Another travel website??
 

I am addicted to Fodor's as I see hundreds have also admitted. It is the only travel site I know of. I love it and am not looking for another one as I am very pleased with this one. But just curious...are there others as good as Fodor's??

Another good one for Italy travel advice and info is slowtrav.com. I think they also represent some other European countries, as well.

Frommer's had a message board, also.

I agree, however, Fodor's tops the list for me, too.

Dunno about 'as good as Fodors'...

There are a myriad of travel websites/forums out there, and I think each one has its own character. Some Fodorites may stick strictly to this site, but I would guess that a percentage of Fodorites also participate in other websites, as well.

I think it all depends on what kind of information you are looking for, the tenor of the forum and how addicted ( :) )you are to travel and all its facets!

No Two Timing!

But Calamari, I only look! I don't touch!

Seriously though, I use Fodor's because to a computer nincompoop like myself, it's the most user friendly. I look at slowtrav but you need to pay $25 now to participate. Conde Nast and Frommers have sites, but compared to this one, they're cumbersome & slow.

Virtual Tourist has a nice site. The forums aren't as active as this one but there are lots of tips and photos. Many of the members live outside the US so I also like it for the different perspective and tips on things that you can't find in the guidebooks.

There are certainly others out there, but Fodor's is the best as far as I'm concerned.

Frommers and Lonely Planet both have discussion forums. The Frommers site doesn't seem to get much activity, and Lonely Planet (Australia based I believe) is more geared towards the young, backpacking set and can be a bit sophomoric (Thorntree.)

Strangely enough, I much prefer the Lonely Planet travel books to Fodor's though (sorry folks).

Lucky,

There is no site I have found that is as open as Fodors. There are many others that have there own style, but they have more filters and rules to follow.

The other sites I visit are Rick Steves and the Travelzine. You will find other Fodorites on those sites as well.

I enjoy the immediate interaction I get on the Fodors site, that's why I'm a regular visitor, unless I'm traveling.

Have fun.

Greg

Dln, when did slowtrav start charging? I was just on there the other day and didn't notice anything about a fee. Bummer. I have to admit that's a good one for hotel/villa/apartment reviews.

Huh? I've been a member at Slowtrav.com/Slowtalk.com for a long time but haven't visited the site for a while. Just checked over there, dln, and am unable to find anything about a $25 fee to participate on the site. Can you post the URL that explains this? Say it isn't so!

Virtualtourist.com is another site but it's not interesting.

dln

That's what they all say.

LOL!

Hi

Slowtrav.com is a very good site for Italy. Veeeeeerrrrrrrry experienced people, who are quite helpful.

You don't have to pay to participate. The $25 is a contribution to keep the site going without adverts.

I'm sorry, everyone, I should have been more clear about the $25. It is a suggested donation that you can make to help keep the slowtrav website going. More information about it is found at the bottom of their page, under "paypal contributions." If you are like me, though, you'd feel guilty about using something for free when other people are contributing, so in a way, it's a "mandatory" contribution according to your conscience. I didn't intentionally mean to mislead anyone, though--sorry again.

My preference for Fodors is based on the format, the variety of participants (from budget-minded to upper-end travelers), the liveliness of threads, and the great information I've gathered here.
I've tried frommers and find it very awkward to use. Slowtrav is great for Italy but again it doesn't have the participation needed to keep a board hopping.
Fodors is the best!!

I'm surprised someone would say that Virtual Tourist is not interesting. While it does have message boards, it doesn't have the (silly) chat stuff that you find here. But I think it's incredibly helpful in planning. For one thing there are loads of pictures, which give me ideas for places I wouldn't have thought of.

But the thing that I like best is there really are members from all over the world. When I pick a place I want to go, or that I'm interested in, I can do a search for who lives there, and email them with questions (when you register you get a VT mailbox). I have had correspondences with incredibly interesting people from the most unique places. And gotten very good, first hand info from locals.

I love it.

Hi! I run the Slow Travelers web site and Slow Talk message board. You do not have to pay to use the message board, but I do ask for a contribution to help me cover the costs. This is not mandatory and there is no difference currently between paid members and everyone else. There is a PayPal Contribute link in the lower right of the message board.

Up until this year I have paid for all costs for running the web site and message board - but now that we have so much traffic, our costs are rising and I have asked people to contribute.

SlowTrav/SlowTalk is not affiliated with any vacation rental agencies or travel businesses. It is an online community for people who travel slowly - staying in vacation rentals.

'Silly chat stuff', Grasshopper? Sooo....would you define that for me, when you find time in between your posts on this 'silly chat' forum?

Unless, of course, that was a tongue-in-cheek comment, LOL.

Geesh, Birmingham, relax... the parenthetical "silly" was not meant to be perjorative! Silly can be good. In fact, I do silly very well I think. What I was saying is that the message boards on VT tend to stick to the topic. OK? Peace! (or pace, if you prefer)

I knew that, silly! :p

I find Lonely Planet's Thorntree both interesting and almost as fast-moving as Fodors. As others have said, it seems to attract mainly backpackers and budget travellers, but if you're looking for information about a place, rather than hotels, it can be quite informative.

The BBC have recently started up a travel forum
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/h2/h2.cgi?board=holiday
and it's a bit slow at the moment. Plus, because of BBC rules about advertising, you can't post website addresses, so it's hard to give and receive useful advice without resorting to oblique references. But out of some misguided sense of British loyalty, I feel obliged to visit it every few days and hope that it will eventually gain in popularity and relax its rules.

My only other "regular" haunt (apart from newsgroups, as opposed to websites) is a specialist Greek travel board
http://islandwalking.myikonboard.com/
which has recently moved home, so is also fairly new and a bit slow at the moment, but, as my nickname may suggest, I'm a complete addict for anything about travel in Greece.
=:)

Well, it's only my opinion. I guess I find that on fodors you get a fast response. On virtualtourist.com people are from all over the world but answers are slow to get.

Trip Advisor (www.tripadvisor.com) is a great site. I use it a lot.

madridman.com for a great discussion board on Madrid and all of Spain.

eurotrip.com for backpacker/hostel/20something travel.

In reference to Slowtrav's post about the charge vs. donation to use the website, it is stated that there is "currently" no difference between those who donate and those who don't. The operative word is "currently." The site will probably develop into one of those where a donation will be necessary to have access to all the different areas. I looked around quite a bit and would not consider donating until many more of the businesses who advertise their services belly up to the bar. The place is one big commercial, regardless of how experienced they all are.

Hi

I've listed a few links here : http://tlp.netfirms.com/frenchforums.htm

They are mainly aimed at travelling and living in France.

Peter
http://tlp.netfirms.com

Hi

I think that Lonely Planet Thorntree is a pretty good forum when it comes to travelling. But these sites also have lots of nice information:

http://www.trekshare.com/
http://www.globosapiens.net/
http://www.igougo.com/

Regards
Gard
Stavanger, Norway
www.gardkarlsen.com

If you want to supplement your travel info with good info on restaurants and food in the places you're traveling to, check out chowhound.com which has an international message board, also egullet and opinionated about.

Can someone verify that Slowtrav (often plugged on this site) is truly independent? I am of the belief that the people who run the site are, in fact, affiliated with vacation rental owners, as they also run commercial websites for them. If so, there is the appearance, at least, of a conflict of interest in a site that is supposed to neutrally review vacation rentals.

SlowTrav is not affiliated with any travel businesses. I am the person who owns and runs SlowTrav (Pauline Kenny). Up until this year, SlowTrav earned no money except from a couple of click thrus (AutoEurope and Amazon) that provided enough income to cover my web hosting costs.

This year I started asking for membership contributions to cover my increasing web hosting costs and software costs.

I also placed "Google Ads" on the site. I feel this is a way of having ads on the site without having to have a "relationship" with the advertiser - to avoid a conflict of interest. Google selects the ads to be displayed solely on the site content.

Because SlowTrav has been taking up more and more of my time (creating new content, organizing the reviews, posting peoples travel notes and trip reports), I am turning the site somewhat more commercial. In addition to the Google Ads, I will be putting up a paid classified ads system next month.

I created SlowTrav in order to learn web design and now I work as a web designer. I have done a few web sites for travel businesses, but not many; two sites for companies that do that mass listing of vacation rentals and one hotel in Italy - that is all.

No one gets preferential treatment in the reviews - all reviews are accepted and published.

The moderators on the message board are not paid. Yes we do have many people in the travel business on the message board, but we do not allow them to push their businesses (other than allowing them to have a signature with a link to their sites).

I am thinking in the future of restricting a few things to paid members - the private topics feature and the email digests. Maybe the new photo album feature (currently we have this on a separate site - www.slowtrips.com ).

The SlowTrav web site and the SlowTalk message board are not for everyone. Fodors has much more information and a bigger and better message board. I am trying to target a small part of the travel world - Slow Travelers, people who stay in vacation rentals while traveling.

It may also depend on how bored you are at work. And it may the only one that has at least one self-described "incarcerated felon" as a regular participant!!!

This forum is by far the best, because of the high number of users and consequent super-fast response to postings. But I've found Rick Steves' "graffiti board" to have lots of useful information. www.ricksteves.com

Fodors has the best forum, only gap is that its not as good for budget travel advice as lonely planet's thorntree.
Average fodorite is older, richer & more scared of being mugged, or worse, not having a washcloth.