great takes on family travel in the U.S.

This is a shot of Odin, a six year old tiger at Six Flags Marine World Africa.  Unlike most cats, Odin loves to swim.  This shot was taken by my ten year old daughter during her visit to the park.  Odin is about ten feet long, was taught to swim by his trainer and by watching another tiger.  He is gulping a chunk of raw meat tossed in the water in this photo, that is called motivation–tiger style.

I attended the travel bloggers meet-up at Blogher on Friday afternoon. The travel meet-up was originally discussed by Pam Mandel at nerdseyeview and on Blogher.  It was moderated by Suzanne Reisman at  cussandotherrants (who has also written a new book, Off the Beaten Subway Track, more on that later) The majority of our time was spent on introductions, but we did have a few moments to discuss how we could create a more tightly-knit travel blogger community.  Delicious Baby collected cards from everyone who is interested in building the community and will be posting the list of bloggers on her site.  I captured a few names during the introductions and subsequent discussion of some great travel blogs I want to add to my google reader in addition to the blogs already listed:

ms.adventuresinitaly

perceptivetravelblog.com

Jet Set Girls Blogspot–all about girls getaways

See Jane Fly–for the female road warrior

Mommy Poppins–telling us how to get more out of NY

TasteFood

Headed to Margaritaville

everyday adventures

What A Trip written by Nancy Brown, a contributor to Uptake

Mile High Mamas–(the Denver Post)

KitchenGadgetGirl (and consultant to Uptake) has an idea for creating a page with RSS feeds  from all the sites that wish to participate. I think this is the best idea yet, but I may be biased sine I have been working with her for nearly a year.

Uptake also have  a travel blog search widget we created in cooperation with the t-list to make it easier to find travel bloggers everywhere.  If you are interested in participating, please go here to join the search widget and here for information on the twitter t-list..

A few corporations sent some representatives including SeaWorld, DisneyWorld Orlando, Teleflora, and the Hilton were all there to gain insight into the travel blogger community.  They want to reach travel bloggers of all kinds (see Blogher, travel is big business….)

Many of the bloggers were interested in building a more cohesive community and wanted to make ourselves more available to other bloggers, publicists and corporations trying to reach us.  Please add to the conversation.  Give us your ideas to build a more connected travel community.  Next year, we hope Blogher ‘09 will have a panel devoted to travel.

1. The wind-we get high winds in my little town, sometimes it drives me crazy, but most to the time it feels strangely cleansing, it means home in a chilling kind of way. Great place to be during a heat wave.

2. The salt marsh-I never really knew much about  saltwater marshes, now I can see it change with the seasons and find it a place of peace especially at dusk on a calm evening.  Lots of hiking trails through the marsh even if the shopping mall is just across the street.

3.  Flower power-along time ago, an environmentalist found a flower that can only grow on the hill behind my house, it is called the Tiburon Lily.  This little flower stopped the developer dead in their tracks and now we have a fabulous set of trails to hike and grassy fields to gaze upon all day long.  It is officially found only on Ring Mountain from March to June.  You can find me on the mountain almost daily.

4.  San Francisco Bay-laps at the town’s borders. I love its icy water, the beaches, kayaking, the way the water reflects the sky.

5.  Richmond-San Rafael Bridge-definitely the forgotten bridge of the bay area, but I can see it from my home and I love the graceful curve rising above the water.  Plus, Berkeley is just across the bridge and you can spend a day there.

6.  Ships-as they pass under the bridge.

7.  Twin Cities Little League Park-it looks exactly like a major league park in miniature. Toss a baseball here and feel like a major league player.

8.  Picco’s Restaurant-technically this is not in my town, just across the border, but to get food this sublime in a little town, fabulous.

9.  Two malls-only five minutes away, it can’t all be about ships passing and hills for hiking, a girls’ gotta have shoes.

10.  Bike paths-the bike paths that go through and along the marsh and then along an old railroad that are great for family biking trips.  Nice and flat…

11.  Rick’s Wine Shop-tiny little storefront with delicious wines and service with genuine warmth. Great for adults.

12.  Paradise Beach-this secluded bay beach offers a peaceful setting, grassy lawns, a rocky shore and a fishing pier and it is only a ten minute drive from my house.  Great for kids.

13.  My neighbors-after college I lived in two large metropolitan areas, Seattle and San Francisco, I met only three neighbors in 15 years that I consider friends (and I am not shy).  I moved to the ‘burbs.  Now I know everyone on my street-it is so wonderful to drive up our little street and know the names of the people who live in each house and what they are doing for vacation, their dog’s name.  It feels safe to me. So not a reason to visit, but a reason to stay.

You may have seen Pam Mandel’s post on her blog about Blogher and our invitation to sponsor her attendance at the event and work with her to create a tightly knit travel blog community of some kind–yet to be defined…  It didn’t work out because Blogher was sold out by the time we had connected.

On to plan two…

I am still hoping to meet many travel bloggers at Blogher. Why? We would like to build a more connected community of travel bloggers for information sharing, ideas, and inspiration.  We think travel bloggers should be found more easily, there should be a means of connecting the related subjects and places discussed on all blogs and personally I could use a few tools to make it easier to include my fellow bloggers. Don’t you agree?

Here are few questions we would like to discuss at the travel meet-up:

1.  How can we build a travel blogger community in cooperation with all travel bloggers?  Great minds do think alike, right?

2.  What other communities do travel bloggers participate in that we could emulate? Does a tool or an application already exists that we can tap into for inspiration or improved communication?

3.  If we were to create a “travel blog meet-up” at other conferences, what kind of program would it be, would you attend, would you pay for it? Why or why not?

Pam sent me an email with her answers to these questions (thanks, Pam). We are hoping you too will respond and we can build this together:

How can we build more community for  travel bloggers?
Community building isn’t my expertise but I find that anything that encourages face to face meeting is good for the blog. I really have loved the travel bloggers I’ve met in 3D, really loved them.  Crazy, but true.

What other communities do travel bloggers participate in that we could emulate?
Boots n All and Lonely Planet have lively message boards. TripWolf is trying to create a Facebook type interactivity, but seems to be a real influx of social networking/travel sites on the market and I’m not clear on how to tell them apart.  I just reviewed My Life of Travel, another one with built in networking. Couch Surfing seems to me to be superior at getting the travelers together - I got my 20 year Austrian old niece on there and she can’t get enough of it. I recently spent some time explaining it to my folks. “You mean no money changes hands?” I’m a fan of the concept even while we don’t participate because my blogging connections keep a fairly steady rotation of travelers on our fold out.

Don’t overlook the expats. I got into blogging because I was an expat. It’s great informal community, the expat bloggers one. And Twitter -  I’m surprised to find myself saying how much I enjoy the 140 character conversations travelers are having on Twitter. I like it a lot and it’s put me in touch with folks I’d not have “met” otherwise.

If we were to create a travel blog meet up with other conferences, in a more organized fashion, what kind of program would they like, would they attend, would they pay for it? Other ideas…

1. I feel like many bloggers could wildly improve the readability of their blogs with some basic travel writing tips. My  .02 as someone who’s really wrapped up in writing.
2. “What’s in your travel kit?” is always a popular subject for bloggers who travel with their own technology.
3. Photography, of course.
4. Given the growing influence of blogs in the travel market, talking about ethics in travel blogging is an interesting, if contentious topic. Travel writers  want to take the high road when they’re faced with comped services, but at 10 bucks a post to blog about a destination, it’s hard to pay for your travels, much less make a living. Ethics on writing reviews, communicating with PR folks and travel providers, being transparent to your readers, etc… are all good topics for discussion.
5. Monetization, too, of course - can I make money writing a travel blog?
6. A lot of travel bloggers want to get off the blog into print and other media, how do they do that?
7. Finally, new media, pod casting, video… it’s really fun to work with other forms of blog communication.

Do you have suggestions, ideas or opinions about how to bring the travel community together and build some tools that work for us?  If so, email me, comment here, or meet at the meet-up.

Travel bloggers unite.

A perfect beach day at Stinson Beach, California.

Sleeping pig at the Marin County Fair on July 4th, 2007 –preparing for the pig race.

Tara Cosgrove is our most recent “local” contributor. Tara works for Sticky Fingers Travel Ltd an Irish company dedicated to providing information to parents who wish to travel with their children. Sticky Fingers is run by parents and all of their travel is researched by parents for parents. They provide independent and unbiased advice on family friendly holidays and accommodation, activities with children and things to do and see so that you can plan the perfect family holiday. It is a great site and Tara gives us great insight into her hometown of Dublin.

1. Give 5 adjectives that you would use to describe the “feel” of your town and its residents.
Vibrant, young, friendly, changing and fun

2. What is your favorite neighborhood in your town?
Dublin has so many great areas but my favourite has to be the heritage town of Dalkey which is about 10 miles from the centre of town. It is on the sea and has castles, artsy shops, great beaches, hill walks, an island with a Martello tower on it and seals in the harbour. It also has great restaurants and bars. Despite the fact that it is now home to lots of rock stars and formula one drivers it has retained a great village atmosphere (my granny still gets stopped on the street at least six times a day for a chat!).

3. Which cuisine do you think your town does best? What is the runner-up?
I am not sure if Guinness qualifies as a cuisine but it is definitely Dublin’s signature dish. It is still made right in the city centre and the smell of the hops can waft all the way down the river life on occasions. As a runner up we do great seafood here and several Irish restaurants have been awarded new Michelin star this year. A word of warning though for a Friday or a Saturday night book weeks in advance as the best restaurants get booked up really early.

4. What is the best free thing to do?
The beaches are great and as Dublin is on a bay there are plenty of them. Killiney beach is my favourite and you can get the Dart (our train system) right to the entrance. Walking the pier in Dun Laoghaire is also a great day out and you can reward yourself with a legendary Teddy’s ice-cream if you keep up the pace. Our Festivals are also great and we have just had the World Street Performance Championships here and there is always of course the St. Patricks Day Festival.

5. What is your favorite type of entertainment?
A night out with friends or family to relax and absorb the great banter and atmosphere of Dublin nightlife. There are often four or five conversations going at the one time so it is hard to keep up sometimes. The Irish still love to talk.

6. List the best family friendly activity.
A day at the beach or at the park with a picnic would be my top pick followed closely by Dublin Zoo which is always a great day . We all come home exhausted.

If you are interested in parks, my favourites would be St. Stephen’s Green which is right at the top of Grafton Street, the best shopping street in Dublin and Herbert Park in Ballsbridge which has ducks to feed (but you need to get there early as they get pretty choosy as the day goes on) playgrounds, tennis courts and great planting. Further out I love Powerscourt Waterfall which has a 121 ft. waterfall and is a favourite area for family picnics, with woodland walks, a playground and masses of space and Knocksink Woods in Enniskerry which is quieter and great for a crispy winter walk in your wellington boots.”

7. What spot would you send a couple, looking for a romantic weekend?
The Merrion Hotel in Dublin 2 is a splendid hotel in a Georgian terrace just opposite our government buildings. The rooms in the older part of the building are best if the budget can stretch to it. There are great common rooms with log fires for lounging about in and two in house restaurants so you do not have to set foot outside.

8. Describe a perfect day…one that captures what your area/city is all about. In 3 sentences or less.
Breakfast at home with the kids with a sneaky look at the Irish Times Saturday edition. A walk in the local park followed by some lunch or a BBQ with friends or family to catch up on all the craic (that means fun here in Ireland) during the week and then a few drinks to finish off the day at home or out for dinner

9. Tell us about a place that you love to go, whether it is in the guidebooks or not.
Dalkey Hill has the most amazing views of Dublin and takes my breath away every time.

10. What should we have asked, but didn’t?
Where not to go–like every big city Dublin has an edgy side so do get local knowledge about areas to avoid if you are not sure.