International Mountain Bicycling Association launches “Destinations” program

by Kraig Becker on

The International Mountain Bicycling Association has announced the launch of Destinations, a new program designed to help mountain biking enthusiasts discover places to ride across the globe. The new initiative helps travelers connect with tour operators, bike rental companies, lodges, and more.

The IMBA hopes that Destinations will become a popular resource for mountain bikers and has built a host of tools to help them research their next escape. Not only do they provide a comprehensive list of bike parks and resorts, they also offer information on local bike shops just in case the need for repairs or new gear should arise. IMBA members also gain access to discounted rates on rental cars, airline tickets, and bike shipments.

Riders looking to book a mountain biking tour are in luck as well. The IMBA website lists more than 70 tours in the U.S., Canada, Chile, New Zealand, and more. Examples include multiday rides along the Tsali Trail in North Carolina and the Alps and Adriatic of Slovenia, amongst many more. All tours booked from the site generate funds for the association, which go directly towards their work in building and maintaining mountain bike trails.

Experienced mountain bikers will also want to checkout the IMBA’s list of Epics, truly great trails, usually found on public lands. These are truly some of the best rides found anywhere, and usually in some amazingly scenic places.

For cyclists, both road and mountain, the IMBA website is a great resource for planning a trip for finding an amazing tour. Be sure to hit it up before setting off on your next cycling adventure.

[Photo credit: IMBA]

Denali sled dog pups on national park’s webcam

by Kraig Becker on

Denali National Park, located in the stunning wilds of Alaska, is amongst the more remote and beautiful destinations in the entire U.S. park system. It is well known for its array of wildlife, a single 91-mile scenic road, and as the location of Mt. McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America. What many visitors don’t know however, is that the park has its own dog kennel, which is home to a new litter of sled dog pups on an annual basis.

In late July, pups Tatum, Koven, and Carpe, named for peaks inside the park, joined the Denali pack after their mother, Pingo, gave birth to them. Since then, they have been growing very quickly, as pups are known to do, and after they turned three weeks old, the National Park Service installed a webcam into their kennel giving us the opportunity to peek in on them from time to time. To catch a glimpse of these energetic, feisty, and downright adorable pups, click here.

The Denali sled dogs are no doubt beautiful animals, and thousands of visitors stop by to see them each and every summer. But they also play a vitally important role in park operations during the very long Alaskan winters as well. Sled dog teams provide access to sections of the park that simply can’t be reached by any other means and without them rangers simply wouldn’t be able to patrol the park as effectively. It is for that reason that the park breeds a single litter each year, choosing two strong parents to bring new members into the pack.

Tatum, Koven, and Carpe won’t be pulling a sled anytime soon, but they will be on webcam until they are ready to join the adults and begin their training. Until then though, we’ll get to watch them grow up before our eyes.

[Photo courtesy NPS/Larissa Yocum]

Trippy launches, aims to transform travel planning into a social experience

by McLean Robbins on

When it comes to travel planning, your friends are the best source of information. Such is the motto of just-launched social networking site for travel planning, Trippy.

Using a simple integration with Facebook, members can create trip planning templates with the click of a button. Fill in just a few details and the site will auto-populate suggestions for hotels, activities, and restaurants, plus provide a comprehensive list of your Facebook friends who are from, live or lived in, have visited or went to school in the destination. Then, using a personalized trip link, you can privately message friends to ask for suggestions about your upcoming trip.

As you piece together parts of your vacation, Trippy helps organize the information into an itinerary that can be sent via iPhone app or email. While you’re traveling, you can easily snap a photo with your smartphone and send pictures to the friends who helped you plan. The itinerary is also easily saved, so other friends who use the site can copy your travel plans at a later date.If you don’t have friends in a certain spot, the site’s handy auto-complete feature pulls in data from Factual.com, Google Places and the site’s own internal database. More features will be added soon.

Entrepreneur J.R. Johnson is behind the site. Once the brains behind VirtualTourist and OneTime.com (sold in 2008 to Expedia), Johnson aims to develop a new kind of traveling model. “There’s too much user generated content out there now,” Johnson said. Trippy is based on the principle that the best information is “friendsourced” rather than “crowdsourced.”

It’s becoming more and more difficult to rely on sites that don’t vet reviews, Johnson said. One never knows if the reviews are posted by paid travelers or the properties themselves. With Trippy, travelers will know that the information they’re getting is from a trustworthy source – their friends.

Trips can be planned for real, upcoming stays, or for a “dream” vacation. This process, Johnson says, helps travelers make the leap from dream to reality – the site soon showcase easy booking integration with sites like Expedia, where users can check rates and book right within Trippy.

We played with the site for an upcoming visit to Chicago and found it easy to use. We were able to reach out to several friends we didn’t even know were in or from the area and added a few great suggestions to our upcoming itinerary. A few kinks are still being worked out, as in any beta version, and integration with sites like Twitter and Foursquare is soon coming. We look forward to testing the iPhone integration in a few weeks, but the free app is available for download now.

Gadling readers get early access to the beta site with code GADLING.

Jetsetter launches vacation home rental service

by McLean Robbins on

Flash sale giant Gilt Groupe’s travel arm Jetsetter today steps up to compete in the home rental market with the launch of Jetsetter Homes, a collection of more than 200 carefully-chosen homes around the world.

The vacation rental portion of the site will allow customers to to search pricing and availability in real time, as well as instant booking through Jetsetter.

“As anyone who has researched and booked a vacation home knows, the process is archaic and time consuming compared to hotels, flights and rental cars,” said Drew Patterson, Jetsetter Founder and CEO. “Jetsetter makes the research process fun by providing beautiful photography, including our revolutionary 360-degree tours which transport the user into impressive homes and fabulous infinity pools around the world. And, of course, we streamlined the booking process with instant booking capabilities.”

The homes will be available for rent on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis 365 days per year in the Jetsetter 24/7 collection. Monthly expansions are planned, and each week five to 10 homes will be discounted by 20 to 50% in the flash sale section of the site.

We’re particularly intrigued by this launch because it follows the same model as Jetsetter’s current hotel listings, ensuring that each home has been personally visited and verified by a Jetsetter correspondent, most of whom serve as travel writers and experts on a full-time basis. Reviews note the “good” and “bad” aspects of each property.

Many of the vacation rentals will feature 360-degree photos providing a virtual window into each home. Jetsetter custom-designed a camera to shoot dozens of high resolution photos which are stitched together to form 360-degree images. Unlike virtual tours, Jetsetter 360-degree photos pan smoothly about the room on multiple planes, without choppy pauses and distortion to give users a more realistic sense of what the home offers.

It will also be easy to spot amenities and features most important to renters, like the number of bedrooms and baths, square footage, and maximum occupancy. Rates are conveniently broken down by day, week and month and also per person, for members wanting to share the cost of a home with friends.

In celebration of the launch, more than 50 percent of homes from the Jetsetter 24/7 collection will be 10 percent off until October 12. Need an invite code? We have one here.

New web tool helps you “find the best” adventures

by Kraig Becker on

A new web tool from Find The Best, a website designed to help consumers quickly compare a wide variety of products and services, may help you decide on your next exotic destination. The site, which joins a growing number of adventure travel aggregators on the Internet, looks to make the process of finding tour operators fast and simple.

The Adventure Travel & Tours search tool lists more than 1000 tours worldwide and can be sorted by region, country, cost, and duration. The rather basic interface allows you to apply a variety of filters quickly and easily, so you can find the perfect adventure in no time at all. For instance, you can look for trips in Africa, then narrow the search further by selecting specific countries, trip lengths, and a price range. You can even search by desired activities, level of difficulty, and the months that the trip is available. That last option is especially nice for those who can only get away during certain times of the year.

Once you have your search results, you’ll be able to click on links to get further information about the trip, the company that provides it, and how it can be booked. There is even a place for travelers to post reviews of the various tours, although I didn’t come across any in my searches. This is most likely a result of Find The Best still being in Beta and not having a large community yet.

If you’re looking for new ideas for your next trip, you may want to give this tool a shot – or at the very least, bookmark it for future use. It’ll definitely come in handy when seeking out new destinations for upcoming adventures.