Article Content:
Sample 4-night air/hotel package from Boston to Santo Domingo from 5 based on travel 8/26 through 8/30. Sample prices are per person, based on double occupancy and vary by dates of travel, availability, and departure city.

More: continued here

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Santo Domingo air/hotel, 4 nts., from 7: Hotetur Dominican Bay All Inclusive, 3 stars Sample 4-night air/hotel package from Boston to Santo Domingo from 7 based on travel 12/3 through 12/7. Sample prices are…
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Article Content:
Sample 4-night air/hotel package from New York to Aruba from 3 based on travel 8/26 through 8/30. Sample prices are per person, based on double occupancy and vary by dates of travel, availability, and departure city.

More: continued here

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Article Content:
Sample 4-night air/hotel package from New York to St. Thomas and St. John from 5 based on travel 8/26 through 8/30. Sample prices are per person, based on double occupancy and vary by dates of travel, availability, and departure city.

More: continued here

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Article Content:
Sample 4-night air/hotel package from New York to Grand Cayman from 2 based on travel 8/26 through 8/30. Sample prices are per person, based on double occupancy and vary by dates of travel, availability, and departure city.

More: continued here

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Grand Cayman air/hotel, 4 nts., from 2: Treasure Island Resort, 2.5 stars Sample 4-night air/hotel package from New York to Grand Cayman from 2 based on travel 8/5 through 8/9. Sample prices…



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Article Content:
Sample 4-night air/hotel package from New York to Santo Domingo from 5 based on travel 8/26 through 8/30. Sample prices are per person, based on double occupancy and vary by dates of travel, availability, and departure city.

More: continued here

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Santo Domingo air/hotel, 4 nts., from 4: Hotetur Dominican Bay All Inclusive, 3 stars Sample 4-night air/hotel package from New York to Santo Domingo from 4 based on travel 2/4 through 2/8. Sample prices…



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Article Content:
In my tourism training hat, people often ask me about the utility of location-based services like Gowalla and Foursquare.

Here’s an example of why they’re so handy….

I was speaking in Houston at the TFEA (Texas Festivals and Events Association) annual conference, and I needed a quick meal near the hotel.  It was a rather ritzy area – at one point I tweeted, “I’m looking for a Taco Bell in a Smith and Wollensky part of town” – but I did find a sandwich joint where I could run in and out and get something to go.

While parked, I checked in on both Gowalla and Foursquare, because I’m experimenting with them for my tourism-related clients. Both services use the GPS function on my T-Mobile Android smartphone to figure out where I am, and then show me nearby places that are listed in their database.

Both kept showing a nearby House of Pies.

Who wouldn’t want pie after a long drive and before a big speaking gig the next day?  Who has kids and spouses who like pie?

I rest my case.

Without the digital insights from Gowalla and Foursquare (and Yelp if I had launched that app, which also has a location-based function and checkins) I would not have noticed the neon-lit House of Pies building diagonally across the parking lot from me on Westheimer, a major Houston thoroughfare. There’s also a House of Pies on Houston’s Kirby Drive and they’re on Twitter as @HouseofPies1967.

One slice of their house specialty later, I was a fan of their Bayou Goo pie (a “pecan crust with a layer of sweet cream cheese, then a layer of vanilla custard swirled with chocolate chunks and topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings”) and even more of a fan of location-based services that bring me the information I need, when I need it, where I am located.

It’s hard to beat that convenience at 9 pm in an unfamiliar city, I’ll tell you!

Take a close look at privacy and notification settings before you use these; the default setting tends to be a public broadcasting of your location via Twitter, Facebook, etc. and you need to think through those implications. You can choose not to inform anyone when you check in, of course; Foursquare calls it “off the grid.”

If you have a smartphone, consider getting one of these free travel apps – I’m partial to Gowalla because it has a scavenger hunt aspect that kids will like, and lots of cool Trips for travel ideas. For more insights, here’s Gary Arndt’s post Gowalla vs Foursquare as tools for travel.

These services can really help with the “what’s around here?” question as you travel.

(This post was included in the 21 July edition of Wanderfood Wednesday. Check it out for other foodie posts!)

In my tourism training hat, people often ask me about the utility of location-based services like Gowalla and Foursquare.

Here’s an example of why they’re so handy….

I was speaking in Houston at the TFEA (Texas Festivals and Events Association) annual conference, and I needed a quick meal near the hotel.  It was a rather ritzy area – at one point I tweeted, “I’m looking for a Taco Bell in a Smith and Wollensky part of town” – but I did find a sandwich joint where I could run in and out and get something to go.

While parked, I checked in on both Gowalla and Foursquare, because I’m experimenting with them for my tourism-related clients. Both services use the GPS function on my T-Mobile Android smartphone to figure out where I am, and then show me nearby places that are listed in their database.

Both kept showing a nearby House of Pies.

Who wouldn’t want pie after a long drive and before a big speaking gig the next day?  Who has kids and spouses who like pie?

I rest my case.

Without the digital insights from Gowalla and Foursquare (and Yelp if I had launched that app, which also has a location-based function and checkins) I would not have noticed the neon-lit House of Pies building diagonally across the parking lot from me on Westheimer, a major Houston thoroughfare. There’s also a House of Pies on Houston’s Kirby Drive and they’re on Twitter as @HouseofPies1967.

One slice of their house specialty later, I was a fan of their Bayou Goo pie (a “pecan crust with a layer of sweet cream cheese, then a layer of vanilla custard swirled with chocolate chunks and topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings”) and even more of a fan of location-based services that bring me the information I need, when I need it, where I am located.

It’s hard to beat that convenience at 9 pm in an unfamiliar city, I’ll tell you!

Take a close look at privacy and notification settings before you use these; the default setting tends to be a public broadcasting of your location via Twitter, Facebook, etc. and you need to think through those implications. You can choose not to inform anyone when you check in, of course; Foursquare calls it “off the grid.”

If you have a smartphone, consider getting one of these free travel apps – I’m partial to Gowalla because it has a scavenger hunt aspect that kids will like, and lots of cool Trips for travel ideas. For more insights, here’s Gary Arndt’s post Gowalla vs Foursquare as tools for travel.

These services can really help with the “what’s around here?” question as you travel.

(This post was included in the 21 July edition of Wanderfood Wednesday. Check it out for other foodie posts!)

———————

Article Content:
Most bloggers like to keep up with their blog’s statistics and analytics, to see how we’re doing over time with our readers.

I’m no exception, and I thought you might be interested in some of the data from the last six months about popular items on this blog.

The source of my data is Google Analytics, the free and incredibly comprehensive analytics package from Google.

Sorry, don’t think I can share specific readership numbers, but let’s say that it’s more than just my Mom but less than a million.

Your Favorite Posts
*** Military family travel to Hawaii: 11 affordable places to stay

I’m former Navy myself and used to live in the islands, so this was a logical post for me to write. It also made sense to highlight lodging on islands other than Oahu, not only for visitors but for the military families in living in Hawaii as kama’aina (locals.)

*** Where I’d take my kids: best US family beach vacations

This was a search engine no-brainer. People plan to take their kids to the beach all the time, and they’re searching for that info year-round. The fun thing about this post for me was that I was able to highlight many of my own family’s favorites in one post, while still providing popular content that readers and search engines would like. Since I often write about rather obscure things, it’s fun to “go mainstream” and be successful in the search engine battle for those keywords, but not feel that I was just cranking out crap for Google bots.

*** When your kids encounter a squat toilet

Awesome. I hope this one hangs on in the upper tier forever. I wrote it because we had to deal with this topic when we lived in Japan and traveled in Asia, and you should write what you know. Again, if I’m wrestling with a kid looking at that toilet and yelling “What do I do?” then I know other parents are, too.

*** My top tips for travel with kids to Tokyo, Japan

This was what I used to call a “lazy” post because it’s simply a roundup of info that I’d previously published on this blog, the Perceptive Travel Blog and some other publications. I used to think that every post had to be a sparkling example of Pulitzer Prize-winning originality, or I was a blogging failure. I got over it and figured out that the occasional roundup of related content was helpful, not lazy.

*** Finding the best iPhone and iPad apps for kids

I don’t own either device (my smartphone is an Android) but I could see amongst my parenting peers how popular iPhones and iPads were becoming for keeping kids reasonably entertained on the road. My friend Christine Lu uses her iPhone kid’s games with her son all the time.  This post basically points you to another friend’s resource blog on the topic, but that’s what blogging is all about for me – sharing great info.

***  Kids in Tokyo: escape to Yokohama

I am so glad that people still like this one; it’s one of my very early posts. While in Tokyo, I found myself going down to Yokohama a lot because the waterfront was so spacious and nicely laid out.  Having a local show me the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum in town was a major bonus.

Where You Come From
About half the traffic is from search engines: sure, Google is the top one, but I do get significant traffic from images/photos (which is why I use the ALT tag religiously) plus Yahoo and Bing.

StumbleUpon likes it here, too.  Here is my SheilaS StumbleUpon page if you want to see what I like on the web.

Most visitors are from the US, but we do have readers in the UK, Canada, Australia, India, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands. As a three-time expat myself, I do try to keep my international audience in mind.

Words You Use to Find Us
People type in words like “family travel,” of course, but we’re also found by people looking for info on whether TripIt is safe, cool travel souvenir ideas and stuff for kids to do in Michigan.

What is fun for me is that a lot of the posts I wrote because I was looking for certain information are favorites because apparently you were looking for the same info.

That makes me very happy. Thanks for reading.

Most bloggers like to keep up with their blog’s statistics and analytics, to see how we’re doing over time with our readers.

I’m no exception, and I thought you might be interested in some of the data from the last six months about popular items on this blog.

The source of my data is Google Analytics, the free and incredibly comprehensive analytics package from Google.

Sorry, don’t think I can share specific readership numbers, but let’s say that it’s more than just my Mom but less than a million.

Your Favorite Posts
*** Military family travel to Hawaii: 11 affordable places to stay

I’m former Navy myself and used to live in the islands, so this was a logical post for me to write. It also made sense to highlight lodging on islands other than Oahu, not only for visitors but for the military families in living in Hawaii as kama’aina (locals.)

*** Where I’d take my kids: best US family beach vacations

This was a search engine no-brainer. People plan to take their kids to the beach all the time, and they’re searching for that info year-round. The fun thing about this post for me was that I was able to highlight many of my own family’s favorites in one post, while still providing popular content that readers and search engines would like. Since I often write about rather obscure things, it’s fun to “go mainstream” and be successful in the search engine battle for those keywords, but not feel that I was just cranking out crap for Google bots.

*** When your kids encounter a squat toilet

Awesome. I hope this one hangs on in the upper tier forever. I wrote it because we had to deal with this topic when we lived in Japan and traveled in Asia, and you should write what you know. Again, if I’m wrestling with a kid looking at that toilet and yelling “What do I do?” then I know other parents are, too.

*** My top tips for travel with kids to Tokyo, Japan

This was what I used to call a “lazy” post because it’s simply a roundup of info that I’d previously published on this blog, the Perceptive Travel Blog and some other publications. I used to think that every post had to be a sparkling example of Pulitzer Prize-winning originality, or I was a blogging failure. I got over it and figured out that the occasional roundup of related content was helpful, not lazy.

*** Finding the best iPhone and iPad apps for kids

I don’t own either device (my smartphone is an Android) but I could see amongst my parenting peers how popular iPhones and iPads were becoming for keeping kids reasonably entertained on the road. My friend Christine Lu uses her iPhone kid’s games with her son all the time.  This post basically points you to another friend’s resource blog on the topic, but that’s what blogging is all about for me – sharing great info.

***  Kids in Tokyo: escape to Yokohama

I am so glad that people still like this one; it’s one of my very early posts. While in Tokyo, I found myself going down to Yokohama a lot because the waterfront was so spacious and nicely laid out.  Having a local show me the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum in town was a major bonus.

Where You Come From
About half the traffic is from search engines: sure, Google is the top one, but I do get significant traffic from images/photos (which is why I use the ALT tag religiously) plus Yahoo and Bing.

StumbleUpon likes it here, too.  Here is my SheilaS StumbleUpon page if you want to see what I like on the web.

Most visitors are from the US, but we do have readers in the UK, Canada, Australia, India, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands. As a three-time expat myself, I do try to keep my international audience in mind.

Words You Use to Find Us
People type in words like “family travel,” of course, but we’re also found by people looking for info on whether TripIt is safe, cool travel souvenir ideas and stuff for kids to do in Michigan.

What is fun for me is that a lot of the posts I wrote because I was looking for certain information are favorites because apparently you were looking for the same info.

That makes me very happy. Thanks for reading.

———————