Travel Websites

After Wikitravel sold out in spring, the project has now been forked by concerned users. The new project is called Wikivoyage. It is being controlled by a non-profit association which operates under a democratic charter. This should prevent any disaster similar to the one that befell the original project. By travelers, for travelers, free as in speech and beer. I am very enthusiastic about this new project and will certainly contribute.

Slashdot has an “Ask Slashdot” feature about watching a space shuttle launch. Some advice in there, but it’s pretty Americentric. Still, even international spectators would have to go through most of the same motions. Except that if you travel there internationally just for the launch, it’d be a much harder disappointment if it gets postponed. Some day, I’ll go there and watch one though. It must be pretty impressive.

Are you bored with the same old hotels? Tired of your view of the city? Have you ever wanted to stay in a weird location? Then you should definitely check out the Unusual Hotels Guide. As the name implies, the website lists all kinds of hotels. From the somewhat different and unusual to totally crazy hotels. For example underwater hotels, igloo hotels, hotels built into caves or as tree houses. There are hotels that are floating, and hotels that have just been designed to look unusual. The navigation of the site is easy, and even if you don’t intend to go to any of these places, some of the hotels are just fun to look at. Cool website!

I had completely forgotten about this little gem until I saw it featured on the creative commons website.

Just in Tokyo is a guide to the Japanese capital, written by Justin Hall (observe the pun in the Guide title). Justin describes himself as a hardened traveler and, at the time he wrote the guide, he had lived in Japan for about half a year. Even though it was written in 2002, it’s a good book to read if you plan to travel to the land of the rising sun. And you can’t beat the price either; it’s free - with a suggested donation to Justin.

BBC’s Sean Coughlan has an intersting column about commuters who use high-speed trains or planes to commute internationally. He says that with new high-speed train routes and the cheapest airline tickets ever, some people take advantage of cheap housing and other benefits in one country while working in another. An interesting read.

The BBC is reporting that the Centre for Fortean Zoology has mounted an expedition to The Gambia, searching for the so-called Ninki Nanka. It is supposed to be a 9m long swamp-dwelling “dragon”. They have a blog up documenting the expedition’s progress. So far - no dragons; just a bunch of big white dudes in the jungle.

True geeks if I ever saw them.

Jan was at the AOL Open Services DevCon in Dulles, VA. Definitely a geeky trip. And his conference notes might be of interest to some fellow developers out there.

Unfortunately, his travel notes as a first-time America traveller were written in German.

Matt found a pretty cool weblog called Rock Watching. This weblog is maintained by Mick Gordon, who likes to get squished between a rock and a hard place. It’s an interesting read (as far as I have come, with my limited time this past week) and quite inspiring. Geeks love caves. I know I’ll go over this for Dungeons & Dragons inspirations as soon as I get back from my next vacation. Mick, consider yourself blogrolled! :-)

Well, I was already wondering what big news might have prompted Evan to invite me (amongst many others) to an IRC chat. Now we officially know: Wikitravel sold out. They are now owned by Internet Brands, and will merge their content with world66. The downside? They plan to add advertisements to Wikitravel content.

There’s hardly any details on the deal beyond that; Evan and his wife are now employees of the new owner. Evan talks a lot about how the community will stay in control, but considering how much say the community got in this decision I must wonder how much of that is simply empty talk. There’s a discussion on the talk page for the news, so chime in there if you have an opinion.