maria

tripwolf is giving away the traveler’s perfect companion – a Flip MinoHD video camera you can take anywhere.

For all of you travel bloggers out there, do what you do best and write to win! Simply post an entry discussing one of your most incredible travel experiences, and link back to the location on tripwolf. Make us laugh, cry or cringe! Entries will be judged based on creativity and eloquence.

Go to our competition page to find the complete rules! http://www.tripwolf.com/en/page/bloggers

For those of you who would like to see a sample post:

“Title: …and a goat

A few years ago I packed a single backpack and boarded a plane for India. I didn’t have plan. Only a great travel guide (sadly, tripwolf.com didn’t exist at that time). I landed in Chennai and began wandering south. I could write for ages about all the jaw dropping, eye crossing things I saw..and smelled. But the one that stuck with me the most was utterly bizarre combinations of people, animals and things you see go by on a single moped. So for my “only in” moment:

Only in India will a man, a women, a kid, a baby, some sugar cane and a GOAT all on a single moped almost run you over.

Please note: This post is an entry in tripwolf.com’s Travel Story Competition. For more information about the competition please visit http://www.tripwolf.com/en/page/bloggers”

Adena and Maria/tripwolf

Spring break has college students booking airplane tickets to warm Caribbean beach destinations like Panama City, the Bahamas and Cancun, Mexico. As fun as relaxing on white sand is, the world offers too much to head to the same location year after year. So this year, plan an alternative spring break — and head over to Africa.

tripwolf has compiled the top “not to miss” locations in Africa as voted by its users. The community spoke, and tripwolf listened. With some sights, some beaches, and some national parks, they are all alternative ways to make spring break 2009 a trip to remember.  You can find details for all the locations that made the list on the tripwolf site here: http://www.tripwolf.com/en/guide/list/2/Africa?list=nottomiss.

This just in from STA TravelBuzz in the UK — STA is running a project called Earn Your Stripes and they are looking for 3 adventurous travelers to go on a 6-week paid working holiday in Australia.

“Each successful candidate will work in three different premier placements across the Western Australia and Victoria regions from brewing mountain crafted beer to preserving sporting history. After six weeks of graft, all your hard work will be rewarded with a 10-day experience that’ll take in the concealed magnificence of the Melbourne and Perth areas – the sort of stuff that isn’t in the guidebooks. Besides witnessing these secluded treasures, there will also be an opportunity to explore the spots known only to locals guided by those that know them best.”

Only caveat, you have to get yourself to Melbourne…

For all the juicy details and contact info check out http://www.statravelbuzz.co.uk/fancy-earning-your-stripes/

Photo Credit: gmetrail

Maria / tripwolf

Great news tripwolfers — we won’t be going anywhere any time soon!!

MairDumont has invested for the second time and we are also very happy to have Dieter von Holtzbrinck as a new investor.

Great things are going to happen in 2009 at tripwolf:

- Our iPhone application will be launched soon (currently we have a beta version). It will contain comprehensive travel content on all the world’s destinations, most of it from professional travel guide books, plus user generated content. The cool thing: You will be able to synch your personalized choice of destinations online so that you can then have all the information available offline when you are traveling (avoiding roaming charges overseas).

- We are actively working on our launches in French, Spanish and Italian. We will be releasing one new language version every quarter this year, starting with French.

And don’t forget to check out the story Tech Crunch wrote about us! Tripwolf Raises Another $2.5 Million For Its Online Travel Guide

Have a great weekend!
Maria / tripwolf

Hey Tripwolfers!!

We’ve launched a new contest! The winner of which will receive a signed lithograph of Dido’s newest album and a copy of the CD. Five runners up will also receive a copy of Safe Trip Home!!

It is super easy to enter the contest. All you have to do is submit an original photograph that falls into one of three categories:

• Last photo before heading home from traveling;
• Best travel photo; and,
• Best adventure photo.

On January 15, 2009 a judges panel made up of tripwolf and RCA Label Group staff will pick the winner and runners up.

To check out the competition and submit your own photographs go to: http://tripwolf.com/en/page/competition/dido

More information about the album and links to exclusive videos and sound bites are available on the competition page!

Can’t wait to see your amazing photographs!

Happy Happy Holidays! See you in the New Year!!

Best, Maria

tripwolf / maria

Last week, tripwolf’s founders Sebastian Heinzel and Alex Trieb, attended PhoCusWright 2008 Conference. PhoCusWright is the largest travel conference in the world. For a week, the top minds in the industry gather to discuss the future of travel. If you want to follow a bit of what was going on there, check out people’s tweets.

After Monday morning’s innovation summit, Sebastian (tripwolf’s CEO) was interviewed by Breaking Travel News. Check it out!!

Awesome news this Monday morning! tripwolf has partnered with HotelsCombined.com to integrate hotel price comparison into your tripwolf experience!

What this means for you–next time you are planning a trip, whether you are looking for a town or a specific hotel, you will be able to enter your desired dates and poof! hotelscombined.com will scour the web searching 30 of the top hotel booking sites such as hotels.com and priceline and will then tell you, right there on tripwolf, which site is offering the lowest price! You just click the book now button and you will be taken to that site where your information is logged and all you have to do is click buy!

Here on tripwolf, we are always looking for new ways to save you time and money on your next trip. We hope you enjoy this new feature! Please let us know what you think!!

Have a great week

-Maria

ps. if you want to read the official press release, check it out on tripwolf’s press page.

Here at tripwolf we are all about traveling (obviously!). I personally believe that traveling opens our minds. Some (if not all) the of epiphanies that have changed and shaped my life have happened while I was adventuring in another country. Unfortunatley, traveling requires money. And right about now, I think we are all feeling a little tight on that.

Luckily, there are great resources out there to help us travel on a budget. And while many peole think that they have to give up quality in order to afford a journey abroad, people like Sara Macefield of the Telegraph (a British newspaper) show us how to travel cheap and classy

Check out her article 50 of the world’s best budget hotels then head over to tripwolf.com, your online travel guide, to start planning your next trip!

Happy traveling!

maria/tripwolf

Photo credit: Ben McLeod

Today is Blog Action Day. It is a day when people all around the globe are using new media (such as blogging) to fight poverty. Some people are donating the ad revenues on their blogs from today to a charity of their choosing, others are spreading awareness through blogging and outreach efforts.

As world travellers, I’m sure we have all seen the best and worst of humanity. We’ve all seen opulence and desolate poverty. So, please. Do your part today. Whether that means commenting here, writing about Blog Action Day on your blog, donating to a charity or just checking out what other people are saying and doing (the Blog Action Day website has aggregated all the blog posts being written on the subject today), every little bit helps. Every small action contributes to larger change!

And Happy Wednesday!

maria/tripwolf