Back when I was originally getting started in my travels, I used to do a lot of research and scouring through Frommers.com. As one of the oldest guidebook publishers, I found their website had a lot of user content that was useful for self planning and execution.
Maturing as a traveler, I moved onto sites that specialized in my needs — VRBO for apartments, Kayak for bookings, Flyertalk for deals. Frommers, alone, couldn’t satiate my appetite as an engaged traveler. Needless to say, I always wandered back now and then to the forums to get the lowdown on a particular community niche. I still remember spending weeks discussing Egyptian cotton with a local in Cairo and how I couldn’t fathom why it was better in The States.
And that has always been one of the strengths of Frommers — a dedicated, honest user base in which you can embed yourself and learn about local communities.
This week, Frommers.com started pushing out some changes to their site, starting with their community hub. Part of their updates include the addition of user photos and blogs to help integrate users better into the network, and I’m told that the blog will soon be strengthened and expanded as well — you can already see some small changes in effect. Wandering over into the forums, you can see that the structure has been redesigned completely.
All in all, the changes should help foster a better community — and therefore offer a better research base for readers. Stop by and take a look.