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We released a nice new feature this week.  Now, you can view any photo, story or detail added to Everlater on its own page.  This is great for sharing individual moments of your trip.

To view a photo or story on its own page, hover over any content item and click on the magnifying glass icon.

Just a little more love from us to you Everlater users.

A travel photo on Everlater.

A travel story on Everlater.

First of all, it helps if you’re Andrew Hyde. The guy just seems to know everyone, everywhere. And now that he’s embarking on a year-long around-the-world adventure, his list of contacts will soon extend from Boulder to Bangladesh and back.

Hyde is recording his trip on Everlater, using only his iPhone and iPad to update his blog with photos, videos and more along the way. When asked on CNN how such a serious technophile as himself could dare to travel without a laptop, Andrew explained the reasoning behind his decision. “The main reason I’m not bringing a laptop is weight,” said Hyde. “But also, I’m expecting that my backpack will be stolen at some point. I’d miss my iPad less than a laptop, and I could replace [the iPad] more easily.”

Before leaving, Andrew spent a couple of weeks practicing his new laptop-free blogging technique. “Definitely test all your processes before you leave on a major journey,” he explained. Other than losing a couple of chargers, so far everything has gone smoothly.

Stay tuned to Andrew’s trip on Everlater to find out what kind of crazy adventures he ends up having during his year of global mobile travel blogging, and record your own journey too!

Happy travels!

Ciao fellow travelers! We wanted to let you know about an exciting new feature that is now available on Everlater for you non-iPhone types who still want to be able to update your trip on the go, because why should only Apple people get to have all the fun?

Just send an email to blog@my.everlater.com with the stories and photos that you want to add and voila! Your trip will be updated as long as you make sure to use the same email address when sending the updates as you have in your Everlater account. Also, the subject line for your email should be the name of the destination in your trip that you want to update. If you have more than one trip on Everlater, you can specify by enclosing the title of your trip in brackets, and putting it in the subject or body of the email, like this: [The Great Tagalong]

We know, that’s kind of a lot of details to remember, and it would be nicer if we had real, native apps for BlackBerry and Android -  we DO hope to have them someday, but in the meantime we thought it would be cool to at least have something that you can use if you want. To let you know that everything worked ok, you will receive a confirmation email once your content is added to your trip.

Let us know what you think or if you have any questions by emailing us at feedback@everlater.com, and happy travels!

Labor Day weekend in our hometown of Boulder, Colorado is amazing. The weather is crisp and clear, there’s a festival by the creek, and people come from far and wide to do fun things like biking, camping and going to weddings. This year, however, something happened that was definitely no fun at all: an enormous forest fire started in the hills west of town that ended up burning several thousand acres and a yet-to-be determined number of houses. A beautiful holiday weekend quickly turned into a tragedy for thousands of people.

While the cause of the fire is still unknown, it is certainly true that the number of people who like to spend Labor Day weekend camping and having barbecues raises the risk of fire all over the country, but especially in more arid areas like Boulder. Strong, gusty winds in Colorado on Monday also didn’t help, as the firefighters struggled to get the blaze under control and the tanker planes had to wait until the wind died down enough for them to safely fly over the flames. Overall, the fire danger was very high this weekend in Boulder, and risk factors combined to create a potentially deadly situation.

On any vacation that involves camping, grilling, or another outdoor activity that may potentially involve flames, please make sure to stay safe and follow all the rules! Camp fires are great, but if they’re not allowed, bring a stove to cook and sing songs to keep warm. If they are allowed, make sure to keep your fire small and under control. Although you can of course record all your travel photos and stories on Everlater where they will be safe online forever, nobody wants to lose old photos and memories stored in their home to the flames of an out-of-control blaze. More importantly than old memories and houses, though, the lives of the animals and people that live in the nearby forest depend on you to be responsible every time you enjoy a vacation in the great outdoors.

Be safe, and happy travels!

This summer, Brian Germain and about 30 other crazy cyclists rode from Boston to Santa Barbara, raising money and building affordable housing along the way as part of a volunteer organization called Bike and Build. Their journey is now complete and you can view photos, stories and more from this amazing adventure on Everlater: check out Brian’s incredible trip and read on for some highlights below!

Brian began with baseball in Boston - an excellent introduction to his adventure. “What a perfect way to start off the trip. After a great night of baseball we wandered to a random pizza restaurant to split a pie and watch the Celtics game. It was a packed crowd and I would have loved for Boston to have won so we could have had wild celebrations all night long with the locals. My highlight of the day was waiting in the office to talk with the principal at North Haven Middle School. A secretary came right up to me and said, “Hey you’re that kid from the news, I’m sorry I forgot your name.” After introducing myself she proceded to tell everyone else working in the office about my trip by repeating last night’s news story almost word for word. I felt like a rockstar. Bike and build here I come!”

By the time they made it to Flagstaff, Arizona, Brian and the other cyclists were tired but still impressed by the switchback climbs, the clear skies, and the Cardinals. “According to Tara’s maildrop research, Flagstaff is where the scene in Forest Gump was filmed where he’s running cross country and wipes his muddy face with a yellow t shirt to give birth to the smiley face revolution and the shit happens bumper sticker. I think Forest may have been running faster than I cycled as I hit a new all time low of 3.2 mph at one point and the whole 45 mile ride took about 11 hours… the switchbacks reared their ugly faces and started punching lactic acid into everyone’s thighs. At the top of the switchbacks at some crazy elevation in the 7000s, there were authentic native American stands selling jewelry and crafts. Finally it was off on our last leg to Flagstaff. I hustled but just missed training camp… Flagstaff was named for a ponderosa pine set up as a centennial celebration flagpole by a Boston expedition on July 4, 1876. They have some of the clearest skies in the nation for stargazing because of their strict light ordinances. Down the street from us was the observatory that discovered Pluto.”

Finally they made it to California - and they were definitely glad to be done. “If it wasn’t bad enough to be stuck in the desert sucking down more water than I thought was possible, the wind was downright silly. 10mph was the steady cycling average because gusts hit us in the face on a strong constant…. When all was said and done at the end of the ride, my odometer read 104.05 miles and I had been on the road for 11hours and 36minutes. We had showers reserved until 4pm at the local pool, but with the ride being so hard, no one made it. We also started later than we wanted to because we woke up at 4am but couldn’t leave until it was light outside a couple hours later. Poor planning. So after I got in around 5 and shoved some pizza and salad in my face, I took a nice warm hose shower. Of course to conserve water and since everyone was dirty and seeking immediately cleanliness, we had a group shower. Gold medal dinner crew made burritos with all the fixins for dinner.”

Congratulations to Brian and the other bikers who rode so far for such a great cause!

Now available for a limited time only in beta on Everlater, you can use the new Discover feature to search for any place you’re thinking about visiting and find out more about what others have thought of it! This is a great feature that we’ve really enjoyed experimenting with and wanted to let everyone else explore as well.

In Bariloche, Argentina, Annie describes a restaurtant called Tarquino: “This place was made completely out of Patagonia Cypress and resembled a hobbit house. Not only was the building made of wood, but there were very large trees that were scattered throughout the restaurant that were growing through the roof. It was a traditionally Patagonian menu. The food was delicious!” Don’t miss the chance to eat Patagonian food in a hobbit hole!

In Bangkok, Thailand, Norm warns about the gem scam, which sounds like something you definitely want to avoid. “I would hate to say that all locals are out to get you in Thailand, because they aren’t. Like in most countries, the bad ones get to you first and the good ones are only likely to run into you if you are in distress. The famous gem scam is very relevent here. Guys standing on the streets looking like pedestrians or standing in front of a tourist sight claiming that it is closed until a later time or that your clothes aren’t sufficient enough to enter are preditors waiting for prey. They then proceed to offer you a ridiculously cheap tuk tul ride to another sight as well as a thailand tourist office to get info on the city and assure you that the driver will bring you back on time to see the sight you are trying to see right now. Apparently if you accept they take you to hell and back stopping at all their buddies “gem” shops while forcing you to buy expensive colored glass that they claim to be a big score stone.”

Finally, in Barcelona, Spain, Zach and Tyler made some amusing comments about the spicy food and the sweet old lady’s house where they stayed. On food: “Know your gut. Can you handle spicy foods? If you can’t, do not try to impress your friends by trying to. You will definitely pay for it later, and you don’t want to be in the middle of a museum or tour when the food finally hits you…” On lodging: “Some Old Lady’s house. The locals sure are friendly! Too bad she didn’t have any pillows…”

What are you waiting for? Start searching, see what you find, and then get out and discover your own adventures on Everlater!

I started out studying Environmental Engineering in college. Then I found out that I wouldn’t be able to study abroad unless I could afford to take an extra year to complete my degree - so I switched to Journalism and Spanish Literature and went to school for a semester in Chile.

Perhaps this was a rather dramatic reaction (I also wasn’t really enjoying the Engineering school, at all) but it also seems to me that the general lack of encouragement to study abroad that exists in certain departments and colleges across the country represents a critical failure of the US higher education system. In a world that gets smaller every day, shouldn’t study abroad represent an important, if not required, element of any complete college education?

Aside from the whole global village, world-is-flat issue, in my experience there is almost no better way to learn than by traveling. Traveling requires you to make complex plans and fast decisions, think differently, and deal with unfamiliar situations.  You will often need to learn at least a little bit of a new language, try new foods, and experiment with new ways of living life.

Of course, there are ways to travel abroad to the most exotic of locations without exposing yourself to a single lesson-learning moment, and there are ways to challenge your thinking without leaving your home town. The point is simply that travel tends to present people with great potential for learning opportunities, as Gary Arndt describes in his recent article on what he learned while traveling around the world. “Three and a half years and 70 countries later,” he explains, “I’ve gotten the equivalent of a Ph.D in general knowledge about the people and places of Planet Earth.”

The educational value of travel should be considered as a potentially essential component of the US higher education system. In a world of increasing interconnectivity and diversity, having some experience and understanding of another culture and a different language is an important element of being able to interact with and relate to other citizens of the world.

Americans in particular could certainly use some encouragement to travel: although sources vary, the number of Americans who hold passports seems to be somewhere around 20 percent, which has almost certainly increased dramatically since the new requirement to have one to visit Mexico and Canada took effect. There are a number of reasons why Americans may travel less than others, as Gary Arndt describes:

“Americans don’t travel overseas as much as Brits, Dutch, Germans, Canadians or Scandinavians. There are some good reasons for this (big country, short vacation time) and bad ones (fear and ignorance). We don’t have a gap year culture like they have in the UK and we don’t tend to take vacations longer than a week.”

While it’s certainly true that factors like geography and employment policies are hard to change, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do something about changing other factors that could increase travel. Promoting college study abroad programs would be a great way to begin shifting the American approach to travel while simultaneously improving the quality of our higher education system. Depending on the program and the college, study abroad can even be cheaper than a regular semester at school, with many of the more affordable programs offering great insight into a very different way of living.

Check out a recent study abroad trip to Spain, record your own experiences on Everlater, and share your thoughts on traveling and learning with us in the comments here or on Facebook!

JetBlue’s All You Can Jet passes are not designed for people who fear airport security, turbulence, or angry flight attendants. They are not designed for those who would rather get to know just one or two places really well. They are not designed for the weak.

All You Can Jet is designed for the traveler who thinks that red-eyes are a great chance for a good night’s sleep, that 12 hours is plenty of time to get to know what a city is like, and that the person with the most destinations wins. These are the folks who believe that they really can visit every major metropolis and most of the other interesting parts of the world before they die - they’re already halfway through the list and they’re not even 40 years old yet (maybe close, but who’s counting?) These are the true travel junkies, and these are their stories.

For Andrew Hyde, traveling all over the country with All You Can Jet is just the beginning. After that he’s going to South America, Africa, India, Nepal, SE Asia, China, Australia and New Zealand - or at least that’s the general idea. Some of you might want to point out that he’s skipping Europe entirely, but what you would have failed to recognize is that Andrew had probably already seen everything in Europe, twice, by the time he was 13.

Although in contrast to Andrew, Ben Hughes is simply sticking to the US, he has taken such a systematic approach to his itinerary that he appears to be at least as serious about travel as Andrew is. “To help pack in as much travel as possible I first collected an inventory of JetBlue routes to the west coast and back through JFK and Boston - to my knowledge JetBlue doesn’t have a published recent timetable. From there I optimized the trip based on several factors:

* Maximum red-eye flights - it’s a free night’s sleep!
* Arrange for 2 day stays over the two days I can’t fly: Friday and Sunday.
* Stay more than one day in: Seattle, New York, Boston, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles.
* Arrive in west coast cities as early as possible for a full day’s visit.
* If at all possible connect through JFK over Boston since there is wifi and I prefer T5 over Boston’s crappy Logan airport.
* I’m moving to San Diego in November so would like at least some time there to look at apartments, etc.

With these optimizations in mind I’ve come up with the following (tentative) itinerary:

To get an idea of what these trips will look like once these intrepid travelers actually complete the journey, check out Ryan Wanger’s All You Can Jet trip from last year, which received thousands of views from people interested in finding out just how exhausted he was after starting in Colorado and then jetting back and forth across the country to different cities on both coasts.

Who will jet more this year than Ryan did last year? Check out some of the other cool 2010 All You Can Jet trips on Everlater here, and here, and also here, here, and here.

Are you doing an All You Can Jet trip too? Travel blog your trip on Everlater, share it in the comments here on the blog, and post it to your friends on Facebook!

I just got back from a family vacation to Cape Cod, and aside from the obvious highlights of sand dunes, oysters and drinks on the boat to and from Nantucket, another positive detail of the trip was actually our flight attendant on the way home. With the recent story of the renegade JetBlue flight attendant making headlines around the world, our cheerfully hilarious Southwest attendant provided a refreshing and interesting contrast. Was Steven Slater justified in his dramatic response to an unruly customer, I wondered, or should he have found a different job long ago, leaving his position open to someone who might have enjoyed it more and giving him the opportunity to discover work that didn’t make him go nuts?

On the one hand, flight attendants do have a hard job in the sense that they often have to deal with rude and exhausted customers who don’t seem to realize that the person serving them their tiny $6 cocktail is probably pretty tired too. Steven Slater has been hailed by many in the service industry as an overnight hero, championing the cause of the beleaguered employee who has had to happily endure one too many insults at the hands of demanding and self-absorbed customers. Having worked in the service industry myself, I was able to instinctively sympathize with this perspective.

On the other hand, my Southwest attendant got a standing ovation just for reading the safety instruction manual in a funny accent. At the end of the flight, he made a joke about the amazing gentleman at the front of the plane who was about to turn 92 years old - so please, he said, wish our pilot a happy birthday on your way out. The pilot, who looked to be closer to 32 than 92, really did come out to say hello to everyone as we shuffled off the airplane, and we all grinned at both him and our funny flight attendant, thanking them profusely for an excellent flight. We had actually landed a little late, but nobody seemed to notice. We were so easy to please that for a joke and a funny accent, we were practically ready to stay on board for the next leg of the trip, wherever they were flying.

Flight attendants may not have the best job in the world, but there are certainly ways to make it fun enough that instead of getting hit over the head with carry on luggage, they get applauded. I don’t know if my funny flight attendant uses the same jokes every time, or sometimes doesn’t have the energy to joke at all, but I do know that after my trip to the Cape I’d much rather fly Southwest than JetBlue… although I definitely wish I’d gotten ahold of one of those All You Can Jet passes! Stay tuned to the blog for an All You Can Jet feature on Everlater coming soon, and happy travels!

Traveling in a foreign country can be really exciting, but it can also be a little scary sometimes. What if you get lost, robbed, or trapped by a crazy storm? Although there may not be much you can do in the event of a flash flood or an earthquake, for many of the more common challenges associated with traveling, either knowing the language or knowing someone in the area can work wonders, transforming your trip from a harrowing experience to a thrilling adventure. Of course, being able to know both the language and a local is ideal, but what if you can only have one? Which gives you a greater advantage and why?

The answer to this question probably depends a lot on where you’re going and what you want to do when you get there. For example, when I was out trekking around in Patagonia, speaking Spanish came in very handy for finding rides, getting advice on hikes and routes, and asking about where to stay and eat. I also happened to know a mountain guide who helped me climb up some pretty big volcanoes, but if I hadn’t already known him I could have asked around in Spanish to find someone else.

In contrast, when I visited my friend in Prague, I really just wanted to experience the culture, and she was the perfect tour guide for getting to know the true character of the area. As the exotically unfamiliar sound of Czech flowed past me, we went to bars and drank 25 cent liters of beer, wandered through the fields near her grandma’s house picking berries and swimming in the river, and hitched rides between castles and cities around the country. Her grandpa even made me try pickled sausage, which I politely pretended to enjoy, prompting him to offer me several more that I was unable to finish.

Generally, for trips that involve more constant travel across larger distances doing something active like trekking or riding a bike, knowing the language may be more useful, while for more cultural experiences focused on a particular city or region, knowing a local will probably provide more context. No matter where you’re going or what you’re doing, it’s always a good idea to learn at least a few key phrases - and of course, record your trip on Everlater so your friends can see what you did and plan their own trip!

Happy travels,

Beth