Oct 2007

Since launching our editable destination guide earlier this year, one of the most interesting challenges has been how to arrange the information in a way that makes the most sense.

Namely, what is the most important information in an article about a country, a city or some other place?

Perhaps it's because I majored in history at university, but I always like reading a bit of background about a place. So my natural approach to writing the guide articles is to start with the introduction and follow that up with some basic background information, like its history, geography, etc.

Peter, on the other hand, prefers to launch straight into the sights and activities. What is there to see and do here?

Considering there are probably many more opinions about what is the most important stuff in a travel guide, I thought I'd open up the question to you, our lovely readers:

What is the primary information you look for in a travel guide?

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I guess sales were low for the Indian rug merchant who came up with this brilliant new way to entice more potential buyers. I wonder if it worked...

Thanks to jacquiedro for this pic. I enjoyed a hearty chuckle!

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Yesterday's interview on TravelBlogs was with the blogger behind Pickled Eel, who recently spent time in Iraq and Jordan on a business trip. The interview raised a few interesting questions about the appeal of travelling around dangerous places.

Yes, you read correctly. The appeal of dangerous places. Pickled Eel put it this way:

"An awareness of the risk (in Baghdad) means you are tuned into the way people live, how they are coping, who they are. And what is going on. I think it is hard being the average tourist if there is an element of risk. There is no question that Iraq is an edgy place but it is that which makes you feel very alive and tuned in to what the people around you are doing. As a result you can only come away with the most profound respect and admiration and awe for Mr Joe Iraqi Citizen for the life he is trying to recreate. You don’t feel that about the beached whales lying beside the pool in your four or five star resort. The afternoon I was back in Sydney from Iraq I was driving through pleasant leafy suburbs and found myself think how boring it all was. Nice. But boring."

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald travel blog describes a new breed of travellers who actively seek out dangerous places. While the rest of us might ask ourselves "How dangerous is too dangerous?", these travellers ask themselves the opposite question: "How dangerous is dangerous enough?"

What is your take on the concept of "danger tourism"? Have you ever travelled in a country experiencing violent conflict or war?

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That's a lot padlocks right there. David.byne took this photo in Florence, and he appears equally confused by them: "These padlocks seemed randomly attached to a signpost near the Ponte Vecchio in Florenece. Who knows why?"

So over to you, dear readers: Can anyone explain what the significance of these padlocks is? A safeguard in dangerous times? Or some bizarre tradition?

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We're unravelling a bunch of new features and improvements to the blogging area today. Here's a quick rundown of what has changed:

• Top navigation bar added
  
• Bookmark and share entries by email, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Del.icio.us or Iloho
  
• Table of contents added
  
• Show complete XML feeds
  
• Feedburner feeds enabled
  
• Google Analytics enabled
  
• Change the language of your blog
  
• Add links to your blog
  

Top navigation bar
If you're the one running the blog, this allows you to quickly start writing a new entry or managing your blog.

Alternatively, if you're just reading someone else's blog, you can jump to your own blog management area or control panel. You can also report suspicious looking blogs.

Bookmark and share entries
At the bottom of each post you will notice a collection of icons. These allow you to bookmark or share the entry with friends or the rest of the world:
- Email the post to a friend.
- Add the entry to StumbleUpon, a social bookmarking site.
- Add the entry to Reddit, a social bookmarking site with an emphasis on news-related topics.
- Bookmark the entry on Del.icio.us, another popular social bookmarking site.
- Share the post on Iloho, a travel site where people can submit news articles, tips or other travel-related topics.

Table of contents
At the top of your sidebar, you'll see a link to your blog's Table of Contents. This displays a list of all your blog's entries. Pretty self-explanatory really...

Feeds are shown in full
Instead of just showing a snippet of each entry, feeds are now shown in full by default. If you want to go back to just showing a snippet, you can go to your blog management area and change this under Settings.

Make your feed a Feedburner feed
Feedburner will take your Travellerspoint blog feed and turn it into a Feedburner feed. The main advantage is that this will allow you to see how many people are subscribed to your blog's feed. Check out Sam's step-by-step tutorial for creating a Feedburner feed.

Get Google Analytics on your blog
Google Analytics will allow you to take an in-depth look at who is visiting your blog - and where they're coming from. Sam has a detailed tutorial on how to start tracking your site with Analytics.

Change the language of your blog
There are quite a few blogs on Travellerspoint that are written entirely in languages other than English. Accordingly, we have translated the blog interface into four different languages: Dutch, Norwegian, Russian and Spanish. This is really useful if most or all of your readers are non-English speakers.

Add links to your blog
You can now add links to other sites from your blog - whether they're your own or other blogs you enjoy reading. To do so, click on the Manage tab in your blog management area and select Links. Note: This only becomes available to bloggers once they have made 5 posts, to prevent spammers taking advantage of this feature.

If you pick up on any problems, feel free to leave your comments below. All feedback will be much appreciated!

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