Going Local Travel

There is an interesting article on the Betabeat site this week looking at how AirBnB users could be upsetting their neighbours. It’s a question worth asking. People using the phenomenally popular site to rent out their own self-contained house, that’s one thing. But giving a stream of people the keys to an apartment block with [...]

Today is the 10th anniversary of 9/11. With all the commemorations, tie-ins and, in some cases, blatant profiteering (fancy some 9/11 memorial wine priced at $19.11? ), I don’t think many people have failed to pick up on this. As midnight approaches, most of us have reached overload. Nonetheless, the following email sent out by [...]

Big news came last week in the announcement that Couchsurfing.com had decided to abandon its non-profitmaking roots and accept £4.7m of venture capital. I wrote about it for the Guardian here: Not-for-profit Couchsurfing becomes a company (with a conscience) Some members are angry about the move and protest groups have already been formed on the [...]

Photo: Flickr Creative Commons by Daquella Manera Is the world a more or less interesting place for traveller today? That was the question that the Guardian was asking at the weekend. It was an interesting debate – featuring travel writers Jan Morris and Pico Iyer – among others. I added my two-penneth too, as the [...]

On Sunday I was planning a day trip to Ottawa to see a friend. The bus was going to cost me around 60 plus dollars (around £40). Or I could lift share. Remembering that PickupPal are Canada-based, I decided this was a good place give it a try. On a very short timeframe, I set [...]

During my recent stay in Miami I decided to take my travel networking offline. How? With the oldest trick in the book. It goes a little something like this… 1) Go to bar 2) Sit at the bar 3) Order a drink 4) Get out a notebook 5) Wait In my experience, sooner or later, [...]

Some people hate the idea of offline travel networking. I’m talking about anything – from Couchsurfing to an open-house dinner – which involve stepping out of a comfort zone and finding yourself in the company of strangers. Here are some tips for getting over the fear and making it work for you: Worried about awkward [...]

  Is Couchsurfing now mainstream? 1.5m users is huge number for something supposed to be ‘alternative’. But it depends on what circles you mix in. A couple of years ago, I found myself often having to start from scratch explaining the concept to other travellers in hostels. Couchsurfing was by no means new then, but [...]

2009 has been the year of accommodation networks. These are the sites that enable you to bypass hotels and rent a room or house directly from the owners. What started off as the idea of a small fee for a place to crash or throw an airbed down (in a style of couchsurfing) has moved [...]

WAYN is one travel networking site I’ve never really got on with. It was a combination of the Twee cartoon mascot, the spam, and those one-line emails from guys trying to pick up a date. There also seemed to be a lot of users that weren’t even particularly interested in travel, instead spending most of [...]