the visitor stays on the site as much longer as possible and there is nothing wrong with that. The homepage comes with a lot of scrolling, but the pleasant user interface ensures that the user experience isn’t affected.
The Travel Guide
Featured Guides
Travel guides are more like a wiki, complete with historical and statistical information. While the guides look a lot like the ones we find in Wikipedia, if you go through the the navigation links (or the index) on the top right corner, you will find that it actually isn’t. Comprehensive descriptions about local food practices, accommodation options, fun places to visit can be found with each guide. I particularly liked the inclusion – in most of the sections – of the approximate amount it costs to indulge in each and every activity.
A Tour Guide
All travel guides are neatly organized and if you feel some of them aren’t sufficiently updated, you can add the facts you know as well. Since this is a wiki, any registered member can edit an entry and update a post or section. I went through a couple of travel guides and found them to be spam free and that is a huge achievement given the fact that anyone can get their dirty little hands on the content. You don’t to have to stop at just editing a wiki, but can also create new ones for destinations that are not in the index.
Blogs
A Blog Entry
If you are someone who loves to read about the adventures of your fellow travellers, the blogs at Travellerspoint will quench your thirst for sure. The variety of content and the attention to detail in narration make reading blog posts a pleasurable experience. Posts from all users are updated chronologically and if you have trouble finding the content you are looking for, use the category or tag clouds.
Maps and Photos
Creating a Map
I had so much fun creating maps of my future trips at Travellerspoint. To chart your journey, all you need to enter are the destinations from where you plan to start and end the journey. If you plan to stop somewhere in the middle, add those places as well. The way the app displays the various routes you can take to complete the journey should be of immense help when you plan a trip.
Photographs from Across the Globe
For those who cannot make up their minds as to where to go for their next vacation, I highly recommend the Photography section of the app. Pictures from across the globe from unheard places of scenic beauty are not only pleasant to look at, but also nudge one towards making up their mind. It’s also extremely convenient that they have a built in accommodation booking system as well!
Final Thoughts
In my experience, it is very much important, if not helpful to know more about the place I am travelling to. This helps to minimize the level of risk and avoid unforeseen situations as much as possible. While I have reviewed a couple of travel oriented sites in the past, I found Travellerspoint to be a comprehensive package. It’s like the pit stop of travelling – from information gathering to recommendations and a social travel network.
The entire app is tastefully designed and is very intuitive to use. However, it took me a bit more time than usual for loading the pages. And for an app that helps people find exotic locales to travel, their product tour page is very unimaginative. These might not be deal breakers, but I that’s all I could find while using the app!
Share Your Thoughts!
How do you plan your travel – via a traditional travel agency or scout the Internet for deals yourself? How far will you trust crowd sourced information when planning to go to a far off country?