Category — Travel

We’ve just created the very first Everlater Group - a mini-network of travelers using the JetBlue All You Can Jet Pass. The promotion, $599 for a month of unlimited flights, caused quite a stir amongst travel junkies - many of whom came to Everlater to record their trips.

The page highlights:

• Who is in the group
• Where those travelers are
• Their latest stories & photos
• The most popular destinations

Members of the group can also find other members with overlapping itineraries - in case they are looking for travel partners along the way. (For reference, my trip overlaps with others in the group 25 times!)

We’ve also launched a contest. The All You Can Jetter with the best online travel journal will win a bunch of great prizes (notably an exclusive Everlater Trophy and a custom badge for their trip). Details here. Voting begins October 12th.

This is the first time we’ve ever had Groups before, but it gives us some great ideas for the future. Take a look at the Everlater All You Can Jet Group. What else would you like to see added to groups? Can you think of some creative ways that travelers would want to utilize what we’ve built?

Last summer, I traveled to Peru and Bolivia for 5 weeks. The weekend after I returned (to Boulder, my new home), I drove to Crested Butte, CO. While stopped atop the continental divide, I wondered: Why did I fly halfway around the world when there is such amazing natural beauty in my own backyard?

With that in mind, check out some of my favorite places that you probably haven’t heard of:

#1 - Havasu Falls, Grand Canyon, AZ

(Photo courtesy of TeecNosPos)

Pros:

• Beautiful waterfalls (the larger Mooney Falls is just a mile or two downstream)
• Incredible swimming (the best I’ve ever had, anywhere)
• Impossibly tropical water in the Grand Canyon
• The hike to Mooney Falls climbs down chains and through tunnels in the cliff face

Cons:

• 12 mile hike one way to get there
• Must book weeks/months ahead
• Scorching hot in the summer
• Will likely be crowded

Summary: A must do for anyone who loves hiking, swimming holes, and adventure.

Door County, Wisconsin

(Photo courtesy of WisDoc)

A longtime vacation spot for locals, Door County (that thumb that sticks out from Wisconsin) is a cheaper, less preppy version of Massachusetts’ Cape Cod.

Pros:

• Fantastic sandy beaches
• Relaxed Pace
• Lakeside houses hidden in the woods along unpaved roads
• “Sick road cycling” adds @mudandcowbells

Cons:

• Mostly a summer getaway

Summary: A fantastic way to spend a laid-back summer vacation with nature.

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado

(Photo Courtesy of SC Fiasco)

Pros:

• 700 foot high sand dunes at the foot of 14,000 foot, snow-capped peaks
• Camping allowed ON the dunes!
• Can easily ditch the crowds on even the most crowded days of the year

Cons:

• Hiking in sand gets old. Even the hikes that skirt the dunes are mostly sand.
• Few safe options besides car camping when there is lightning
• No water in the dunes

Summary: If hiking, sand dunes, and mountains are your thing - you can’t go wrong. Even seems like a good place for kids.

Letchworth State Park, Western NY

(Photo courtesy of Zhang Yuan)

Ever heard of the Grand Canyon of the East? Me neither, but somehow I ended up stopping here on a cross country road trip.

Pros:

• This huge canyon appears out of nowhere in otherwise flat terrain
• Lots of camping options
• Great (mostly flat) hiking along the gorge and through dense forest
• Lush

Cons:

• Probably only worth a two day visit

Summary: Good hiking and forests, but also good if you just want to drive from view to view. A huge, scenic gorge/canyon in nowheresville New York - who knew?

Black Hills, South Dakota

(Photo courtesy of dclamster)

South Dakota, no offense, is mostly pretty flat and boring. But in the southwest corner lies both The Badlands and Black Hills.

Pros:

• Mostly undeveloped, yet with the right amount of tourism
• Check out two of the longest caves in the world (Jewel Cave and Wind Cave, plus 6 others)
• Easily day trip to/from Badlands National Park

Cons:

• I didn’t know how much there was to do, and so I didn’t plan in enough time!

Summary: Caving, hiking, and rolling mountains enthusiasts rejoice!

Traveling to faraway lands is an enlightening and valuable experience. But don’t forget, there is plenty of natural beauty in your own backyard. Any suggestions for places I might have missed?

Whenever Natty or I talk to anyone about online travel, we inevitably talk about or reference TripAdvisor somewhere in the conversation.  This is because TripAdvisor (and its partner websites including virtualtourist.com, independenttraveler.com, etc.) has, by far, the most extensive database of user generated reviews and the most active base of users of any travel information site.  TripAdvisor completely dominates the market despite a horrible design, deceptive sponsored links, multiple pop-up ads and disorganized site layout.

TripAdvisor has built themselves to be at the center of the online travel information universe.  We strongly believe that network effects have, at this point in time, firmly ensconced TripAdvisor’s position.  This is because they are the only site that has the depth and breadth of reviews to drive users to their site, and conversly, they are the only ones who have the vast number of users to entice reviewers to review purely based on the impact of their reviews.

There are no less than twenty different sites attempting to unseat TripAdvisor.  However, none are having a large impact and this is directly derived from a classic chicken-and-the-egg problem: they are struggling to attract users to review, and with no reviews, they are struggling to attract users.  Some sites, such as WAYN.com among others, have resorted to enticing users through point systems (sometimes redeemable for real-world services) to write reviews.  Others have resorted to large scale traffic generation schemes to drive users to their site.  Regardless, it doesn’t appear that it’s working.  A post on compete.com’s blog shows that, if anything, TripAdvisor’s reach is expanding after a 2008 site redesign.

Another takeaway from the Compete post is that over 1% of TripAdvisor users contribute reviews.  Given their huge inital base, the expansion of their database is expanding far more rapidly than newer entrants.  Competitors to TripAdvisor will have to drive the percentage of users contributing reviews much higher than TripAdvisors (already impressive) 1%, making the barriers to entry for online travel information sites almost-impossibly high.

They have a huge user base and that drives fantastic results.  According to Expedia’s 3Q08 press release, the TripAdvisor Media Network had revenues of $236m ($314mm annual rate) — nothing astounding, compared to the billions that GOOG generates, the billion that myspace generates or the estimated $300m that Facebook generates.  However, due to the fact that travel advertising is extremely valuable online (something that the Everlater team has not overlooked), TripAdvisor CRUSHED the margins of all of these other online media companies — their reported operating income (actually OIBA per EXPE reporting) margin is 53% (compared to GOOG’s roughly 25% margin, and Fox Interactive Margins of 0-10%), meaning they are on pace to earn operating income of $165m — margins and profit that are almost unheard of in the digital media space.

We (at Everlater) have several takeaways from TripAdvisor’s dominance:

1. Travel advertising is a great place to be. While no one knows exactly where the economy is going to go, and whether online advertising will be worse or better than the whole, we do know that we are positioning ourselves to take a slice of the tastiest part of the online advertising pie.
2. Content is king. We are building a media site, and our content is the most important part.  Because we are not targeting the travel information space, we are targeting an active contributor user percentage much higher than 1%.
3. Paying users doesn’t work. This takeaway is courtesy of TripAdvisor’s competitors.  If we ever have to entice users to contribute content to our site, then our business model is broken, rather than our marketing plan.

For those of you who don’t know (and shame on you), Couchsurfing rocks!   Couchsurfing is a community seeking to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance and facilitate cultural understanding.  It is a huge inspiration to Everlater.

More 411 on CS’ing (know the lingo). People from all over the world have created profiles on Couchsurfing, opening up their couches to fellow travelers for nothing more than stimulating conversation and cross cultural exchanges.  Yes, you can Couchsurf from Angola to Afghanistan, and Antarctica to Aruba.  There are no fees or rules, just a commitment from all members to honor the values set forth by Couchsurfing, a communal desire to unite the world and expand cultural awareness and the kindness of anonymous people knowing that a home is better than a hotel and a friend is better than a tour guide.

Nate and I have Couchsurfed all over the world, from Stockholm to Delhi, Buenos Aires to Bogota and even New York to San Diego.  We have met amazing and inspiring people, and more than anything, been overwhelmed at the incredible openness with which people have embraced us, complete strangers, into their homes and told us their stories.  Couchsurfing communities around the world gave us personalized tours and experiences never found in guide books, helped us travel on a budget by reducing accommodation expenses, connected us with local traditions, enabled us to build a global friend network and broke down cultural barriers and stereotypes helping us repair a negative American image around the world.

Couchsurfing is an amazing movement exhibiting the beauty of humanity.  Barriers are nothing but human creations to separate, Couchsurfing ignores barriers and builds bridges.  We are inspired by Couchsurfing and amazed by the community.  Couchsurfing is a non-profit, check them out and if you believe, think about supporting this incredible movement.

While backpacking across South and Central America from January to July 2008, Nate and I developed the idea for everlater. Three simple events highlighted traveler needs we felt were not currently being served by established websites and we realized it was our civil duty to the world (and could be quite a bit of fun) to improve the traveler experience.

Event 1) The missed meet up in Colombia:

After traveling up the West coast of South America, Nate and I arrived in Cartagena, Colombia, a spectacular colonial city on the Caribbean with rich history, sweltering heat, stunning beaches and bougainvillea filled balconies. Only after checking our email did we realize that our dear friend Sam, who we met in Buenos Aires Argentina, and spent nine days camping in Northern Patagonia with us, had also been in Cartagena just a few days before we arrived. It shocked us that we had not kept in touch well enough to know where she was, and were dismayed we had missed her by just a few days. There has to be a better way to keep in touch with people we met while traveling?

Event 2) The attempt to summit 21,000 foot Volcan Chimborazo:

Nate and I arrived in Ecuador after hiking through Patagonia and Peru and wanted to tackle some of the insanely tall mountains just outside of Quito. Lacking technical gear but not ambition we set out to find a guide. After finding a great guide we were dismayed by the flat fixed cost. Where could we find some people to join our summit attempt to reduce the cost and where could we find similar adventurers who we could ask whether or not we should get our hopes up of reaching the goal?

Event 3) The epic sail from South to Central America:

The Darien Gap separates South and Central America and remains one of the few truly remote and uninhabited (only terrorists, outlaws and jaguars - amazing combination, I know) places on the planet, travelers wishing to connect between the two continents must either fly (boring!), cross the Gap with a guide on foot (too risky?!) or sail the beautiful Caribbean waters while spearfishing and island hopping (duh!). After the obvious decision, we set sail for six days. While “at sea” and with time to ponder the situations which put us on this amazing little sailboat in the middle of the Caribbean, we realized we had been so intently exploring South America we had not kept up our faithful duty of telling our amazing adventure story to friends and family. We had to be better at sharing our experiences but were unsatisfied with simple blogs and mass emails, isn’t there a better way to share your travel experience?

We are developing everlater based on these unsatisfied traveler needs. Now, you may wonder how we ended up in South and Central America in the first place, well hold your horses, that story is soon to come.