Travel Blogs

I read recently that one of the writers for Lonely Planet faked the book about Colombia. He said he didn't have the money to travel there, so he used his girlfriend who was from Colombia to write most of the content of the book.

Lately, I've been doing my travel research on blogs, and I've been finding that these are veritable goldmines of first-hand information. Many of these travel sites are focused on one thing: the bottom line. They are willing to send the cliché America tourist to the cliché tourist spots, where the prices are all jacked up, while the rest of world lies in relative obscurity, undiscovered by the typical traveler. Many personal blogs, however, are devoted to their authors' personal discoveries while traveling. I have been finding many of these personal travel blogs to be extremely interesting and helpful, as well.

The following are some travel blogs I enjoy reading:

http://www.gadling.com/
http://www.planeteye.com/
http://thetravelersnotebook.com/
http://realtravel.com/

This last one is really interesting in that it lists traveler's trips with journal entries and photography. One of the coolest ones features 80-some stops as the travelers hugged the entire coast of South America.

-Taylor