Clark Norton
A friendly Galapagos iguana. Photo by Clark Norton
In my previous post, I contrasted my list of “must-see” sites around the world with that of Patricia Schultz, author of the best selling bucket list guidebook, “1000 Places to See Before You Die.”
With an eye specifically on baby boomers, and without wanting to be too grim about it, I wanted to accentuate places that are themselves at least somewhat in danger of dying or being considerably altered in coming years, for a variety of reasons.
So far, we’ve covered five regions of the globe — Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia/New Zealand/Pacific Islands. Now let’s tackle the U.S./Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean area.
U.S./Canada: There are so many possibilities in North America, but I’ll pick Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming/Montana over Schultz’s Monument Valley.
Yellowstone is not only a remarkably diverse collection of sights — from… Continue reading
Utah’s Monument Valley, author Patricia Schultz’s absolute must-see sight for North America. Photo from Utah Tourism.
Jordan’s ancient stone city of Petra. Photo by Clark Norton
I just read an interview with Patricia Schultz, author of the extremely successful travel guide “1000 Places to See Before You Die,” whose first edition publication in 2003 presaged the bucket list craze.
She has since published a second edition, which includes another 200 entries, so if you’ve somehow managed to see the initial 1,000, you still have your work cut out for you.
Depending on how much travel baby boomers — the youngest of whom turn 50 this year — have done earlier in their lives, they face a daunting task of keeping up with Schultz, who says in the interview that she has now visited all the places she’s written about, though when the first edition was published, there were about… Continue reading
Victoria Falls at dawn — an unforgettable image. Photo by D.E. Cox, two-time Society of American Travel Writers photographer of the year.
In my travel writing for magazines, I confess I’ve sometimes felt like my words were there more to frame the pictures than to tell the story.
National Geographic Magazine, I’m told, always starts with a portfolio of superb photographs on a topic, and then builds a story around them, rather than have story ideas drive the decisions.
As I noted in a recent post, words — or content as they are now known on the Web — are crucial for conveying information and are the ultimate reason why most people go to a travel website.
But it’s the visual images — if done well — that become seared in our brains and very possibly lead us to choose one destination over another, even if only subconsciously.… Continue reading
Travel websites should seek to flow like this Maine Windjammer in Penobscot Bay, seamlessly and effortlessly. Photo by Clark Norton
I recently read a statistic that unless a website loads within six seconds, the majority of users will give up and go elsewhere. Whether completely true or not, it speaks of our collective impatience when we can’t have our way instantaneously on the Internet.
My frustrations with websites — and travel websites, in particular, since I spend so much time on them — come when I can’t find what I’m looking for after not just six seconds, but sometimes minutes and what seems like hours. Or I never find what I’m looking for at all after exhausting every possible avenue I can think of.
How tough can it be to make it easy for your potential visitors or customers (depending upon whether or not you’re marketing a destination or travel-related… Continue reading
A photo from the Visit Finland website, one of the world’s best designed travel sites.
A few weeks ago I analyzed some of the top travel websites in the U.S. and around the world, focusing primarily on design.
Design is crucial, but there are other key elements to creating great travel websites as well — whether the site is focused on a destination, a tour company, a travel agency, a resort, a hotel, a restaurant, cruise line, or other travel purveyor.
Today I’m going to talk about content, and in days to come I’ll focus on various other elements.
Content: Everything hinges on it. Travelers — and potential travelers — want information first and foremost. It should be clear, accurate and up-to-date. That means professionally written, thoroughly researched, and current.
Professionally written: When you read a sentence — any sentence — its meaning should be clear. It should… Continue reading
Omaha! at night. Is it on your vacation list? Photo courtesy of Visit Omaha.
When we last checked in on the serendipitous relationship between the city of Omaha, Nebraska, and Denver Broncos’ quarterback Peyton Manning’s signal calling during the NFL playoffs — often consisting of shouting “Omaha! Omaha!” to indicate when to hike the football or change a play — Omaha’s tourism officials were overjoyed at all the free publicity that Manning had generated. According to those who actually counted, Manning yelled “Omaha” more than 40 times during the game against the San Diego Chargers, searing it into the nation’s consciousness.
In response, @Visit Omaha, the Twitter handle of Omaha’s Convention and Visitors Bureau, tweeted that “We certainly appreciate all the love from #PeytonManning,” which garnered some 4,000 retweets and increased Visit Omaha’s Twitter following by at least 400.
But that was just a start.
Hotels.com,… Continue reading
Are we losing baby boomer and other tourists from Britain because of onerous visa requirements for British travel writers? Photo from examiner.com.
As of 2012, the last full year for which data is available, the United Kingdom saw visitor volume to the U.S. drop for the fourth consecutive year, with volume down nearly one million visitors since its peak of 4.7 million in the year 2000. Since 2005, the drop-off has been 13 percent, representing 582,000 fewer visitors from the UK.
In financial terms, this represents a spending drop by British tourists in the U.S. of $848 million in 2012 as compared to 2005.
That’s a big loss for U.S. tourism.
One traditional way for tourism agencies to ramp up visitation is to invite foreign journalists — specifically travel writers — to tour a country and write about it. Of course, magazines and other publishers also send travel writers off… Continue reading
Scranton, Pennsylvania, is one of those cities baby boomers just don’t want to leave. Photo from Wikipedia.
An interesting piece on The Huffington Post this week listed the number one town or city in each U.S. state that baby boomers just don’t seem to want to leave as they get older and/or retire.
The author, Moira McGarvey, runs a website called GangsAway.com that provides helpful info to people planning their retirements — including places to retire. Using U.S. Census and other data that the Gangs Away! gang has dug up, she came up with what she determined are the “stickiest” hometowns across the country — those most likely to find boomers age 55 and up who own their houses free and clear and are staying where they are rather than moving, say, to warmer climes, nearer to their children, or for some other factor.
McGarvey wasn’t able to come up… Continue reading
New Mexico’s Spaceport America, where Virgin Galactic hopes to launch the first commercial space flights. Photo from Virgin Galactic.
Fortune has come out with an interesting follow-up story to our previous post about Sir Richard Branson’s out-of-this-world venture Virgin Galactic, which aims to bring space tourism to America.
Some 600 affluent travelers — including plenty of intrepid baby boomers — have plunked down up to $250,000 each to be among the first passengers on a commercial flight into space, which could happen as early as 2014, though previous target dates have come and gone. With six passengers scheduled for each flight, that would already amount to 100 sold-out flights.
According to Fortune, one travel agency — Virtuoso — has landed exclusive rights to book passengers throughout the Americas onto the flights.
Virtuoso — which bills itself as “the travel industry’s leading luxury network” — includes more than 330 agencies… Continue reading
Omaha’s downtown skyline along the riverfront, looking good. Photo from VisitOmaha.com.
Viewers watching the recent NFL playoff game between the Denver Broncos and San Diego Chargers could hardly have missed Broncos’ quarterback Peyton Manning shouting “Omaha, Omaha!” repeatedly while calling signals. Someone counted up all the “Omahas” and came up with a total of 44 out of 70 snaps.
According to ESPN analysts, calling “Omaha” as a signal — either to alert teammates to an impending hike or changed play or possibly to draw the defense offsides, as Manning did twice — actually started years ago with quarterback Tom Brady of the New England Patriots. But with Manning wired up by CBS during the Broncos’ telecast, “Omaha!” has now become a minor football phenomenon. #OmahaOmaha even trended on twitter during the game, and @VisitOmaha, the twitter handle of the Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau (OCVB), tweeted: “We certainly appreciate all… Continue reading
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