I just saw this tonight on ABC News.  Yotel.com is the booking site for what I will call the smallest hotels ever.  But what they lack in size they make up for in location, as they are located in and around the airports of London Heathrow and London Gatwick.  They are quickly expanding and have plans to go into Amsterdam’s Schiphol next. They start at £25 for 4 hours, which is the minimum booking time.  I must say, I like the idea.  It’s clever and I see a lot of people taking advantage of these.  Whether or not they are profitable is another thing.  I would think airport space has a premium price.  Although for backpackers like me…it’s still a luxury…I’ve gotten use to using my pack as a pillow and finding an uncrowded span of three airport chairs.

I apologize for the lack of new and quality posts lately.  My time has been going to another site currently getting ready to launch.  But, that doesn’t mean I don’t have plans for izunotravel.com.  I hope everyone is liking the new layout.  It’s a step down, design-wise, from version 2.0, but now you can leave comments and actually get more involved, plus the RSS feed is finally working if you subscribe to that.  Remember our mass post day is coming up August 8th, 2008.  Also, be on the lookout for new buttons, a calendar, and a lot of new travel destinations.  Plenty to come, so if you haven’t already, set your bookmarks.

If you’ve ever searched the web for budget backpacking guides and articles, I’m sure you’ve come across travoholic.com.  Kirsty, owns and operates a few travel sites and this is a good one.  It’s good solid budget backpacking content with articles about working abroad and packing and just general budget travel. She covers working/travel in Europe, Canada, New Zealand and Austrailia on this particular site.  What I like best…ORIGINAL CONTENT!  You don’t see that much sadly, but this is an exception.  So Cheers!

A new travel social network is getting ready to launch.  TripWolf.com.  From their site:

-Our new facebook integration allows you to log in and import your profile and social
graph (eliminating social profile fatigue)
-Our content partner who provides professional content
-Professional and user-generated content
-Portable data – downloadable PDF content
-wiki-approach – users can add/update information
-‘trip gurus’ offering knowledgeable local advice
-Site is available English and German language
-Personalized recommendations among users
-Covers the whole world with over 200,000 points of interest

I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out.  I think the ‘portable data’ in PDF form is a great marketing phrase, and seeing original content is always a plus.  I’ll keep you updated on this project as they are still in beta.  You can visit their blog and stay up to date as well.

I’ve been wanting to do this post for a long time.  Lately, many states (and countries for that matter), are creating logos for their tourism pages.  Some states are really well done, I particularly like this Wyoming logo and tagline “Forever West”.  Backpackers and travelers are finding it more difficult to travel abroad with the weak U.S. dollar…I know…old news.  So maybe the timing of these modern logos are right on.  Look out for more to come.

Just found this and thought I would share it with you. Desktopography, “Nature’s Design on Your Desktop,” has some very nice images that about anyone will enjoy. Their artists basically do this for free and the images are all free. Currently their 4th Year Exhibition is now available to download…and they have plenty of sizes to fit your monitor. Maybe it’s time to finally replace Jessica Alba in chaps from Sin City.

Often found in Santorini, Greece.  Tomatokeftedes are tomato balls with onion, zucchini, pepper, paprika, eggs, covered in flour and fried.  It’s basically like a tomato meatball with a light coat of breading.  Fairly easy to make, as the ingredients aren’t all that hard to find.  You can get the recipe from a favorite site of mine, Greek-recipes.com.

Moon Travel Guides aren’t all that well known.  They seem to take a backseat to more popular guidebooks.  However their publisher is the largest travel publisher around with big names like Rick Steve’s.  Their Guides are mainly for the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, although they have a few for Europe and Asia.  I’ve personally had good luck with Moon Guide Books, as they are written with budget travelers and backpackers in mind.  Most of the time they try to employ an author who is a local as well as someone who views it as a destination.  It works.

Not my favorite Havaianas sandal, but not bad, I see the application, but the heel hook in the back just looks a bit off to me. A warning tho if you are on a slow connection, as their website takes f..o..r..e..v..e..r to load. Also, if you’re interested, I just learned today that Havaianas Austrailia call them “thongs.”

Well, we finally just decided to switch from our second version to WordPress. I was putting it off for too long, worried about losing the old look and design. So, for the next week, it’s just going to be chaos management while Josh and I transfer all the posts to the new wordpress theme. The design, features, and a lot else will change in the very near future, so don’t be upset…I hate the new look as much as you do right now. But it will improve.