The Travellerspoint Blog

Our 2011 Community Survey is now complete and we have some interesting information about TP members we'd like to share with you.

First of all, congrats to Holly Clark (soupatrvlr) for being the randomly-selected winner of the iPod Touch! We think they're the perfect device to use while travelling and complement a brick phone nicely.

Image: Holly snapping a quick set-up pic

So, the first questions we asked were around "What kind of traveller are you?"

• 'Backpacker' was the most common response for type with 27% of you selecting it. This was followed by 'budget', 'mid-range' and the oh-so-cool 'I can't be categorised'!

• Nearly half of you liked having someone along while travelling, but just shy of the same weren't bothered either way.

• When it came to how often you travel, a whopping 61% replied a few times per year. The second largest response was once per year. Close to 10% were constantly travelling. What a life!

• In terms of dream destination, this was extremely varied but New Zealand, Bhutan and Switzerland got the most amount of repeated votes.

Image: What the dream destination pie chart looked like!

When it came to travel issues, we have quite a bit to report:

• Terrorism, natural disasters, infectious disease and special events were items most likely to influence your travel plans.

• When it came to considering the environment, the largest majority tried to limit air travel but there still a few who answered they didn't take it into account.

• In regards to how much of your travel you planned online, over half answered '75-100%'. Another quarter answered '50-75%'. We certainly have web lovers on our hands!

• 55% of you spent USD$1000-$5000 on travel a year, while almost 30% spent $5000-$15000. One person answered they spent more than $30,000 per year!

• And now for the most surprising part. We commonly hear digital media experts predict the death of the travel guide book but over half of you still buy one and take it with you!

We then wrapped up with some questions regarding the site and areas we can improve. Thanks so much for your responses – we're taking a look at all the feedback to see what we can do.

Overall, it's great to see you're loving the travel guides, blogging tools, photography, forums, trip mapping, helpers and accommodation. We're also flattered that 60% of you think Travellerspoint is up there with the best travel sites on the net!

Thanks again for taking part and we're looking forward to launching some fantastic new features and products (such as our mobile app) shortly.

~ The TP team

In this month's Industry Interview we are pleased to chat to Igor Bratnikov, one of the initiators and founders behind GreenXC – an organisation of people trying to raise awareness and raise money for national parks and forests. He's also a seasoned travel photographer and journalist who shares his experiences through his photo blog.

Igor with fellow GreenXC founder Polina Raygorodskaya

What is GreenXC and who's involved?

GreenXC is an organisation of young professionals determined to make an impact on the preservation of National Parks and Forests. At the end of July, we are setting out on a three-week mission to get cross country using only ride-shares and conducting a national outreach and awareness campaign for parks and forests with the help of the USDA Forest Service. Stopping at various destinations along the way, we will be documenting our travels and bringing our followers along for our journey through our site. Follow us along our journey!

We are a collaboration of enthusiasts with seasoned experience in the fields of public relations, marketing, business, law, journalism and photography who share the common goal of enriching young minds to encourage the future generation to take action to protect our national parks and forests and create an eco-sustainable nation.

You can view a photo story of the trip that started GreenXC here.

Why is it important to protect national parks and forests?

America's National Forests and Parks, since the days of President Theodore Roosevelt, have been serving the nation's interests in protecting the pristine beauty of nature and preserving eco-environments across the country. Thanks to this rich heritage, today we can all visit places like Old Faithful in Yellowstone and Half Dome in Yosemite. Visitors can be awed by the majestic hush of giant trees in our National Forests, and enjoy the rushing waters of the Deschutes, tumbling falls of the Cascades, magnificent mountaintops of the Rockies, and the colorful forests of the Appalachians. Whether you enjoy these special places for the hot springs or cool rivers, craggy peaks or verdant valleys, they are places to enjoy, and places to protect. We are raising awareness for them to ensure that these special places and the unforgettable experiences they provide will sustain us for generations to come.

Is the initiative based in the US only?

Currently the initiative is focused on the US but we focus on spreading environmental awareness across the world and plan to do campaigns in other countries in the future. Also, many of our readers come from all over the world and we hope to bring everyone that comes on our website along our journey to visit the national parks and forests together.

What are some of your favourite outdoor and nature spots around the globe?

We recently took a trip to Costa Rica and Nicaragua where we hiked volcanoes and visited various beautiful villages. Nicaragua was one of our favourite places that we visited together. Both of us have travelled all over the world separately as well. Polina loved hiking in New Zealand and the beautiful forests there. Igor loved hiking in Colco Canyon in Peru and rice terraces in Batad, Philippines. And of course we love the nature that surrounds us here in the US that we endear so much.

You're using Travellerspoint to map your trip – what do you like about our service?

We LOVE Travellerspoint map for many reasons. We first tried using Google Maps to map our journey but found it very difficult to work with and nearly impossible to change and add points. We love that Travellerspoint map allows you to easily add points and move the sequence around without messing anything up. We also LOVE that each point has a great explanation of the locations that we will be visiting, many of the facts we did not previously know.

You can view GreenXC's Travel Map here.

What advice do you have for people wanting to travel green?

There are many ways to travel green really it is all about desire, little steps or big ones they all count in the end. Understanding that you can add green elements to your travels without having to change your entire routine. Also, try out ride sharing! It is fun, you meet interesting people and save money on gas and protect your environment! Also, you get to exactly where you want to go and don't have to sit in a cramped bus or train. And as far as safety goes, it is a far more safe form of transportation than many others. Make sure to get references and background information on the people you are getting in a car with. And stay-tuned, GreenXC is working on a platform for people to connect for ride-shares, to make it a safe, convenient and practical way to travel very soon! Would love to integrate some of the fantastic Travellerspoint's travel resources with what we are working on.

Disclaimer: Travellerspoint is supporting GreenXC as an early-stage partner.

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Check out our other posts in the Industry Interview series:

• Industry Interview with Gary Arndt of Everything Everywhere
• Industry Interview with Darren Cronian of Travel Rants
• Industry Interview with Sue Gough Henly

A few weeks ago Peter put together a cool new feature and we're excited to formally introduced it now...

Travel Stats is a neat way to visualise all your mapped trips on Travellerspoint. The tool extracts your trip data and presents it in a one-page infographic.

For example, here are Peter's stats:

If you enter the mode of transport and date while mapping a trip, more detail will be shown:

To insert the stats on your Travellerspoint blog or externally-hosted site, simply click the 'Embed this!' link in the top right-hand corner:

And now for the fun part - collective stats from the TP community!

• 70,949 users have created trips with a total of 234,892 trips mapped so far
• The total kilometers to date is: 1,594,754,638 (over a billion) - this incidentally is 4,392 one-way trips to the moon
• The average stops per trip is 6.07
• The most popular modes of transport in order are (numbers are total number of stops):

- 108976 Airplane
- 57515 Car
- 54802 Bus
- 39124 Train
- 16884 Boat
- 2299 Foot
- 1698 Bicycle
- 1737 Motorbike
- 229 Animal

To get started, simply make sure you've mapped a trip on Travellerspoint before and head to your custom stats link. E.g. http://www.travellerspoint.com/stats/username/

You can then choose to share them with your friends and family via the social buttons.

Happy travels!

Bill at White Sands National Park, New Mexico

In August's Talking Travel we chat to Bill Lehane (BillLehane), a journalist and writer from Dublin whose hobbies include: "Hanging out with Megan, writing in all its forms, drinking coffee, visiting art galleries and churches, and seeing the world."

You're a Dubliner living in Prague who's also lived in the US and China, where's been your favourite place to date?

I think I would have to say New Mexico, my wife Megan Eaves' home state! We spent almost a year there after a six-month teaching stint in China, it was really great to see the American Southwest – still a bit of an unknown for most Europeans, I think - and get to know all of my wife's family at the same time. But no-one can go to China without being wowed I think, it was great to be able to do that as well. I really enjoyed seeing places like Shanghai and Beijing, as well as our little port of call for most of our time there, Lishui City.

As a journalist, how does your travel affect your writing and perspective on the world?

That’s an interesting question. I think that you grow as a person as you see more of the world, and of course that helps mature your writing. My experience as documented on the blog has been more about living abroad than just visiting new places however, which is definitely a different kind of travel. I think when you stay longer in a place you get a better sense of how people live in that city, and it's always different.

What are your must-sees for the Czech Republic?

The best is probably the most obvious – Old Town Prague. The Old Town Square itself is just magnificent no matter how many times you step on to it, I was just thinking the same the other day when walking out onto the square and seeing the Týn Church (we have nicknamed it the Disney church J ) - it still amazes me how great it looks after a whole year living here.

Aside from that, I would have to say the historic medieval town of Český Krumlov, a fresh pint of Svijany - Prague's beer of the moment – and getting a sausage at one of the outdoor markets (that are most famously at Christmas but actually pop up regularly throughout the year.)

Bill and Megan outside Prague Castle

Tell us more about book 'Interculturalism in Irish Public Service Broadcasting' and your inspiration...

Well back in my home town of Dublin there's been a massive immigration boom linked to the Celtic Tiger economic boom where the foreign population that was basically at next to nothing in 2000 rose to 10 percent of the population by 2006.

I was inspired by this change, and while I was working for the website of Ireland's biggest TV network at the time I completed a Masters in Intercultural Studies and wrote a dissertation on that part of the issue. That was in 2007.

A German academic publisher then called me out of the blue nearly three years later when I was staying in a historic hotel in downtown El Paso, Texas (where my wife was researching one of her books) and offered to publish it in paperback format. So that was just fantastic.

Speaking of Germany, I would just like to note that while the poor Irish economy is obviously doing really terribly at the moment, the German immigration experience does show that immigrants do not leave their adopted homes in significant numbers during a recession, so hopefully this is a text that will still be of some small use in the years to come.

You're an active member of the Travellerspoint community, what do you like about the site?

I think the Wiki Travel Guide is a great idea because it gives travellers instant access to all the relevant info they need without having to scroll through pages of stuff that doesn't interest them. It's a bit of fun as well just to update the various pages by spotting things you know that haven't been mentioned and adding them to the rundown.

Where are you off to next?

Well as it happens I just took a job in London, so I'll be there by early September. I think while Prague has lots to offer in terms of historic sights, beer and so on, myself and Megan will really relish the huge selection of dining and cultural things going on in such a large, multicultural city. And of course we’ll be there for the Olympics!

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Check out these recent interviews in the Talking Travel series:

• Talking Travel with Inspiring Travellers (JohnAndrea)
• Talking Travel with Andre Frieden
• Talking Travel with Vagamos
• Talking Travel with Tracey (TTG)
• Talking Travel with Zero Dean

We've been working out how to best curate some of the amazing photography that's uploaded onto the Travellerspoint site. In the world of travel, themes in photography often emerge as travellers repeat the steps of thousands before them. One such case in Salar De Uyuni - the world's largest salt flat in Bolivia, South America. The setting is only limited by the photographer's imagination and the wackier the perspective, the better. Cofounder Peter had been bookmarking quite the link list of photos from this area and recently came up with the idea of theme-specific galleries. Enter Travellerspoint Photo Collections.

You can view the full 'Salar De Uyuni - Strike a Pose!' collection here.

We've also curated the best 'Cute and Cuddly Critters' pictures from the community. You can let out your 'awws' and 'ewws' here.

If you've got any suggestions on what collections to do next, we'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment below or send a message to our community manager via the site.

Enjoy and happy viewing!