This Site Rocks

Here’s another outlet I’ve found for some of my articles: See The Globe.com. It’s an excellent Web site, and I’d have said so even before the webmaster agreed to let me post some content in the Travel Reviews section. You can book travel, although not directly—enter information in the search box, and the site asks you which big-name sites (Travelocity, Expedia, etc.) you want it to search for you. Then it goes to those sites.

What See The Globe does best is content. I can’t tell you how validating it is to see a travel site with so much content. (“Content” is, of course, dot-com talk for “stuff people wrote.”) There are articles, and restaurant reviews, and a blog. There are guidebook reviews, and places where site users can post their own reviews. (They can rate the articles, too. So far no one’s commented on mine—these would be my first reviews so the idea is scary!)

Oh, and this is very cool. I am surprised more sites haven’t copied this. It’s an interactive map called “Where in the world is…?” It’s a world map with an alphabetical list of countries next to it. Click on a country name, and the map zooms into that country. Ever wondered where exactly Andorra is? Now you can find out. Clicking on a country also brings up a lot of information like the population, and the capital city. There are links to whatever other information the site has about that place.

What I really love about the site is that it assumes that visitors come to it with a sense of curiosity. Most other travel sites, including one that employed me for many years, seemed to assume that users already knew where they wanted to go, and didn’t offer them much other information to browse and daydream about. Although to their credit, market research showed that their assumption was correct. People don’t go to Travelocity wondering where to go. They go there looking for the lowest fare for the trip to Las Vegas they’ve already planned. I understand that, but it always made me sad. Kudos to See The Globe for keeping the wanderlust dream alive.