Another great travel resource in Moebii.com

by Brenda Yun on

Whether sifting through endless piles of saved travel section clippings, or spending hours online navigating destination articles, the amount of time and energy it takes to organize the perfect trip can be overwhelming. That’s what Chris Danielian and Robert Celic, the founders of Moebii discovered in their attempt to find destination information.

In late 2008, Danielian had returned from a vacation in Morocco and Celic was researching a trip to South America. Both had similar gripes about the state of travel information on the web. They realized that while there is a lot of great online travel content, it was nearly impossible to keep track of all the stories and websites. The extent of fragmentation among travel stories was shocking and traditional search engines did not address the problem. After countless hours of brainstorming, testing and refining, Danielian and Celic created Moebii.

Moebii is a website that compiles content from hundreds of publications and online sources. Users tag the stories based on keywords, thereby narrowing the pool of travel stories into a list that is relevant and up-to-date. A foodie traveling to Spain, for instance, can search for the most authentic tapas restaurants in Barcelona, while a thrill-seeker traveling to Iceland can read up on the best cave-exploring adventures outside Reykjavik. Relevant travel stories arrive on a fully-linked page and are at your fingertips withinseconds.

In addition to travel story searches, Moebii can track stories by destination or publication, set up alerts to receive new stories as they’re posted to the site, and send stories to friends. Its user-interactive component also lets travelers create itineraries for future trips, publish their own travel stories, vote stories up or down, (allowing the highest quality content to rise to the top), and have real-time conversations with other travelers about destinations in order to compare notes and insider tips.

Trying out the site myself for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised with the results. While the site is in its primary stages, the potential for travelers to save time and energy searching for just the right story is well worth bookmarking Moebii for frequent use. Give Moebii a test drive, and if you find any issues with it, feel free to contact them directly with feedback or let Gadling know. I’ll be personally visiting with Celic to discuss travel and the site, so I’m happy to pass on any messages.

Tell your best travel story and win a Hostelworld.com voucher

by Katie Hammel on

Think you have the ultimate travel story? Hostelworld.com is celebrating its 10th anniversary and wants to hear about your best travel adventure of the last decade. Tell your inspiring, amazing, crazy or hilarious tale and you may win a €500 travel voucher.

Stories must be between 500 and 1500 words and be accompanied by a photo. The writer of the story selected as the best will receive the grand prize voucher, while nine other winners will be awarded a €50 Amazon card. Contest winners will be announced on October 7th.

Entries must be submitted by September 30th, so get writing!

Cell phone down toilet. It happens. A lot

by Jamie Rhein on

This was a stay-in-the-car-until-the-last-line-was-finished type story. I was listening to “All Things Considered” on the radio on my way home. The theme was cell phones dropping down toilets and what people will do to get them back.

Several phones that made the big splash were dropped in a toilet while the owner was in transit. Airplane toilets, train toilets, bathroom stalls, port-a-pots. . .name a toilet-type and it’s a guarantee that a cell phone has landed in one.

One story involved a train in France. The owner went after the phone when it dropped down the train’s toilet. Instead of retrieving the phone, his arm became stuck. To get him out, the whole toilet had to be removed from the train at a later stop.

Another guy dropped his phone in an airplane toilet and was able to get it back. Unfortunately, even though he cleaned it, dried it off and then washed, and washed and washed his hands, there was a slight problem when he showed up at his business meeting. You see, after the plane landed, he made a phone call and unwittingly deposited a blue streak across his face. He found out about the streak when someone at the meeting asked about it.

One story that brings to mind Mike’s post about the Babykeeper Basic that hangs a baby from a wall of a door stall is the one about the woman who lost her phone while she was changing her baby in a port-o-pot. She could see the phone, but there wasn’t any way she was going to go after it.

Here’s the link to text of the NPR story. Along with being entertaining, it’s informative. Cell phones down toilets are considered to be acts of negligence by insurance companies. I call it bum luck. I’ve never had a cell phone land in a toilet, but I still have a vivid image of my car keys catapulting out of my hands on their own volition.

Gadling Take FIVE: Week of October 12- October 17

by Jamie Rhein on

This week Gadling picked up another blogger Mike Barish who considers Lunchables unusual food.

When I browsed the week’s offerings, money popped out as one of the prevailing themes. With the stock markets doing a roller coaster act, forgetting that the ups give riders a reprieve, it’s no wonder.

  • Scott’s post on American Airlines possible plan to do àla carte pricing offers great suggestions for getting the most umph out of the dollars you fork over for flying.
  • In another managing your travel money venture, Grant outlined how a person can take a short cut to Gold status for Hilton Hotels. Gold status offers more perks and deals.
  • When it comes to traveling in Europe, Jeffery delved into how the current financial crisis might be making European jaunts a cheaper venture for Americans. Considering that I’m heading to Denmark in December, that’s happy news.
  • Aaron wondered just how rich he is and found out that he’s the 730 millionth richest person in the world. His post points out how you can find out your own financial standing in the world. Perhaps the news will give you the feeling that you can afford at least a mini vacation to the next town over.
  • And to round it off, although there is more, Jerry is on the quest for cheap travel in Iceland. He’s already scored a $400 RT ticket. Not bad, Jerry.

Also, for anyone who is looking for some Gadling glory, check out our series Catching the Travel Bug. We’re looking for your stories and will publish our reader submitted favorites.

Seven Kinds of Travel Stories You Should Be Able to Tell Before You Die

by Adrienne Wilson on

Here’s a cutesy travel piece out of the San Francisco Chronicle. I missed the first installation, but the author John Flinn sets the premise that it’s not enough to just go, do, and see all the wonderful places found in the New York Times best seller 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. In order for your travels to have some type of street cred, you’ve got to come back with some cold hard traveler’s tales. I’m almost certain Mister Flinn isn’t suggesting you go out searching for tales to tell or to create them. They should just sort of happen. In last’s week edition he talked about the first two which were Third World bus stories and bathroom stories. This week he adds scary air and animal stories while sharing two of his own. I have to admit the scary air tale he told tops many that I’ve heard and I don’t know where he got the balls to get in a plane with a pilot like that.

What do I know? If you’ve got to be some place bad enough I suppose you’d take chances with any pilot. Go take a peek and see if you’ve got some real travel stories of your own to tell. If not, maybe it’s time to take a ride on the wild side and look out for next week when he goes over a hotel story, a food story and a guide story.

P.S. The sheep in the bag in the back of the jeep is from an animal tale of my own, but really, it wasn’t that eventful.