Online travels

Now that I have a two-year-old, my real-world travels have been rather limited. Can't see as much of the world as we once did, but thanks to the Internet my online travels aren't limited.

That was a fancy intro just to show off another vanity Internet time-waster - World 66 personalized, dynamic maps of the countries one has been to.





While having no benefit I can determine, I like many others, love these kind of things!

You too can
create your own visited country map

Travels online and off

Just got back from a week in Mexico, hence the Webslinger hiatus.

Mexico
Checking out the ever-useful TripAdvisor and the recently-discovered Debbie's Caribbean Reviews we found an area of Mexico that was safe from the ongoing attacks/murders of Canadian tourists there. We would never have been able to find a truly safe destination in Mexico and a resort that fit our various needs, without being able to research online. Online comments and forums also convinced us to stay clear of Dominican Republic, which we almost went to. So in the end, we had a pretty good trip thanks the Internet.

But once there, a week without Internet access was hard for me, but I managed. The ever-present blender drinks certainly helped.

Along the theme of travel, here are a couple related sites:

43Places
A website I discovered shortly before leaving, is 43places.com Users can enter the 43 places they most want to go and indicate there progress. Here's my list (just got 2 down). You can share tips and reviews on the location and share with others who share your destinations. This combines the right amount of personalization, user generated content and community. Okay I already had a list so this site just takes that to the extreme!


Moto-MoJo
Colleague and MediaGleaner blogger, Liz is off to Europe for her own Long Way Round motorcycle adventure. She started a blog about her trip. Her many problems and great struggles in Brugge make for good reading. Not that I wish more problems on her, but a smooth trip wouldn't have been nearly as compelling. Check out Moto-Mojo (but start at the earliest entry).

Down the road
Found another site that seems promising, Virtual Tourist. I'll be checking it out more as we plan our summer trip to St. Pierre & Miquelon, Newfoundland & Labrador. Plus Yahoo Travel seems to be expanding lately. Just filled out an online survey for their site that seems that they offer way more cool stuff than I ever could find. (I did write a whole bunch of destination reviews for them so I hope it comes to something!)