Would it be more helpful on this forum to have travel areas in Europe listed by region rather than just country? For example: break the UK into it's 4 major areas (England, Wales, Scotland and No Ireland), break Germany in north and south, break Italy into north, middle, south. The USA is broken into states - makes it much easier to get to the area and info you want.

You can always query by region: e.g. Alsace, or Bavaria.

"<i>Would it be more helpful on this forum to have travel areas in Europe listed by region rather than just country? . . . . . . The USA is broken into states - makes it much easier to get to the area and info you want.</i>"


Nope - Not IMO. There are relatively trips/itineraries that go to only one region.

"Montana", "New York", "Alaska" is about the same as "Germany", "Ireland", "Estonia".

Organizing by splitting Germany into North/South makes no more sense than North/Central/Southern California.

It would be nearly unmanageable.

Germany has 82 million people though, the UK, France and Italy all over 60 million. By comparison, Montana (about the same size as Germany) has less than one million residents, Alaska even fewer still. I was just thinking that there is so much to do and see packed into such small spaces in Europe, it might help the more novice travelers to Europe to have areas grouped by regions. Not everyone knows that Franconia is a distinct region in Germany or that Wales is a seperate area with the UK. Regions matter more in Europe for the traveler than they do in US states.

You could do it with other countries as well, like The Philippines for example - I am guessing most travelers don't know about the different regions.

I don't want to see European countries split - that would make searching unmanageable. And who would draw the line in each country and what happens when someone doesn't know if Stuttgart is in southern or northern Germany. Is Bologna in the middle of Italy or in the north.

Perhaps we should break up Oklahoma into east, west, and central.

If novice travelers do not know geography (and many don't) it would not help them to break Europe into regions - it would only confuse them more.

"<i>Germany has 82 million people though, the UK, France and Italy all over 60 million. By comparison, Montana (about the same size as Germany) has less than one million residents, Alaska even fewer still.</i>"

Who cares about the population numbers?? That doesn't mean anything when posting questions/itineraries.

"<i>I was just thinking that there is so much to do and see packed into such small spaces in Europe, it might help the more novice travelers to Europe to have areas grouped by regions. Not everyone knows that Franconia is a distinct region in Germany . . .</i>"

Exactly! So 99% wouldn't know to look for Franconia.

"<i>You could do it with other countries as well, like The Philippines for example - I am guessing most travelers don't know about the different regions.</i>"

So -- if they don't know about the various regions . . . . How would they find any info?

The whole idea doesn't make sense.

Agree completely that his makes no sense.

If someone is geographically challenged the chance of their wanting to go to Franconia is miniscule. they;re trying to decide between Paris and Rome.

As the board is now people can ask questions that are as broad or narrow as they choose - why would be want to take that option away. Or force people to find detailed maps of ech country when they may still be at the general question stage.

And we can;t get a lot of people to differentiate between Central and Eastern Europe (some are even putting Germany in the East) - how are we going to get them to do it by a huge number of (often) obscure regions.

My thought was that by listing by region, it would expose more people to the variety each country has to offer. Europe was traditionally made up of regions and it seems that a lot of Europeans still view themselves as residents of there region first and country second. People could still search by country and ask broad or narrow questions on this board, but when you click on say Italy, you are presented with a list of regions (Piedmont, Emilia Romagna, Lazio) and think, "I wonder what is in Lazio?"). I think a lot of Americans at least miss out on a lot of great travel ideas and options because they only know the basics (France = Paris, Normandy and maybe "the South of France")

<< I think a lot of Americans at least miss out on a lot of great travel ideas and options because they only know the basics >>

If people only know the basics then that's what they want to know. It appears from many posts that lots of people don't even want to pick up a guide book and read it. Have you seen the numbers of posts that ask "what is there to do in Venice, Rome, Paris, London?" There are also the posters who claim they want to get off the beaten track and when the less obvious destinations are described to them they lose interest and then state they want to go to the very popular tourist destinations.

Obviously if people don't even know the basics then they have no interest in looking farther. If anyone is interested in looking beyond the 4 or 5 large European cities then they know how to do so and will do it without regional splits on this board.

Anyone interested in Lazio, for instance, can either search for it here or choose from a large assortment of guide books and read about Lazio.

Since this such a hot topic for you why don't you put together a thread that describes the differences in each European country and what each region offers.

LittleA, look at http://www.tripadvisor.com/ListForum...11-Europe.html. That very useful forum does break European countries down by areas.

WHy not go the whole hog and have a clickable map interface