| The Travel Connection! (TM) & TSM Publishing |
written by:
It was about four years ago when I got the idea of writing a travel book geared towards the single male -- all my single friends kept pestering me with questions about secret travel spots or if the stories they heard about exotic locations were actually true. This gave me the idea to write the book and I started with pencil & paper. A few months later I figured that at the rate I was going ( a few pages a week) the book would be old news before it hit the market. The next day, I bought my first computer -- a little Mac. I had thought a disk drive was a new golf stroke, that RAM was an animal and an operating system was one of those multi/scam pyramid schemes. I learned quickly from countless blunders and asking a lot of questions. Soon my computer friends were hanging up the phone when I called -- another stupid question!
My, how time has changed! Today, I'm on my fourth Mac, have 24 megs of RAM, 520 meg hard drive, triple speed CD-ROM, a 17-inch multi/sync monitor, and the hottest operating system (7.5). I've gone through two monitors, three printers and four modems and Yes, Virginia -- I'm hooked. Now my friends don't call me about travel spots (they've read my book) but how to fix their computers!
A few years ago, I tried my first trip on the digital super highway (America On Line) and instantaneously I knew where I'd be most of the time -- on line. I love traveling around the electronic world and even better is that this is the perfect fix for the travel junky. Now your finger tips can explore almost any world location, check the climate, make hotel and flight reservations, talk to fellow travelers about your next destination, learn about bargains before your travel agent does, and even communicate live with other famous authors and travel experts. I was awe struck!
Today things have changed again and the Internet is upon us. Remember the net is not an online service like AOL or CompuServe (these services are privately owned and can censor at their discretion) but the interconnection of thousands of computer networks in an invisible silent world -- Cyberspace.
The Internet is sorta like all the telephones in the world being connected on one line -- they are always waiting to receive or send out information, and only a ring is needed to wake them up. As in real life you might have to wait your turn to communicate and many times the other phone (computer) is too busy to answer. The multimedia portion of this chaos is the World Wide Web (called the Web or WWW). To complicate this matter you need special software to view the colors and sounds of this new medium -- so forth comes the web browser, commonly known as Mosaic or its equivalent -- I use NetScape.
Why bother with all this technology? -- simple, the Web is exciting? Not only can you see instant color pictures, see real movies and hear the sounds of world travel but you can actually interact with a travel location. How about checking out what's hanging in the Louvre today (or next week), need a subway map of Rome, learn about Hong Kong's hotel specials and see the room before you book it, get some free frequent flyer miles by answering a questionnaire on Cathay Pacific's home page ( http://cathay-usa.com), or even book a tour to the Amazon after seeing some a film clip on the exotic animals there. SouthWest Airlines home page (http://www.Iflyswa.com) even allows you to check flight schedules between any of its cities by simply clicking on the inbound and outbound cities of your choice -- soon you'll even be able to make reservations!
How does this all work? You move through this mountain of information by links. Any text that is underlined means there is a forward link to more (be it text, photos, sounds, movies or another persons e-mail address) and to move backwards you simply click the back arrow...true point and click operation. If you can point and click you can traverse the World Wide Web. The only problem is finding the right address for interesting sites. Today over 40,000, next year there will be over 110,000 (source, Yahooo) and all need the exact location (the URL or uniform resource locator).
Cyberspace travel is here and that is what we will be writing about -- the best spots to browse, the unknown home pages to explore, and the tips you need to make your travel adventure fun & easy (it's easy to get lost, like traversing Los Angeles without a freeway map). There are so many WWW sites now and most of them are linked to other people's work -- we search for the original places (where the creativity has taken place) -- they are usually the best spots to begin your travel adventures.
Let's start by some important net tips, take a quick look into the generic (private) on line travel services (not part of the real Internet, but soon they also will have web access with built-in browsers for surfing thus making them the easy way to explore...but also the most expensive -- Prodigy being the first ) and then plug into my one of favorite Web travel sites!
Beginning tips:
Private on/line services:
As mentioned, the big five (America On line, Delphi, CompuServe, Prodigy and the soon to be released Microsoft service that will be bundled with Windows 95) all have internet access and soon browsers for the web. They are not the real internet but certainly part of Cyberspace travel (i.e. AOL censors the net newsgroups and if you want to view alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.orientals or read alt.sex.stories you must use a different provider). My favorite for travel is AOL and CompuServe.
America On Line was my first experience with the so-called information highway and still is one of my favorite. The GUI (Graphic user interface) is like my Mac -- easy and fun. Once you enter "Travel" as a keyword search you are presented with six options ranging from Easy Sabre to the Travel Forum. A new option is ExpressNet were you can check your American Express statement, make direct reservations or search their travel resources -- the good stuff you'll need for an American Express Card!
Once in the Travel Forum you are presented with "What's New & Events" (good for the latest deals and late breaking travel news) and it is a click away to my favorite spot, the Travel Library. This is the spot were amateurs, professionals and who ever leave the latest news about destinations and unknown hot spots. If there is a problem, it is that the information isn't centralized and the Travel Board Categories only contain four broad divisions (World, Caribbean, Cruise, General) where you find more questions than answers. Looking for a specific spot can be frustrating and much of the material is PG rated. But for a beginning exploration of the electronic traveler, this is a must.
Aol's web browser (version 2.6 for the Mac) is slow and slower (also many things that work in Netscape won't work here, like some forms and text alignments). For serious web surfing you'll need a private provider -- more later.
CompuServe is designed for the business traveler and is much more exhaustive but a little tricky to navigate. It should be mentioned that the travel resources on CIS are a premium category (a slight extra charge, unlike AOL were everything is the same price) but I find the information indispensable. (This will change the first of 96, all for one price).
Another bonus (unlike AOL) is the world wide nodes of CIS -- you can connect from all over the world and many of the members are located in the places you want to visit -- I have received book orders direct from Germany, Philippines, Canada, and Hong Kong. Windows user get special Spry Mosaic software while Mac people run their standard MacTCP connection over Compuserve line to browse the internet (and the web). In fact you can log on to a CIS node and check your AOL e-mail (AOL has a special TCP connect feature, so you can log in right over "any" direct TCP internet connection).
Back to the basic CompuServe service. After you type "travel" in the "GO" menu choice, you are transported to the Travel Forum and the fun begins. There are two main categories -- the message center and the libraries. Each of these areas contains no less than 23 sub-divisions ranging from Asia, sports travel, travel business, travel technology, time-share resale and my favorite, " the amateur gif (color photos) collection."
CIS is not afraid to publish stories and remarks (or pictures) geared to the adult male as long as it is written in good taste and in a professional manner. Yes, the amount of information is overwhelming but there is a search function for every directory. If you are looking for unpublished information on Bangkok, just type in the word, select how far back to search (or a file name if you know it) and presto! ... out comes ten articles to choose from on your screen. CIS is a wonderful resource for the world traveler.
A question?
A common question is there a single print source to all that's available in Cyberspace -- the answer is YES. The "Electronic Traveler" by M.L. Endicott is a complete source, listing and explanation of all that is available for electronic travel. He calls it, "the directory of Tourism information source" and is a 150 page spiral bound book that costs about $49.95. Drop him a note at icott@igc.apc.org or call 912-265-6273.
Finally to the web and some net surfing!
Rec.travel Library. Address is--http://www.digimark.net/rec-travel/
This is a great introductory site for hot surfing the travel world and is located at the Rec.Travel Library at university of Manitoba, Canada. It is first of all a collection of travelogue's, guides, and FAQs written by volunteers on the Internet. It began as an archive site for the rec.travel newsgroup, and emphasizes personal advice, recommendations, and opinions, providing a different perspective from that given by many travel books. It is also the most comprehensive index to travel information maintained by other people and organizations on the net.
Out of curiosity, I click on "who to call" and look at the airlines. There is Cathay Pacific giving away free airline miles to anyone who fills out a form ... I do it because I can use these miles on American airlines! I also take a peek at Northwest and Aeroflot for any freebies!
Note:
Just added -- A key word search index for the entire Rec.Travel newsgroups/WOW!
It's been an hour now ( or two, time flies as you are web surfing) and my eyes are getting a little blurry -- but one more click to look for next month's column. I choose the "other travel related links" and am presented with another seven choices on the Internet's top collection of on-line travel information home page. An interesting selection would be the Travel-L mailing list where you can all sorts of travel information (I already ha ve the bargain section being sent) delivered automatically to your e-mail box.
Being exhausted, I pick out the Virtual Tourist and mark it to my hot list for later viewing. I'm so cross-eyed now I can't even find the button that turns this space machine off -- till next issue!
P.S. As I check my house my girlfriend is gone, did she leave a few minutes ago or was it hours ago? WARNING -- net surfing is the best way to lose a girlfriend or start a divorce, keep a countdown clock on your computer desk and set it to ring for one-hour. Time flies!
Next issue: The Virtual Tourist which is a web project to built a tree of WWW travel service and related information. It lists all the travel Web servers in the world!
... This travel column is sponsored by the Travel Connection! (TM) and TSM Travel ... your one stop World Wide Web travel center for unique travel products and unpublished travel resources. Our specialty is single travel - - we think you'll be impressed!
© TSM Publishing: All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing by the publisher. Requests for such permission should be addressed to: TSM Publishing 3600 S. Harbor Blvd., Suite #122 Channel Island, CA 93035 e-mail AOL...TSMTRAVEL (TSMTRAVEL@AOL.com) CompuServe...71035.2272 fax or voice 805-984-0410