Got an extra $208.40 laying around the place?  If you do, then maybe you could use a portable solar iPod charger.  I think one of these would be nice to have, and it might even be an investment if you use your iPod daily for the next 20 years….maybe.  Away from the price, I’m a fan of solar power, because when you’re traveling, sometimes it’s your only option.  Brunton sells these along with other lightweight portable solar products and accessories.

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 first heard this new site Farecast.com when they won a Webby Award (Personally I think some corporate politics where involved in that). Here’s what you need to know about Farecast. It’s an airline booking engine developed by Microsoft (that’s the first thing you notice…it also means it’s not eye candy either).

The good: Farecast is probably the first massive airline booking site where the links take you directly to the Airline’s own site (Delta, AA, Southwest etc.). Which is great because anytime you purchase through expedia, orbits, cheaptickets, etc. they will charge you a small additional fee.

Farecast also has a predictive pricing application (currently for about 30 major cities) that allows you to see if the prices are going up or down. For the few test runs I did, they all had the same “Tip: Buy” Prediction.

also like how they handled the “6 tickets left at this price.”

The bad: When I was typing in the cities, it jumped to the search results without first letting me put in my travel dates. Like it was so excited to show off the new search features it skipped important information. I did manage to get it to work eventually.

The confusing: There are plenty of advertisements from Travelocity, Cheapflights, Expedia and more booking engines on Farecast. So I don’t understand? Is Farecast trying to put their sponsors out of business? Because that’s what this booking engine will do. Somebody explain that to me.

After a quick google search and run through of the top search results, I found wi-fihotspotlist.com to be the best for finding wi-fi. They have a very large database and better overseas results than other sites I investigated. Still, there were a few they missed around where I live and it doesn’t say if they are free or not. But overall not a bad tool if you ever are on the road looking for a connection.

All serious backpackers have known about this site for a while, 2camels.com is the only place you need to go to find out about festivals and events. Find out what’s going on and when, you can search by Country, Type, or Month. They have been around for as long as I can remember and they are still making updates. A pleasant rarity for the travel industry.

I figured I better get this one in the database before someone questions me on why it’s not there. Skype is an online company allowing it’s users to talk for free to anyone else with a Skype account. It’s a free service, although you need to be registered with Skype and download their software. So theoretically, you could talk to someone across the globe for free. Either by wifi phone or by computer mics etc. This isn’t anything new for travellers, as most backpackers knew abou this a long time ago. In fact it’s one of the oldest online sites that I still know and use.

Woolite Travel Packs. A staple in my pack for many trips abroad. These little guys are good enough to wash a small load in the hostel sink. They are even designed to be low in suds, so that they ring clean easier. You can pick them up at amazon.com or for around $5.00.

For those who love to streamline the Internet. Okay, here’s the scoop. There are so many new travel sites out there now, it’s getting to be funny. This one comes from Hotwire.com co-founder Greg Brockway. TripIt.com is a service that allows you to get all your necessary (and sometimes unnecessary) travel information together all in one place. That includes hotel reservations, flight information, weather in that city, events in the city, maps, etc. Of course all those tools are already online or in your email box. So, what TripIt.com does is lets you send your email confirmations to one place, and they do the rest. Say you are flying to Denver and staying at a Drury Inn. You email your two booking confirmations to TripIt, and they use their “Itenerator” to extract all the necessary information. They put that information along with local weather and events all on one page. Not a bad idea I suppose.

Most people don’t realize hostelworld.com has an option for backpackers to add a travel jounral. While hostelworld.com is pretty much the site to book hostels with. I can’t say it’s the site to start a travel journal. Not as powerful as most, and no option for uploading videos. They do not assign an easy access URL, but instead have a member id that you pretty much have to create a link to gain access. It’s different than most as this is the only one that has an option to be the only one to see it. The also let you set it as private or by invite only. If you book a hostel through hostelworld.com it automatically updates the map which is a unique feature.

FuzzyTravel.com is good, solid travel journal site. The design is attractive, and gives you three options to choose from, and the site is one of the easiest for uploading and posting information. They offer unlimited photo and video updating, but don’t use Firefox as they use videoegg for uploading videos, which does not support Firefox. Nothing too complicated about the site is what your want in a travel journal. I like how they focus on just one thing….the travelogues. There is one section with a link to resources, but that is it. It is a free service with no option to go to a paid or premier account. That is good, it just means you are going to get Google Ads on your blog.