for me travelblog has become a lot more useful than any single lonely planet. You get unbiais comments onplaces by people with different views and budgets. The more people blog on a place, the more you need to do your homework, but the more you'll find proper info...and way better quality than tripadvisor.
We agree with Peter on this - we have completely given up using guide books and soley research our destinations based on other people's travelblogs...it's a much more realistic view of a place than Lonely Planet gives. Even the Thorn Tree has a lot of posters who 'love' a country and will not say a bad word whereas travelblogs are more likely to reflect the true view of a place (especially when you can read 100's of individual perspectives!)
We, like others on here have subscribers who we don't know and we have to say it's really nice to get messages from random strangers who have happened to read our blog and would like advice about places or budgets etc.
Just want to correct the 90,000 figure - it's 90,000 - 100,000 unique visitors across the whole site daily on average (it's growing slowly).
The front page gets about 5,000 daily unique visitors - being on the front page will account for roughly 250 extra hits (depending on how busy that page is)
Those stats are pretty impressive growth-wise and it's definitely something to be proud of!
Reply to this Same here. I have a bin for all my Lonely Planet and other travel books. I hardly read them now since I joined TravelBlog. Before going off to my destination, I would even print some of the blogs to read along the way. I get much of the info I need from such blogs, and enjoy the sentimentality and personal warmth found in most blogs. Like Peter, I must have discovered the Front Page long after I joined. And like Sofia, I treasure one message sent to me by someone asking me for more photos of one place her sick grandma has visited and always talked about. To this day, we correspond and she recently gave me an update on her grandma. Some of the photos I sent were enlarged and now adorn grandma's room.
Oops, have i strayed from the topic! Anyway, the system of recommending good blogs still works and the new thread on unknown bloggers should make up for any slack (for lack of a better term). Even if we all agree to designate a team to review and choose the best blogs, it would still redound to the readers' taste. Some like it well-written (good grammar and editing), some like it short and crisp, others want them more personal and warm, still others want them informative (how to get from here to there, how much this and that costs, etc.). Different folks, different strokes. But we are all welcome to nominate....... and that's the good part. 😊
Reply to this I still buy guidebooks for information on safety, health, customs and some other general information.
I get some information by asking forum questions. Blogs for me, are for inspiration and entertainment. Forums and blogs are also good for reassurance that I am not the first one to go to a certain place, so am likely to come back alive to tell my own story.
Mel
Reply to this The Thorn Tree has a lot of posters who 'love' a country, but there are also the posters who 'hate' a country so much that they never stop saying angry words. But that is ok, any place is not for everyone. Some likes, some dislikes. I'd been a regular poster in TT forum for 4 years before I joined TB and I made 10,100 posts in TT3. The advantage of forums is that we can read all the up-to-date information in the travel reports and get a quick reply on the news of border crossings for example.
Reply to this ...get a quick reply on the news of border crossings for example
Yeah, I find forums very useful for the latest visa, border and on the ground political information. A guide book wont tell if the current riots in a certain country are a danger to tourists, for example.
Reply to this A guide book also cannot provide the latest prices due to the escalation. Things change so fast that when a guide book is published, the prices or information have become out of date.
Reply to this I've never been very fond of guide books (not against it though 'cause I still read them sometimes). I'd always love to be guided by real experience from "real people" that's why I love TravelBlog!
... and I like using Search Engines, Typing and hitting the Enter key more than flipping book pages (besides, I can't use
CTRL + F in a book)
Reply to this lonely planet tends to be written very unobjectively by someone who thinks the place they're writing about is the best in the world. It's also influenced by their own style of traveling and this can give a really false impression of the place if you travel in a different way. I guess the latter is kind of true for travel blogs as well though.
Quite apart from that I find guide books offer little to no information on the really off the beaten track places I like to travel to. This sort of information can only be found by hours of internet research, by talking to the right people in the country once you've arrived, or not at all!
Reply to this Ed.......your 'off the beaten track' places are really, really off the beaten track. You should be authoring your own book instead! Your adventures never fail to amaze me. I doubt any book can compare. Your first hand experiences with tribal villages in my own country, for instance, have not been chronicled here. It should make for a good read!
Reply to this I personally believe you should read the guide book AFTER you have visited a place/ done a trip, never before. Try it, you'll be amazed what a difference it makes!
TB is great to get a feel of a place and to see how one place can be viewed differently by different people.
I love it as its like a backpacker's cafe where you are told about what other people have done and are given suggestions of where to go.
But TB isn't the best way to find out specifics like ferry times, contact details, directions or good places to see.
Guide books, seat61, google maps (with the 'photos' switched on) and poking about on the internet are all good for that.
It all comes down to the fact that everywhere I have ever been has never been anything like what i thought it would be, no matter what i read about it beforehand. Go there, explore. The guidebook will make so much more sense after that.
Reply to this Before our trip I used follow the adventures of about five or six bloggers here on travel blog for research for my own trip and also because I enjoyed it. You're reading up to date impartial opinions on places given as people see them with no agenda. You cannot say that about the Lonely Planet guide books. I'd like to bin the guide books and never buy them again but unfortunately you do need to know things like where the bus stations are in big cities etc.
Reply to this you do need to know things like where the bus stations are in big cities
why dont you just go there and ask someone then?
I'm still jealous of your name - Workshyandshameless'... a lesson to us all!!
Reply to this ....why dont you just go there and ask someone then?
Language problems and to avoid falling victim to touts in some places it is necessary to have some clue about what to expect.
Reply to this @thecrashpacker,
yeah when I wrote the above I was thinking of recent situations of my own in places like San Salvador and Guatemala City where there are lots of bus stations spread out over the city and trying to get the right information with limited Spanish was, hard. 'the book' served us well on those occasions I have to grudgingly admit.
Reply to this Fair enough!
At least with a guide you know what times the museums open and where to get decent food!
Reply to this This is an interesting topic. I, and this is my own style, use both. I think both have their advantages and disadvantages, those already discussed. What it boils down to for me, is to grab the wealth of information that both provide, do the necessary research, then take what I have found and toss my own travel syle into the mix. As a few on this thread know, I often message fellow TB-ers on their experiences, specifics, recommendations. (p.s. Thanks a ton!) but I often carry a guidebook with me while in those places.
The thing is, the margins/maps and any open space is usually scribbled down with info I've gathered talking to fellow travelers (i.e. all of us here), but like it has been said- to each their own. What ever makes your travels worthwhile to you!
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