nochblad

At this moment 50% of postings are personal reports. Too much!

There should be a separate section for those who love this self-adulation.

elberko

Not many agreed with you last time you complained:
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...s-226112-2.cfm

On the plus side, they aren't spam.

janisj

Wrong side of the bed this morning???

If you don't like them don't read them . . . They have flags so you can very happily skip right over those pesky TR's

I personally think people should be thanked/congratulated for coming back and telling us how the trip we helped them with worked out.

jamikins

I love reading trip reports...I always get lots of ideas.

Don't read them if you don't like them

janisj

OMG elberko . . . I didn't see your post. That is too funny.

not only wrong side of the bed - slow learner

lcuy

Just curious, what is it you dislike about trip reports?

The 'me, me, me? Would you like them better if people wrote them in the third person?

Or the fact that you can't give advice after the narrator's trip is already complete?

Those little orange globes to the left of the title can be your friend. Think of them as little round 'keep out' gates.

WoinParis

Trip reports on the third person are awful.

I'm very selective reading trip reports but they don't bother me at all and some people really like them. I even wrote one...

What bothers me is when people label them 'TR in ... '. TR in french stands for 'toucher rectal' I never ever can read that without spilling my tea...

Mdr.

anyegr

Would you prefer to have 50% spam?

lcuy

I love trip reports. Q&A posts get answers, but TRs let you get to know the author's style. Prior to my first trip to India, I read Craig's trip report. I could tell by the hotels he chose, the restaurants, the amount of touring they did and the way he handled problems that we were kindred travelers.

I lifted his entire itinerary. It was one of my best trips ever, and the most easily planned!

WoinParis

I like my itineraries to be my itineraries.

Kathie

I also love trip reports - real reports, not just links to photos of the poster in each place they visited! Like lcuy, I have used others' reports to plan my own trips.

progol

As they say, to each his own! I love trip reports, too! Can't imagine why anyone wouldn't like to read about places that they're interested in -- I don't HAVE to read a report if I don't want to, and like lcuy, have found "kindred travelers" and "borrowed" their trip itineraries to make my own.

But jeez louise, no one is forcing anyone to read them!

Christina

I love trip reports as I don't have the time and energy to write one myself, I really admire those who do. They have a special tag, anyway.

They are certainly not 50 pct of the posts, anyway.

hetismij2

I read some, but not all trip reports.
Some I read just because I like the posters style, some I learn from, and make a note of places that appeal.
Some are of no interest to me, because the places in the report don't appeal. So I don't read them.


Stop complaining. It is a travel forum and people share their travels to help others, to thank those who helped them plan, or very occasionally as one long brag.
No one is sitting there with a gun to your head saying read the trip reports or else.

isabel

Trip reports give valuable information about things guide books leave out - especially things like how long it takes to do something, get from point A to point B, give you a much better feel for a place. Sure not everyone likes everyone else's style - I personally find often too much about the meals, but then I'm not a foodie. So I skip those bits. But in between I usually find tons of good information.

Trip reports are even more valuable when someone is researching a trip. I don't read most of them when first posted - unless it's somewhere I'm especially interested in, or recently been to. But when I start planning a trip the first place I go is to search for trip reports.

It is too bad that the fodor's search function is so bad. But google searching often brings up trip reports onfodors (and other places).

nytraveler

So everyone else should have to search all over the place for trip reports on a particular place so you don;t have the terrible inconvenience of not looking at the reports?

Talk about me! me! me!

Nikki

Trip reports are among the most valuable assets of this message board. Rather than giving answers to specific questions, they are highly individual accounts of things to see and do and the enthusiasm of the authors has swayed me many times in favor of activities I would never have considered.

I would much rather read a bunch of trip reports about a place than ask an equal number of questions about a destination and have everybody tell me I am asking the wrong questions and not giving them enough personal information. I don't want people to guess what I would like; I want to know what they enjoyed the most as well as what they didn't enjoy. I can then decide which of the experiences I read about appeal to me.