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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!

We’re insanely excited to announce the launch of the Everlater Bookstore, where you can turn your online travel journal into a beautiful, hardcover photobook.

• Get your book, in one click
• 11×13 inch hardcover book
• Beautiful image-wrapped cover
• Up to 440 pages
• No software to download (runs in your browser without Flash)
• Fast, simple, & easy drag and drop editing (only if you want to make changes)
• Starting at just $49.99

I’ve already made a few books myself, and it’s truly the fastest, easiest way to get your own travel photobook. Upon seeing the books, my friends and family have been amazed - even captivated. Several have excitedly started describing photos they want to put in their own book!

If you already have a great trip on Everlater, your book is one click away. If you don’t, we hope that the Everlater Bookstore is a great incentive to record and share one of your recent travel experiences.

Want to know more? Check out the Everlater Bookstore video, photos of printed books, and the Bookstore FAQ.

Want to know about all the little features we’ve released lately?

• New Add Photo Page: It’s cleaner, easier to use, and lets you quickly rotate or add captions.
• Photo Rotation: If you upload your photos directly to Everlater, just click the little rotate icon. (For now, to rotate existing photos, you need to click into the Add Photo page)
• Private Trips: Password protect individual trips. You can do this when you create a trip, or afterwards by going into your trip settings.
• Ratings: Give star ratings to the Transportation, Restaurants, Activities, and Lodging items in your trip. A great way to help others quickly find your highlights.
• Full Screen Map: Want to see a GIANT map for any trip? Add /big_map to the end of the url, like this: http://www.everlater.com/erikmyhre/leaving-corporate/big_map

In other news, we’ve received a TON of feedback about our iPhone app, and have made some great changes as a result. Version 2 is currently in review in the App Store. A huge thanks to everyone who passed along their two cents (or in many cases, seven or eight cents)!

Finally, we welcome the newest member of Team Everlater, Tony, who joins us from Brightkite. Although the walls do seem a bit closer now, our code comes out faster and stronger!

If you’re like us at Everlater, your travel ideas and suggestions come primarily from the people you know. For years my family vacationed in Palm Springs, California (because we had a free place to stay) despite feeling as though we had exhausted most of the interesting things to do. We’d:

• Hung out by the pool
• Hiked the canyons
• Perused high societies retail options along El Paseo
• Hit up the enormous weekend street fair
• Kept cool at Oasis Water Park

My last two visits though have been with a new group of people - adventurous friends who had entirely new perspectives and ideas about what to see. I:

• Took the Palm Springs Arial Tramway to the top of the 11,000 foot Mt San Jacinto for some hiking and bouldering
• Finally visited Joshua Tree National Park. (Don’t be like my family and talk yourself out of visiting because it’s “just a desert”)
• Rode ATV’s on sand dunes
• Visited the Salton Sea. If you find beauty in decay - it’s a must.
• Saw the Imperial Sand Dunes (where scenes from Star Wars were filmed)
• Became strangely enamored with Salvation Mountain - a 50 foot desert monument, created by hand of paint, mud and straw by a truly dedicated man

My friend (and amazing photographer) Kip Gerenda documented our Salton Sea journey on Everlater.

In the end, this is just a long way of saying: don’t settle for thinking you know everything there is to do in a particular place. Sometimes all you need is to hook up with other travelers like you to find the hidden gems.

We can’t wait to start connecting people in the Everlater community to that type of information.

The internet travel world is on fire with people chattering about Jet Blue’s amazing promotion: Unlimited Flights for a month for $599. When I heard the news (via Twitter), I jumped out of my chair and started pacing around frantically while making hurried phone calls. I was sure they’d cancel the promotion in a day due to overwhelming response, and wanted to make sure my ducks were in a row before I bought it.

Then three hours later - I bought it.

Could this be the best flight deal the US has ever seen?

If you live in Boston or New York City (and to a lesser extent Long Beach or Orlando) - then the answer is yes. However, if you fly out of many other cities (like Denver), it’s somewhat less awesome because you must always fly through one of the hubs first, and then onwards from there. Well guess what? I’m doing it anyway. (And I know of at least 3 others also doing it from Denver).

Another great use case is if you want to do a clockwise or counter-clockwise loop around the country. (Use Jet Blue’s fantastic interactive map that shows where they fly to from each city)

Here is my proposed itinerary: http://www.everlater.com/ryanwanger/jetblue-all-you-can-jet-month

Other people have been documenting their proposed JetBlue itineraries on Everlater as well. Here are the best ones so far:
http://www.everlater.com/andrew/jet-blue-jetting-trip (Andrew Hyde)
http://www.everlater.com/audrey/all-you-can-jet-sept-oct-2009

If you are lucky enough to be able to take advantage of this deal (do read the terms first), use Everlater to document your JetBlue All You Can Jet experience. We’ll be compiling the info and sharing the experiences (and probably ending up on each others flights!)

This is an amazing chance for an action-packed month of traveling around the US (and lots of destinations in the Carribean, as well as Costa Rica, and Columbia…though for those flights you need to fork over additional taxes - which are most around $30-$100 per flight). Personally, I’m using it primarily to visit friends that I otherwise wouldn’t be flying to go see - and I’ll be doing a lot of work in airports and on planes!

Will I see you in the skies from Sept 8th - October 8th?

Today, all 10 companies in the Boulder Techstars program this summer presented in front of a few hundred investors, well wishers, family members, and others in the Boulder community. The energy was amazing, and the teams did a great job. We had the good fortune of presenting second, and Nate was for sure the most energetic person in the room. Pretty sure he didn’t need that mic!

The surprise twist in our presentation was the Everlater Makeover we did for Fred Wilson, who was in attendance (and didn’t know what we were up to). We took all of his content from blog posts, photo feeds, and tweets from his recent trip and combined it into a great travel experience to showcase Everlater.

Check out his trip to Europe: http://bit.ly/everlatermakeover

Within just a few hours, both TechCrunch and RockyRadar have posted coverage of the event.

Sadly, Twitter was down all morning and didn’t come back online till after our presentation. But, there has been some good chatter about Everlater since then.

We met a ton of great people after the event who are really excited about Everlater. Thanks to all for your support, advice, and encouragement. We owe a lot to Techstars and the Boulder community and can’t wait to show you all how far we can take this…