Chronicles of On The Road Travel

The Big Crash

Yes, that's right... my worst nightmare realized. Those of you who have checked the site over the past day will have noticed that it is no longer there. Where has it gone? It's as if the technology gods overheard that I was ready to launch. Just like that... gone.

As I had pictured it in my nightmares, the programmers are blaming the hosting company and the hosting company is blaming the programmers. I suspect they are both out to get me but as you know I'm not technologically sound enough to prove it.

It all started a few weeks ago when, you might remember, I had the brilliant idea of upgrading the site to a new server before launching so that we could get all of the scripts functioning. Someone says 'the virtual server is the answer to your problems', I say 'great, where to I sign up?'. From there it has slowly gone downhill. The programmers couldn't figure out what to do when they got there and so the whole upgrade cost about 4 times what it should have. But... the programmers are not entirely to blame. I am beginning to suspect that it is a job requirement at the hosting company to have a lobotomy, because it is pretty rare that after waiting 1/2 hour on hold for tech support, the person answering knows what they are talking about.

After the crash I went through about 6 different tech support people (which was an entire afternoon and probably recycled through their support staff) only to find that the 'manager of the managers' only works from 6am - 2pm. Sweet life. Although much more accommodating, the 'manager of managers' was unable to tell me exactly what had happened, but he was pretty sure that everything had been lost. Conveniently, the person who supposedly knows how the virtual servers work get on at 2pm. Super! At 2:05pm it was officially confirmed... lost. No, it was definitely not a server issue, they assured me. Even though half the people at the company don't realize that they offer virtual server packages.

So, here I am, picking up the pieces. Waiting for India to come online so that we I can cozy up to my keyboard for the night. If anyone has any hosting companies that they recommend - I welcome the suggestions. In the meantime, stay tuned... we'll be back.

Looong Weekend

This marks the end of something we normally cherish in the Bay Area -- an American holiday that means absolutely nothing to us, so an opportunity to take advantage of the city while everyone else has bailed out. Despite the sunshine we were both hampered down with work and other realities, so we spent most of it from the wrong side of the window pane. We did manage to make a few fun discoveries. Saturday we went over to Marin to hike the Matt Davis trail from Stinson beach, which has now become a bit of a ritual. After the hike we decided to take a cruise to Bolinas -- having heard lots of great things, we had never actually been. We stopped in to this great little town for some of the best turkey chili I've ever had (although I was starving by then, so my judgment may have been impaired). After lunch we stopped in to the local bakery for some $20 fudge from a woman who enlightened us with her story about how she had learned to can jams while in rehab for her addiction to cocaine (which she made herself from the poppies in her backyard). It was good fudge -- we kept waiting for the side effects to kick in.

On our way home we had a strange experience with a guy who jumped out of the bushes and waved us down. Before either of us knew it he was letting himself into our backseat and asking for a ride up the panoramic highway. My first reaction was 'wow... this could very well be the end of the road..' as it turns out he was training for the Dipsey Run and had left his car over in Mill Valley. The buses weren't running because of the holiday so he had been stranded. Have to admire a guy who is 49 and has run the Dipsey Trail every year for 19 years...

Yesterday was another beautiful day. We went down to the Mission for the 'Carnaval Parade'. It was scheduled to start at 9:30 am,so I figured on Latino time, we'd be safe if we went down around 10:30 - 11:00. Still no parade so we grabbed brunch at our favorite Mission omellete stop, The Pork Store Cafe. We managed to score a table on the patio. While we were patting ourselves on the back we had a visit from an interesting guy who was wearing a wreath-like thing around his neck and some other colourful garments. He was looking to borrow our hot sauce which he proceeded to dump into his cup of soup along with a generous helping of ketchup. An interesting conversation at the table next to ours introduced us to the concept of 'Gay Church' which apparently refers to the gym on Sunday mornings. After a yummy breakfast we went back to Mission street and caught the parade... right on time. From there we proceeded down to Hayes Valley for the Bullet Street Festival which had a bunch of local designers (jewelry and clothes) selling their stuff. We swung by Dolores Park on the way home. It was filled with sunbathers and other interesting characters taking advantage of the sunshine.

Allergy season is back in full force right now and I just discovered that Benadryl is actually not 'non-drowsy', so its side-effects have made up for the unaccounted portions of the weekend, and hopefully will put me into a deep sleep again tonight.

Happy 4-day work week!

A Plug for On The Road Travel

I was cleaning out my inbox recently and came across this blurb from a newsletter that I get. Its called the Travel Insider and is written by David Rowell - I think on a weekly basis.

I've occasionally visited websites like TripAdvisor.com when researching hotels to stay at.  These websites are full of ratings from previous guests, and give you a chance to see how other people describe and rate the hotel.  In theory, this is an excellent way of getting real opinions from real people.
But.  The reality is often different.  Firstly, we all have different standards, and there is no consistent grading system applied by the amateur reviewers.
Secondly, hotels change over time.  The hotel with worn out dirty carpets last year  might have brand new carpeting this year. The hotel with noisy renovations or roadworks outside today may be the hotel with beautifully landscaped gardens tomorrow.  Reviews can quickly become obsolete.
Thirdly, 'average' people seldom rate hotels they stay at and have average ordinary experiences at (how many reviews have you contributed of ordinary acceptable hotels you've stayed at?).  Instead, you get people motivated by a desire to complain about a hotel they stayed at, and a few people motivated by a desire to praise, which is one explanation for the extraordinary swings from highest praise to harshest criticism in reviews.
These various factors massively reduce the value of such user rating systems.  This is unfortunate because, in theory, they represent what the internet is all about and - again in theory - could be massively helpful.
And now, Chris Elliott writes in the NY Times and on his website about a fourth factor that takes away from the value of such reviews, and offers a different explanation for the widely varying reviews on each property.  Apparently some hotels are bribing shills to write falsely glowing reports.

I couldn't agree more with these comments he posted back in February. The problems he sights with Tripadvisor are becoming more and more of an issue and they are the main reason that we have developed OTR the way we have. It's a great, cheap, model to rely on users to generate your content, but this content can only go so far. How do you know that the reviewer travels the way you do? What if they have never traveled outside of their home country before and really have no basis by which to compare their opinion. What if they are used to the Four Seasons and have decided to deviate for a weekend, only to find that there really is a reason these hotels charge what they do, even though the place they are 'testing' is quite a find given its surrounding. Worst of all, what if the person doing the review has set up a profile specifically so that they can tout their own hotel or service and mis-lead oblivious readers?

It may not be as straightforward a model, but the reason we have built OTR the way we have is ultimately to enable people to travel independently without having to spend an enormous amount of time culling through information to find out what's valuable and what is not. We do the research so you don't have to. We personally investigate each of our recommendations and classify them based on the type of traveler they are suited to. Our local editors make sure that our information is up to date and, more importantly, that it is relevant to you.

In a recent article in the New York Times, Joe Sharkey quoted Igougo's Marketing Chief with the following 'Knowing someone's general taste and outlook  gives you a clue about their take on the world and how to evaluate the review'. Igougo has hired editors who work with writers to review it's members' travel journals and make their articles more appealing. As he puts it 'the goal is to present "passionate, inspirational, biased, great content, and bring travel to life...rather than hundreds of one-line anonymous reviews, I'd rather have three or four well-considered, well-written reviews and let you know who is behind them". Again, I completely agree, however the majority of Igougo's travel journals provide little more than interesting travel stories. It's tough to plan a trip based on someone's travel story that doesn't mention routes, tips, hotels or restaurant names. But they are definitely fun reads when you are procrastinating at work!

Central American Tourism

I came across this article recently...

Multicountry trips create Central American tourism surge

By Kathia Martinez, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Inside Bay Area

PANAMA CITY, Panama

TEN or 20 years ago, mentions of countries such as Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala conjured up visions of soldiers and civil war.

But today Central America has become a tourism hot spot. The isthmus between Mexico and Colombia is better known for its culture and wildlife than its war-torn past. And tourism revenue has surpassed that of most local industries.

Now regional officials are trying to encourage visitors to experience the region the way Americans have long traveled in Europe — by taking in several countries in one trip.

Some 20 companies in Europe, mostly Italy, Spain and Britain, already promote tours of Central America that include visits to multiple countries in the region. And Air Costa Rica and Air Panama are trying to capitalize on the trend by opening two new routes between the Costa Rican capital of San Jose and two popular destinations in Panama.

Promoting regional tourism is seen as a way of improving other aspects of life in Central America, from the economy to law enforcement to health and education.

"Tourism is the passport to peace," said Sara Sanchez, Panama's tourism minister.

The number of visitors coming to Central America has spiked notably in the past two years. In 2004, some 5.7 million people visited the region and spent more than $4 billion, up 14 percent from 2003.

Preliminary data indicates that some 6.5 million tourists — mostly from the United States, Mexico and Canada — visited Central America last year.

Nicaraguan Tourism Minister Maria Rivas said the Sept. 11 attacks contributed to the growth.

"They are coming to destinations that are closer and safer," she said.

Marcos Gandasegui, whose Ancon Expedition travel agency specializes in nature tours, described the spike after Sept. 11 as an "explosion." He said the appearance of SARS in Asia also encouraged many to turn to Central America for their vacation plans.

Regional officials say they have been working for years to build up the so-called "industry without smokestacks" by encouraging investment, culture and the development of a regional market.

"It's not something that grew up unplanned," said Coralia Dreyfus, a tourism official with the Central American Integration System. "It has been something that the seven countries of the region have been working on."

Still, Gandasegui said the growing industry has forced countries to focus on tourism and related projects, like strengthening infrastructure, health and education in their countries.

One thing the region doesn't need to develop is its natural resources: pristine beaches, coral reefs, some 900,000 species of plants and animals, and rich and varied cultures fed by the countries' native Indian heritage, European colonialism and coastal settlements.

For El Salvador and Guatemala, two countries that survived years of civil conflict, tourism has become the countries' second-largest source of income, after money sent home by migrants living in the United States.

Last year, 13 years after peace accords ended that country's civil war, 1.1 million people visited El Salvador and spent $644 million. In Guatemala, where the civil war ended in 1996, 1.3 million tourists visited, spending $868 million.

Panama has also worked to build up its tourism industry, converting many of the former U.S. installations turned over with the canal hand-over in 1999 into restaurants, resorts and even an upscale cruise ship-docking station. The country has been so successful that tourism revenues have risen to $860 million, surpassed only by revenues from the Panama Canal.

Nicaragua and Honduras have the smallest number of tourists, with 700,000 and 800,000 annual visitors respectively. But both countries rely heavily on tourism dollars, with Nicaragua seeing $190 million from visitors and Honduras with $500 million annually. Nicaragua has also just lately begun promoting its tourism industry, and has received lavish coverage in many top travel publications aimed at affluent Americans.

Costa Rica is the region's granddaddy in the industry, especially eco-tourism. Last year, 1.6 million people spent $1.5 billion hiking its cloud forests, touring its volcanos, sunning on its beaches and observing its famous wildlife.

The Fall of Fujimori

I've had Peru on my mind lately.. mostly because I'm supposed to be there right now (had to delay the trip as we work on this 'upgraded server' issue). I was excited to see that this year's San Francisco International Arts Festival is focused on Latin America. We were all set to head out and see the Capoeira demonstration on Saturday when I saw that this documentary was playing at the Castro Theatre.

Granted, I knew I'd be turning the night into a bit of a downer when I suggested seeing this film, about Peru's former authoritarian president who is currently being held in Chile after making Interpol's Most Wanted List for kidnapping and murder charges, over what would likely be a vibrant and  entertaining capoeira performance.  But, I've seen a capoeira show before and its always much more entertaining when you see ad-hoc sessions then staged performances.

The documentary was a little slow, but interesting nonetheless for its perspective. It started out showing an almost sympathetic side. How could a guy who had restored stability in the region and tamed the forces of The Shining Path really be so bad? The story continues to depict his wife as a traitor who attempted to run against him in his second presidential election while still sharing the dinner table with him. He then stripped her of her 'first lady' title and put his 22 year old daughter in her place.

The bigger story though is what led him to flee in cowardly exile to Japan where he was granted citizenship and protected from deportation. Several corruption scandals revealed that he had indeed been aware of, and possibly instigated the mass killings, kidnappings and corruption that had been taking place under the command of Captain Vladimiro Montesinos. The movie even showed live footage of home movies taken by Fujimori's son, who was testing out his new video camera while Montesinos and Fujimori were in deep discussion about a scandal that had taken place.

Shockingly, despite admitting guilt by fleeing the country, his approval ratings were still in double digits. Fujimori then decided he would make a comeback by announcing his decision to run in the recently held elections. This is what took him to Chile which led to his recent capture and required withdrawal from the elections.

The Peruvian elections are now in a runoff between Alan Garcia and Ollanta Humala, who made headlines today for his alleged involvement with Montesinos' disappearance after Fujimori's resignation. Meanwhile, Fujimori was released on bail in Chile and has made no indications as to his next steps amidst Peru's pending extradition request. The runoff election will be held June 4th.

On an entirely unrelated note, there was a great article (with nice photos) in the NYT Travel section today on The Apuan Alps, which is touted as the Cinque Terre for locals. All the beauty without the crowds... it definitely made me want to go back.

Learning from My Mistakes

I knew going into this that the technology side of running a website would logically be the biggest issue I'd run into. I mean, I've been traveling most of my life, so that part is just second-nature. Navigating my way through Brazil using sign language... no problem. Pretending I'm engrossed in my book at an Argentinian restaurant because i'm a woman traveling alone.. i'm used to it. But I have never associated the word Apache with a computer, and to me a Unix environment sounds like a happy place where people get high and float around all day picking flowers and eating oatmeal-raisin cookies. This week I have run into one of the biggest headaches yet (or maybe my ability to handle it is wearing thin).

The site we designed has all kinds of fun features, some of which were not working on the cheap, shared server that I have been using to date. As you know from previous posts, the folks at my hosting company are relatively useless... ranking a close second behind my outsourced programmers. Neither party was able to tell me how to get the remaining features working. This is my baby.. of course i'm going to go to every length possible to make it perfect! I finally found out from someone that because I was on a shared server, I was unable to execute some of the scripts that had been written for the website. Of course that 'someone' worked for the hosting company and so obviously the answer to my problems was to upgrade to a virtual server. It sounded pretty cool and heh, it costs more, so it MUST be better. Since no one else had come up with a solution I figured, OK.. virtual server it is.

Several weeks later, a few days of downtime and many, many late nights - oh yeah, and $600+ to have the programmers transfer the site - I feel I have taken 1 step forward and 10 steps back. Turns out the virtual server doesn't come equipped with any of the easy to use goodies that came with the shared server. Pay more... get less. It also seems that the programmers didn't really know how to make anything work on the new server, hence the delay and cost.

The best part is, as soon as I switched to the new server, the hosting company tore down the old one (its really the only time I've seen them act quickly on anything). In retrospect I should have been suspicious when a week after ordering the upgrade I called the hosting company and one of the support staff told me the delay was because they were probably out at Best Buy getting the hardware to build out space for my new server. So much for 'virtual'.

So, you'll be happy to know that the site now accommodates the newsletter function and the emails that are set on a timer. Unfortunately, I no longer have access to our email accounts, to the web stats package, or to the FTP. Oh yeah, and it seems that anybody who tries to sign up for the site that is not on my IP address gets a fatal error. This one I found out by chance when a friend sent me an email asking if she'd been blocked from signing up because she waited so long. I double-checked from my end and had no problems. I called another delinquent friend in London who had not yet signed up either. I forced him to log on and sign up and sure enough.. fatal error.

So the fun continues and so do the delays. From one day to the next I am not sure what is progress and what is merely funny. But since the programmers are gone until Monday, I will just have to wait to find out. The moral of the story: Your children don't have to be perfect. Let them run with what they've got and you'll all be better off.

Have a good weekend!

(Un) Interesting Promotions

I found this in an email from Continental the other day. This is about the oddest promotion I have seen yet. Do they really think that people are going to run to their website to purchase a round-trip ticket, whose value is probably close to $1000 just so that they can get $5 worth of song downloads from Apple?

Receive five song downloads on iTunes^® when you purchase a round-trip ticket now through July 31, 2006. Buy your ticket on continental.com, and you'll receive an e-mail containing a redemption code(s) to use on iTunes.*

Home Sweet Home

I've finally made my way back to San Francisco after a busy, but fun week or so abroad. This photo kind of sums up how i'm feeling now, after spending the day in cattle class on American Airlines. Do they really not serve food, show movies, or even have audio on International flights from Canada to the US? It might not have been so bad if I hadn't picked up a cold somewhere along the line. It made the chatty guy next to me that much more annoying (although I pulled out my ipod - the ultimate communication crusher) and the fact that I had to make a connecting flight that much more painful (suffering through two descents where I thought my eardrums would explode because my head was so clogged). What is most troubling about the day is the fact that when I opened my suitcase, the kind folks at National Security had rifled through my stuff and not bothered to put it back. Should I be worried that my camera was pulled out of its case and just left there? Or that jewelry was just laying randomly at the bottom of the suitcase? If that shouldn't give me reason to worry, then the fact that I found SOMEONE ELSE'S asthma inhaler in the front pocket of my bag definitely does. Seriously... did they really pull something out of one person's bag and put it back in the wrong one? I have always avoided checking bags for obvious reasons -- losing them. But this takes it to a whole new level. Now I'm racking my brain trying to figure out which personal things of mine may have ended up in someone elses bags. Not to mention the poor guy who hopefully has a spare asthma inhaler somewhere. Is there a number I can call to complain about this? Or is this just the dues we pay for flying in 'secure skies'?

Today's headache aside: thanks to the INSEAD crew in London for a great reunion -- sorry for bringing the rain with me. Thanks also to the Toronto crew (and the new additions, both born and unborn) for another great weekend. More importantly, a big CONGRATULATIONS to Pete and Sam on their marriage. They are now living the life in the Greek Islands for their honeymoon. Thanks to Mike and Sandra for putting us up at the Glengarry B&B, and to Ashley for wearing her Sens bib a second time without a washing... so much for superstitious rituals -- at least you're learning early.

Although I have neglected the blog while I was gone, I have still been hard at work on the website. This week we managed to finally get the site uploaded to our new virtual server, which hopefully should allow it to function the way it was designed to function. Apparently the shared server we were on initially wouldn't allow us to send the timed emails that we had developed. The new server, a 'virtual' server, is supposed to solve the problem with a higher price and a system that I can't figure out. Of course nothing happens the way it is supposed to the first time around, and our OTR email accounts seem to have been disconnected in the process. So, until the programmers get in to work tonight, I am at a bit of a loss without any email. One step forward, two steps back. It's good to be back...

Congrats!

A big congratulations to our friends Tony and Danny who just launched their web portal Zimbio. Zimbio is a network of public portals  on a variety of topics of interest. Users can learn everything-they-ever-wanted-to-know by searching a specific portal, or they can add content to those portals to let others know about their own insights. And... if you think you know a lot about something, you can start your own portal! Check it out now so that when Zimbio is a household name, you'll be able to say 'I saw it when...'

On an entirely unrelated note, there is an article in this month's National Geographic Traveler magazine about  the cost of knock-off goods. Apparently the Italian polizia are cracking down on those who purchase these items. The article sites a Swedish visitor who bought a pair of imitation brand-name sunglasses and was slapped with an $11,000 fine. Having experienced 2 separate (and unfortunate) run-ins with the Italian police in my lifetime, I can sympathize with the Swede, and sadly congratulate her for being able to negotiate the penalty down to $4,500 -- the cost of a one-week's stay at a mid-range villa in Tuscany!