So today we had an intrepid but nameless blogger follow our jobs posts on Craigslist to piece together a story about what Kango is doing. Since they have comments disabled (boo-hiss), I thought I’d thank them for the post by responding. As the reader of this blog will know, I am passionate about travel and also the father of 2 young kids. So in particular to satisfy my own need, we have a special interest on family vacations and kid-friendly travel.

But we are hardly just about kid-friendly travel at Kango. In our Authorized Personnel Only Kango Labs, we are working on some extremely exciting developments that we think will change the world of travel planning.

We’re all super short on time (especially stay at home moms/dads who basically have the hardest job in the world!) and none of us have as much vacation time as we’ed like. So we create a lot of expectations of ourselves of what we need to get out of our limited vacation time. And when the trip doesn’t live up to those expectations, we return back to our everyday lives with a sense that it could have been a lot better.

Well, we intend to change that! We have the audacious goal of helping people do better travel planning (with the limited time that they have) so they can have memorable, satisfying, and fulfilling trips.

So if you’re interested in this mission, sign up for the beta waiting list.

Part of who we’ll decide to join the beta will be based on your interest in helping us achieve this mission. Tell us what kind of vacations are most difficult to plan.

Tell us what information is difficult to find. Tell us how we can help you make the most of your vacation time. We’ed be thrilled to have some fellow travelers on this journey. So allow us to hit the snooze button on the general announce of

what we are doing until we are ready! But for now, let us share a picture of the prototype of what we are building.

Following Elliott’s self-unmasking last week, I would like to tell you all a bit about myself, and where my passion for travel originated.

I believe that one’s love for travel comes from both nature and nurture. When I was 10-12 years old, my parents took my older sister and I to Europe for a few weeks three consecutive summers. I was more fascinated with Europe’s openness towards sexuality, the countries’ colorful currencies (pre Euro), and the prevalent passionate soccer (my sport at the time) culture, than the museums and castles we visited. Looking back on these trips a decade later, it’s clear that my exposure to foreign cultures at a young age planted the seed of international curiosity, which has since bloomed.

I am a recent graduate of the USC undergraduate business school (Marshall). During the second semester of my junior year, I studied abroad at the eminent Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. This was an eye-opening experience! It allowed me to both take a break from the Los Angeles bubble, and experience life in one of the world’s most bustling cities.

Hong Kong’s location, relative to the rest of Asia, makes it an ideal port for the ambitious traveler. I was wise/fortunate to schedule class four days a week, allowing for extended travel weekends. During my four plus months abroad, I traveled to China three times (Guilin pictured below), Kyoto, Macau, Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Phuket, Siem Reap, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur. Traveling with fellow students, we found cheap last minute flights, slept in $6 (USD) hostels, took daylong non air-conditioned bus rides, and sampled street food. Foreign travel is thrilling, enriching, and tiring, but above all things, addictive!

Kango will revolutionize and simplify family, romantic, and themed travel. I am excited to be involved in the development and publicizing of the site!

I’d like to introduce myself and the other co-conspirators on the Kango project. I’m still a novice blogger, but I’ve learned that people in the blogosphere appreciate transparency and authenticity, and I’ll try to do that, while keeping in mind my family and children’s right to privacy (as highlighted by mommybloggers).

We are working on a new and better way to do travel planning. Some of the stuff we are working on is still in stealth mode. But we can say that we want to apply our ideas and technology especially to family travel. Prior to having kids, my wife and I traveled to lots of places: Switzerland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Peru, Tanzania, Kenya, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Singapore, China, Thailand, and Malaysia. After having kids, we’ve traveled a lot less. But when we have, it has been incredibly rewarding. For example, we brought our 1st child to Italy when he was 6 months old, and just found that the country opened up to us in a way that I wouldn’t have imagined.

My background is in consumer software and internet. I’ve started a few companies in internet marketing services, and also worked on some great products at Microsoft (Word, PowerPoint) and at Intuit (QuickBooks).

My mission with Kango is to help people have memorable and fulfilling travel experiences with the ones they love! I’m interested in connecting with people who like travel. Family vacations and travel with babies and toddlers is especially relevant for me right now!

Hello world! We’re working on some very exciting ideas about how to make travel planning (all the stuff you do before you actually get to go on vacation) significantly better. What you see on Kango.com today is a pale shadow of what we are working on in our proverbial Silicon Valley garage.

Well, HP’s garage is pretty expensive Palo Alto real estate today…more than we can afford! So we’ll be starting Kango, Inc. in some rental space not too far away.

Anyway, until we’re ready to give birth to our beta baby, we’ed like to find other fellow travelers who are passionate about travel, and have a specific focus around their travel. It could be around activities or hobbies that they really care about: surfing, skiing, water-sports, etc. Your focus might be around a specific lifestyle, cause or reason for travel: ecotourism, adventure travel, family-oriented vacations. The only prerequisite is that you really care about doing something (even if that’s just relaxing) that results in a great travel experience. If you’re one of these people, we’ed love to enroll you in our project–to create a great travel website that helps you get the most out of your vacation time.

I’m Elliott Ng, the first official Kango at Kango, Inc. I’ll write a post to introduce myself (actually is anyone reading this post not someone I already know?) and share about some of my travel passions. Hope you’ll be interested in what we are doing and helping out!

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