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I can hardly keep up with all the new languages we're launching the blogs in at the moment - but that's a good thing of course As of this week it's possible to set your blog to Polish! Of course you can write your blog in any language you please, but if you have a lot of readers from Poland who don't understand 'Subscribe' means, then I recommend you change it to 'Zaprenumeruj' by setting your blogs language to Polish. You can set the language for your blog in the settings part of your travel blog management area. The instructions in last weeks entry should help if you are unsure. The only difference should be that you need to select Polish from the drop down list instead of 'German'

Don't have a travel blog yet?

As I wrote in the previous entry, if you'd like to have your blog labels transformed in the same way to a language that we don't have yet, please contact us or send me a PM about it and I can send you the one page that needs translating. We're offering increased photo upload limits in return. You can get a whopping 200 MB a month.... that should tie over even the most fanatic photo uploader.

A big thanks to kstaniek and family for the translation! They're keeping this Polish travel blog right now and it looks like they're having a great time down under!

It seems like just last week we were announcing that our travel blogs could be set to German (hang on, it WAS last week). Well, for our Finnish friends we now have a Finnish translation in place! You can set the language for your blog in the settings part of your travel blog management area. The instructions in last weeks entry should help if you are unsure. Just make sure to select Finnish from the drop down list instead of 'German'

As I wrote in the previous entry, if you'd like to have your blog labels transformed in the same way to a language that we don't have yet, please contact us or send me a PM about it and I can send you the one page that needs translating. We're offering increased photo upload limits in return. You can get a whopping 200 MB a month.... that should tie over even the most fanatic photo uploader.

I'd write Happy Blogging in Finnish now, but the truth is that I don't speak the language, so I'll just thank Gerard, Kaisa and family for the translation!

A few weeks ago, Travellerspoint held its end-of-year survey. One of the questions we asked our members was this: What is your dream destination?

Well, the results are in. Here are the top 8 dream destinations for 2008, as picked by Travellerspoint members.

Italy

Montorroso, Cinque Terre. Credit: sophos.

Italy topped the list of dream destinations, suggesting that the appeal of authentic Italian food, historic cities and the shimmering Mediterranean shore has not grown any weaker over the years. The streets of Rome and the canals of Venice can expect many more curious travellers this years.

India

Ganges Boatman. Credit: Degolasse.

Plenty of travellers don't mind a crowd, with many picking India as their dream destination for 2008. Looks like India's 1.12 billion residents will once again play host to travellers on a quest for piping hot curries, beautiful temples and a cultural experience like no other.

Australia

Australia Rock. Credit: rebmamber.

Australia, a perennial favourite destination for young and old alike, remains a top choice in 2008. Sydney may be the gateway into Australia, but travellers will have plenty of reasons to explore the country, from the Great Barrier Reef to the evocative and haunting Uluru.

Antarctica

King Penguins in Antarctica. Credit: Taffski.

Travellerspoint members showed they have no fear of the cold, with many selecting Antarctica as their dream destination. Tours of the great white continent afford a unique and beautiful glimpse into one of the world's harshest environments.

New Zealand

Milford Sound. Credit: freedommm.

New Zealand is more than just sheep, kiwis and rugby. The appeal of laid-back coastal cities, dramatic inland scenery and thrilling adventure sports make the southern island nation a first-choice destination for many travellers.

Egypt

Pyramids of Giza. Credit: davecallan.

The bedrock of Egypt's tourism industry may have been built thousands of years ago, but the Ancient Pyramids and Sphinx have only become more captivating with time. Egyptian officials need have no fear of tourism to the only remaining Ancient Wonder of the World drying up anytime soon.

Thailand

Grand Palace, Bangkok. Credit: dario_81.

Thailand has been the destination of choice for budget travellers for years now, but it seems cash-strapped, backpack-wielding travellers just can't get enough. Sun-kissed beaches, ancient temples and uber-cheap shopping in Bangkok are just three of the reasons why travellers will turn to Thailand for their overseas adventures in 2008.

United States

Candlestick at Sunset. Credit: Good2Go.

Voting closed the day that this blog post was published, and in the last few hours the United States scraped into the list of top destinations. It's not surprising, really. The U.S.A. is a land of extraordinary natural and cultural diversity, from glamorous Hollywood to the majestic Rockies. The United States throbs with possibilities for the traveller.

First off, Happy New Year! Join in the forum thread and wish your fellow TP members the same

Other than that, just a quick little post to inform all of you of the addition of German to the travel blog area. For all of you keeping blogs in German this means that all the English labels around your blog can now be set to German which is pretty nice (at least we think so!). Just to be clear, you can, as always, write your actual blog posts in any language you can think of. This just applies to all the default labels and text around the blog.

To make this change, visit your 'my blogs' page and click on the Settings link for the blog you want to change. One of the settings (the 4th one down) is to set the Locale (Language) and German is now included in that list. After setting it to German, watch your 'Latest Entries' magically be transformed to 'Letzte Einträge', amongst many others of course.

A special thank you to Sarah for the translation! If you'd like to have your blog labels transformed in the same way to a language that we don't have yet, please contact us or send me a PM about it and I can send you the one page that needs translating. We're offering increased photo upload limits in return

I was inspired by a post in the forum where Angela_ notices that Tenerife is 'missing' in our mapping software to do a quick post about mapping photos and trips.

I've noticed from mapping my own photos and trips that some destinations seem to be missing just because of how I/we commonly refer to them. Tenerife is a great example because that's how most of us would refer to it as a destination. Unfortunately, if the island doesn't also happen to be a country (like Australia), then it might just not be listed as a destination because it's an island and not EITHER a country OR a city OR town. We have around 2 million destinations mapped and with that I mean towns, cities and countries in well over 99.99% of the cases. There might be a handful of famous sites, but only those that we added manually ourselves out of sheer frustration (suggestions are always welcome for more!)

So how do you go about mapping a destination like Tenerife with the above knowledge in hand? That's right, try and map it to a city or town within the island itself. If you know the name, you would start just by typing it into the box and the autofill will probably find it for you, however in some cases you might not be able to remember the name or there might be several cities with the same name in the same country making it hard to find the right one this way. This is the perfect moment to actually use the zoom function that is part of the mapping system (the buttons at the top right of the map). I did some zooming in on the island of Tenerife and here's an initial selection of towns and cities our mapping system comes up with:

That's pretty detailed!! I'm guessing for most people that would actually be sufficient, but let's say you happen to be staying at "Buenavista del Norte" which you know to be somewhere on that left side of the island but still not showing. Even further zooming in and panning to the left will bring up the following shot:

Wow! There's a whole bunch more little towns showing up over there!

Okay, so what if that tree you are camping under doesn't show up as a destination but you know (roughly) where it's located? The system actually lets you create your own individual markers and give them your own name. To do this, after finding the right location on the map, just click on the 'select on map' button (next to the lat/long fields) and click whereever on the map you want. Type in the location name and you're good to go! The system will actually remember that name for the next photo or trip you are mapping, so you don't have to keep doing this. Just start typing the name you gave it next time around to find it listed or click on the little black icon and the system will put it in the right place. Yeah, it's pretty cool!

Here's an example of a destination I mapped myself because Lake's aren't always considered destinations (note: this is a live map so you can click/zoom in & out etc.):

Hope that helps someone!!