Travel forums
Apr 9th, 2002, 09:14 AM
#2
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www.eurotrip.com have a good forum geared for budget travellers and backpackers - and frequented by them.<BR><BR>There probably is an age gap too on the populace of these forums.
Apr 9th, 2002, 09:20 AM
#3
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If you have access to AOL, I've found their boards very chatty and informative. And fewer stupid questions and trolls!<BR><BR>AOL members are allowed to have several names on their account, so even if you don't have one of your own, perhaps a friend or relative would add you as a user on theirs.
Apr 9th, 2002, 11:38 AM
#5
Guest
Posts: n/a
But it remains true that to access the AOL boards you have to pay a fee, right? if AOL is not your ISP?<BR><BR>I can't see wanting to do that. I've taken enough guff about saying that I would be willing to pay a voluntary ("vanity") fee to be able to register here.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>
Apr 9th, 2002, 09:56 PM
#9
Guest
Posts: n/a
best board (with lot of international users and less trolls) is www.virtualtourist.com
Apr 9th, 2002, 10:17 PM
#10
Guest
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<BR>Thanks!<BR>I tried most of them, but none seems as active and as wide range as the Fodors forum. <BR>Being a very experienced world wide traveler I still get so much good advice from nice people on this forum. I cannot believe that there are no other similar sites.<BR>Any more suggestions? <BR>AA
Apr 10th, 2002, 09:08 AM
#14
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As regulars here know, I admire this forum. But I must admit that on central and eastern Europe the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree forum is much stronger, with resident Romanian and Serbian contributors, and notes on places like Kaliningrad, Kosice and Moldova that are seldom mentioned here. I think that what Fodors reflects is good word of mouth publicity for the places open to anybody in days before 1990, and ignorance of north American travel agents of the world beyond Prague and Krakow. It is a shame. There are delightful provincial towns and cities from Tartu to Plovdiv, cheap and friendly. Many of them are a train journey of a day or a night from Frankfurt or Venice airports.<BR><BR>The level of courtesy on the Fodors site is well above that on the Lonely Planet site.<BR><BR>Ben Haines, London<BR>
Apr 10th, 2002, 09:15 AM
#16
Guest
Posts: n/a
Grasshopper, it's true, some of the travel boards on AOL are really obnoxious -- I gave up on the London board, for instance. But others are great -- the New York City board is exemplary!<BR><BR>I have found this to be true of AOL boards in general -- I've been in boards on gardening topics, health, etc. etc. Some are just awful, full of bullies, and some are wonderful.
Apr 10th, 2002, 11:33 PM
#19
Guest
Posts: n/a
I did one of those free trials with the AOL cds you get in the mail. I searched their travel forums and found them extremely poor especially from an informational standpoint. They have lousy format and navigation, no long term archives, and the user base is limited to AOL users only. Don't waste your time or money unless you happen to already have them as your ISP.
Apr 11th, 2002, 04:23 AM
#20
Guest
Posts: n/a
Sandman, you are of course entitled to your opinion, based on your brief free sample of AOL service, but my opinion is based on 5 years of membership and using them for planning several trips. <BR><BR>Many new users have trouble selecting formats (e.g., threaded or not) and the messages ARE archived, with an instantly updated search function (unlike Fodors). Since AOL currently has 34 million members worldwide, who automatically access its travel boards, the size of the user base is a non-issue; all those folks get sent to the same travel boards, unlike other ISPs, where users might find Fodors and might not.<BR><BR>The quality and detail of information varies from one geograhic area to another, based on the interests and participation of AOL members, but the same is true for Fodors -- it's much easier to get info both here and on AOL on Paris/London/Rome than on Prague/Budapest/Kiev.
