May 18, 2010
Photo Contest
Asia Transpacific Journeys is having a photo contest with the grand prize being an Apple IPad.
For more information click here - Photo Contest
Posted by DaveDTC at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2010
Win a Trip to Italy
This came across my desk recently - 'win a trip to Italy' prize from Lonely Planet:
Posted by DaveDTC at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)
May 06, 2010
Tour Boarding
Mr. Chen, the founder of TourBoarding.com recently wrote us and I would like to take this opportunity to spotlight his company. As I recently returned from Beijing I could tell there was a big marketing effort for this expo both in Beijing and in Shanghai.
Due to the demand of the expo hotels are bound to be somewhat full during these months.
TourBoarding is as taken from their site:
"Tourboarding.com offers a new, à la carte, self-design travel model for exploring and experiencing China at very low to no cost. By becoming a free or VIP member of Tourboarding.com, you can receive free room and board all over China and a variety of free services such as Chinese language instruction, tour guiding, and cultural immersion activities such as Chinese cooking, painting, calligraphy and music in exchange for speaking fluent English or other in-demand languages for two hours a day to local host families."
Sounds like a creative idea - I might have the opportunity to visit Shanghai later this summer before the end of the expo and will def try their services.
Posted by DaveDTC at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)
Fake Money Story!
Recently came upon this brief tale from my first trip to Europe many years ago...
Because I was well read up on the possible pick pocket incidents that could happen in Europe, I purchased a cheap wallet in the states, and then promptly slashed it with a Swiss army knife. Next I purchased some fake $100 and $50 US bills from a local supermarket. I placed these in the wallet and carried the wallet and the fake money around Europe in my shorts pocket.
I tried like you wouldn't believe to get the wallet stolen at certain times. I only tried to get the wallet stolen when I didn't have my back pack with me. However, the wallet was always in my pocket. I even unfolded part of the wallet and let it hang out my back pocket, but had no luck. I visited some real seedy places and never even had a few nibbles.
Finally at the end of the trip, I became so frustrated with all the non-existent travel horror pick pocketing stories, that I visited a bad part of Paris and sat down. During the time that I sat down, I discretely slipped the wallet out of my pocket and placed it under my leg. Two minutes later I got up and walked away. Not more then 10 seconds passed before I heard people shouting at me, "brother you've dropped your wallet". This was quite unnerving, as this JUST wasn't the plan. Having people in Europe tell me that I had dropped my wallet, just was NOT supposed to happen.
At this point, I just gave up and ran. I buried myself in a throng of people who were milling in a large music store, and I snuck out the back way.
Posted by DaveDTC at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)
May 05, 2010
Travel Links
We just recently posted our 10,000th travel link - we started our travel links program in 2000, several years after the site started - so its taken about 10 years to gather this many active links!
Congrats to our 10,000th listing: Travel Anthropist
There are currently 587 travel categories, some categories have several hundred links posted everything from Museums to Mobile Apps.
You can view our resources page here
All travel links listed under our Resources page are hand reviewed and then approved or rejected. We have literally waded through thousands and thousands of travel links to build this ever growing database (both user submitted as well as actively searching the web).
Several times a year we run our "link checker" service which essentially checks every link in our database, 100 at a time and alerts us to any websites that are no longer functioning - these are then removed.
Duplicate links are not allowed, however in unique situations - due to the nature of a particular site, it may be listed in more than one category.
Posted by DaveDTC at 05:46 PM | Comments (0)
The "Big Island"
I'll be exploring the big island of Hawaii next week - will def be hitting some beaches, farmer's markets for tropical fruit and driving to the top of Maua Kea.
Does anyone have any suggestions for what else to see - secluded beaches or other attractions.
Thanks :)
~ Dave
Posted by DaveDTC at 05:37 PM | Comments (0)