If you’re looking to use your passport for something other than a coaster, you may first want to check out a travel site that lets other travelers voice their opinions on a given destination. Similar to Lonely Planet, the idea behind WritingTravellers, a new travel startup out of Amsterdam, is that you know the destinations you’ve traveled to best.
Thus, WritingTravellers aims to have its visitors write descriptions of their vacations, including reasons to visit a certain place, background information, history, nearby activities and getting to/away from the given area. WritingTravellers features a group-edit based system, so any registered user on the site can update and/or modify something another member has written and/or add pictures (think: a less complicated Wiki page). Right now the site is mostly limited to travels in and around Europe, so it would be best suited for travelers with that area of the world as their target destination. Additionally, WritingTravellers offers tailor-made printable pdf editions of its online travel guides. Soon it will offer the same tailor-made books in print.
WritingTravellers.com In Their Own Words
“WritingTravellers brings people together to write guidebooks that will be published on-line and in print. The printed guidebooks will be more up-to-date and more tailor-made than regular guidebooks. Anyone can contribute texts or pictures and will get credits for it. The first guides that will be ready for print are Amsterdam and Delhi.
WritingTravellers is a non profit foundation based in Amsterdam. It offers free, on-line access to travel guide information and stimulates travellers to improve this information all the time. The foundation works together with a company that prints up-to-date personalized guidebooks from the database, each time someone orders a guidebook. Part of the income that is generated this way flows back into the WritingTravellers foundation, so it can go on providing free on-line travel guide information”
Why WritingTravellers.com It Might Be A Killer
WritingTravellers could be a useful source for up-to-the-minute travel information, since its Wiki-style design lets anyone comment on a location at any time.
Some Questions About WritingTravellers.com
WritingTravellers has a way to go to be in the same ballpark as other large travel sites like Lonely Planet. The destination guides are yet limited in both geography and scope. It would be extremely helpful if WritingTravellers could incorporate Google Earth, or at the very least, Google Maps, so that photos of certain exact destinations could be included in location descriptions.
