The Travel Channel
URL: http://www.travelchannel.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Shel Kimen
Whether you travel like Paul Bowles or Lady Di, the travel Channel Online is certain to satiate your needs. To begin, the site, an extension of the Cable TV channel, is a pleasure to look at. Sweep through organized, clean pages with beautiful pictures (that are easy on the bandwidth) or rest a while in one of the sites many flavorful sections. The travel Channel has it all; vacation ideas and recommendations, online chat forums, photo galleries, hot topics and of course links to other esteemed travel-related sites. I checked the site at the peak of Mardi Gras, and the special focus on the New Orleans festival ranked as an exceptional treat. First, the Travel Channel makes use of all the latest Netscape tricks ‹ and it offers a choice: Frames or No Frames. As one who believes Frames are akin to the Anti-Christ, I was pleased with the option. Outstanding. And the info wrapped up in those pages could easily stand on it¹s own as a respectable Web site. It¹s fat with details about Mardi Gras history, customs, recipes and travel tips. Plenty of photos, and again, wonderful design. The site offers TWO chat options, in case you wanna exchange woes about a bumpy cruise or get insight on your future travel plans from someone who¹s already been there. The first chat area is set up as a traditional BBS (bulletin board) in which users post messages to a ³topic board² and other users post messages to the same board to reply. It¹s very much like a Usenet thing. But the travel channel also offers a Frames based Web chat, in real time. Very much like an IRC thing, for those who want more of an immediate dialog. (Warning: It¹s not terribly fast.) The posting board seemed considerably more active than the Frames chat, but again, it¹s always nice to have choices. The photo gallery is by far the most exceptional and entertaining aspect of the site though. Not only do we get to look at stunning photographs from around the world, broken into categories ‹ Asia, Western Europe, Africa, but the photographs are submitted by viewers of the Travel Channel and visitors to the Web site. Tres Cool! Overall The travel Channel should amuse, entertain, and at times, enlighten with advise and interesting articles. It¹s a definite must for anyone who considers themselves a ³traveler.²
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

French Travel Gallery
URL: http://www.bonjour.com/wta/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Anyone considering a trip to France should visit this site first. This page may very well be the definitive source of information for the tourist-to-be. In addition to an on-line hotel reservation system, visitors find a huge collection of resources: a comprehensive listing of French-related links, maps, vacation suggestions, and other materials for the traveler. The especially curious can even download sound files of common French phrases! If every nation's Web resources were arranged in such a pleasant fashion, life would be much simpler ‹ and more enjoyable ‹ for anyone researching a foreign land.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Travelocity
URL: http://www.travelocity.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
One of the first steps in planning a vacation is the fantasy stage. A friend mentions a destination, you see a picture of a place, or maybe you read an article about some distant city or country. Once the destination has captivated your mind, every little piece of information about that place you come across will add to your mental database of all the things you will do there. Then you start to imagine the arrival, when you disembark from whatever mode of transportation you¹ve used and get your first real impressions. You imagine walking down the various streets, seeing the monuments, art, parks, or other significant landmarks. Maybe you dream of becoming friends with the natives, of being more than just a tourist, and getting to see the real treasures that only the locals know about. In this first stage it is difficult to do any serious planning because calling a travel agent is such a commitment. You ask a travel agent what it will cost for such and such round trip, and then they will ask you if you want to book that now. Heavens no! You¹re not at the nuts and bolts stage. But a good way to feel like you are putting the trip together when you are only in the fantasy stage is to become your own travel agent. A number of travel reservation systems are available on the Internet, but the one with the best interface I¹ve seen so far is at Travelocity. There are 8 fields for entering destinations, so you can put together a fairly complicated trip, and the results page it comes back with seemed to give a lot of options and prices for flights. Clicking on any particular flight will display all the information that a travel agent would have. The reservation section of Travelocity also has functions for browsing flight information so you really don¹t have to feel like you¹re beyond the fantasy stage of travel. But if you haven¹t caught that bug to go to a particular place, and you feel you need to go somewhere, the Travelocity site also has a section called Destinations with information on various cities around the world. A large part of the focus of this section is on activities, so if you have an interest in theater, Travelocity can recommend a good play to go see in Vienna. An obligatory Merchandise section offers items of use to travelers, such as power adapters and toiletries, which can all be bought online. Travelocity is a great all around travel resource.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Condé Nast Traveler
URL: http://www.cntraveler.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The sophisticated traveler knows that the crème de la crème of travel publications is Condé Nast Traveler. In the archaic age of print and pulp, this magazine was an incredible resource for information on worldly destinations. What individual¹s travel library would be complete without a large section of back issues as a reference for vacation plans? Now, in the digital age, we don¹t have room for extensive libraries, or large collections of printed information. Fortunately, Condé Nast Traveler isn¹t bound to its print past, and now has an online presence that is much, much more than repositioned print content. The core of the site is an incredible database of vacation spots, which are critiqued with extremely informative qualitative assessments. While many travel-related sites will simply list a bunch of hotels and restaurants to be found in a given city, Condé Nast Traveler offers well-written descriptions of the various aspects of a location. The key areas include Hotels, Dining, Access, and Weather. The site also offers a number of very intelligent and creative ways to sift through its core database; each way reflects a different intuitive communication model. The Great Escape area is the most obvious road to access. A clickable world map allows you to zero in on a continent, then country, then individual city. This is good for people who ³think globally,² and like using maps in their everyday lives. For people who care less about geography and more about amenity, Condé Nast offers Concierge as a navigational tool. This section guides you through a series of forms on which you enter the parameters of your dream vacation. Concierge then returns an increasingly refined list of destinations that match your criteria. Snapshots is an ingenious navigational device for those driven by visual cues. Four photos are displayed on a page. Clicking on the photo that is the most appealing to you shoots you to information on the illustrated locale. If none of the photos are appealing, clicking a button will load four new images. The site also includes a good section of travel-related news, all of which is very relevant to planning a trip. All in all, Condé Nast Traveler is the definitive resource for online travel planning.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Looking for Lovedu
URL: http://www.gnn.com/gnn/meta/travel/features/lovedu/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
This is a completely inspired and insightful collection of writings from an African journey, in which Ann Jones searches for Lovedu, a tribe ³where women rule.² Jones lends a beautiful perspective to the travels. Her words flower as she documents landscapes, personalities and cultures with explicit detail. I¹m in love with this documentary, and recommend it wholeheartedly. As an added bonus, you¹ll find magnificent photography.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

GNN Travelers Center
URL: http://www.gnn.com/gnn/meta/travel/index.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lydia Schwartz
With outstanding feature stories and an outstanding list of travel-related resources, GNN hovers near the top of all travel sites. Instead of breaking down travel into logistical compartments of expense reports, packing lists, and so on, GNN documents traveling from the perspective of the people who do it. The stories are real, often exciting, and offer fresh commentary about life on the road.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

United Airlines
URL: http://www.ual.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Fly the friendly skies with a friendly Web site. Cliche? Yes. True? Yes. United indeed has a wonderful Web site for all levels of browser capability. Since I¹m running on a T1, I opted for high-capability, and it was well worth it ‹ pretty layouts and creative ideas abound. Load up with flight schedules and travel tips, read the Mileage Plus newsletter, and find out what the United employee-owners have to say. Good stuff.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

The Travel Channel
URL: http://www.travelchannel.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Whether you travel like Paul Bowles or Lady Di, the travel Channel Online is certain to satiate your needs. To begin, the site, an extension of the Cable TV channel, is a pleasure to look at. Sweep through organized, clean pages with beautiful pictures (that are easy on the bandwidth) or rest a while in one of the sites many flavorful sections. The travel Channel has it all; vacation ideas and recommendations, online chat forums, photo galleries, hot topics and of course links to other esteemed travel-related sites. I checked the site at the peak of Mardi Gras, and the special focus on the New Orleans festival ranked as an exceptional treat. First, the Travel Channel makes use of all the latest Netscape tricks ‹ and it offers a choice: Frames or No Frames. As one who believes Frames are akin to the Anti-Christ, I was pleased with the option. Outstanding. And the info wrapped up in those pages could easily stand on it¹s own as a respectable Web site. It¹s fat with details about Mardi Gras history, customs, recipes and travel tips. Plenty of photos, and again, wonderful design. The site offers TWO chat options, in case you wanna exchange woes about a bumpy cruise or get insight on your future travel plans from someone who¹s already been there. The first chat area is set up as a traditional BBS (bulletin board) in which users post messages to a ³topic board² and other users post messages to the same board to reply. It¹s very much like a Usenet thing. But the travel channel also offers a Frames based Web chat, in real time. Very much like an IRC thing, for those who want more of an immediate dialog. (Warning: It¹s not terribly fast.) The posting board seemed considerably more active than the Frames chat, but again, it¹s always nice to have choices. The photo gallery is by far the most exceptional and entertaining aspect of the site though. Not only do we get to look at stunning photographs from around the world, broken into categories ‹ Asia, Western Europe, Africa, but the photographs are submitted by viewers of the Travel Channel and visitors to the Web site. Tres Cool! Overall The travel Channel should amuse, entertain, and at times, enlighten with advise and interesting articles. It¹s a definite must for anyone who considers themselves a ³traveler.²
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Tokyo Journal
URL: http://teleparc.infoweb.or.jp/tj/ Travel
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
TJWEB is the technically well-prepared and remarkably rich online presence of *Tokyo Journal*, the monthly devoted to anglophone expats living amid the chaos of Asia¹s premier megalopolis. The issue I viewed boasted an appropriately framed table of contents that directed me to features on the English-teaching craze, the perils of sunbathing in Australia, and an enlightening interview with a Yakuza-busting cop. The nightclubbing guide is quite detailed and reminiscent of London's indispensable weekly, *Time/Out.* Generous of content and well-balanced with graphics, I¹d recommend this page to anyone headed for Sony-town.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Planet Hawaii
URL: http://planet-hawaii.com/~ph/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
A cosmic pineapple greets visitors to Planet Hawaii, the Web site for hip island-hoppers. It¹s not the laid-back, sun-soaked Hawaii I'm familiar with; rather, Planet Hawaii (available in both Shocked and non-Shocked versions) provides not only the traditional tourist info, but destinations for the alternative set as well, such as Honolulu's premiere cyber-cafe, the Hawaii International Jazz Festival, Hawaiian Wellness Holidays and Metaphysical Vacations, and Hawaii Modem Gamers Group. The Hawaiian Eye transmits live pictures from the Island of Oahu. Clever, upbeat text is complemented by energetic graphics with lots of punch.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

BR Online
URL: http://www.ultranet.com/~brol/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
BR Online Travel, dedicated exclusively to travel in Brazil, provides prospective visitors with an abundance of useful facts and links, as well as a taste of the country¹s sights and sounds. Categories include: Tickets from USA to Brazil, Brazilian Links, and Travel & Tourism Links. Another section, Ecotourism Packages, features tour and lodging information for wilderness areas like the Amazon, The Pantanal, and Jericoacoara, a fishing village that boasts one of "the ten most beautiful beaches in the world." Rich in content, BR Travel Online's navigation is simple and intuitive, and the graphics are appealing without overpowering the content.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Lonely Planet
URL: http://www.lonelyplanet.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
The footloose philosophy that gave birth to Lonely Planet in the early 70s still characterizes the publisher whose motto has always been: ³Don¹t worry about whether your trip will work out. Just go!² But after publishing more than 150 guides specializing in low-budget travel to out-of-the-way places, Lonely Planet has proven that its well-worn feet are also planted firmly on the ground. This useful and utilitarian site is the publisher¹s online passport to the planet, offering ³practical, reliable, and down-to-earth travel information for travelers who want to explore beyond the usual tourist routes.² Visit the *Destinations* area for a clickable map of the world. Each subsequent click (on a continent, a country, a city, and so forth) takes you farther down the rabbit-hole, providing background information on your chosen site, a list of attractions, a slide show, travelers¹ reports, and a chance to order (via a fax-back form) Lonely Planet¹s print guide for the destination in question. So while the site is not an HTML version of the print guides, there¹s still a lot to glean here. The Postcards section lets you read the letters, postcards, and e-mail that Lonely Planet receives each year from people on the road. You¹re cautioned to regard any tips, (never cross the border to Egypt after 3 p.m., as there are no more tour buses and cab drivers will ³use this opportunity to rip you off²), as hearsay since they haven¹t been fact-checked yet. Still, it¹s a great way to share travel experience and advice with others (there¹s a ³mail to² link). *On the Road* provides first-hand impressions (in both text and photography) of travel from Lonely Planets¹ authors and photographers. Plus, you¹ll get good photography-taking tips here. Since part of Lonely Planet¹s mission is to encourage travelers to strike out on their own, away from the usual destinations, it offers a *Detours* section chronicling and illustrating trips to particularly remote areas of the world, like Ulaan Baatar, Easter Island, and Timbuktu. The site is rounded out with a good set of health resources designed to keep you safe from upset stomachs and blisters, serious ailments and minor ills. A text-only version will please those who just want the hard info fast and easy. Go here to plan your next trip, or just to take a mini vacation from daily life.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Virtual Jerusalem
URL: http://www.virtual.co.il/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
As a "citizen" of Virtual Jerusalem, you not only have access to one of the largest, best-organized data bases on Jerusalem and Israel, but you can also set up your own Web page, participate in polls, contests, or exchange political opinions with other citizens. The "neighborhoods" design may be a little gimmicky, but it, nevertheless, makes everything run smoothly and quickly. Stop by the culture neighborhood for upcoming shows, or hit the retail section to order gifts and merchandise. So much news! Five daily radio broadcasts, news summaries from all the leading Jerusalem dailies, and in-depth political coverage from Virtual Jerusalem' s own City News. Tourist information is also plentiful. Every city should have a page like this.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Botswana Focus
URL: http://cy.co.za/atg/stbrob.html/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Landscapes, wildlife, sunsets, mountain ranges, and panoramas galore -- compliments to the designer(s) of this beautiful page. Beyond the superficial looks, Botswana Focus is also a great introduction to the central African nation. History, current events, stats, maps -- the whole nine yards is served up quickly and with style. This is more than just an electronic brochure, mind you, (tourists need not worry, however; they will be amply provided for). There are also focus articles on conservation crises, links to magazines, and resource databases for more research. If you need to know something about this Botswana, look for it here.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

The Insider's Guide
URL: http://www.infi.net/explore/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The Insider's Guide publishes guidebooks for a variety of U.S. destinations that are geared toward not only tourists, but also to new residents and business travelers. In addition to the standard details of lodging, restaurants, and popular sights, they provide information on real estate, business and industry, volunteer opportunities, places of worship, and child care. The list of eastern/southern cities currently featured (or soon to be) includes North Carolina's Barrier Islands, Lexington, Sarasota, Virginia's Chesapeake Bay, and The Florida Keys. For specific information on these cities and/or regions, this is a great starting place.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Virtual Galapagos
URL: http://www.terraquest.com/galapagos
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
The Galapagos, a volcanic archipelago off the coast of Ecuador, is one of those storied places on the globe, calling up passages from Melville, or images of pirates. It was on the Galapagos, of course, that young Charles Darwin began seriously investigating the notion of evolution, while he was taking scrupulous notes on finches, marine lizards, giant tortoises, and boobies. Like the Himalayas, The Great Barrier Reef, the African Savannah, and other fantastic locales, the Galapagos have an important place in history -- especially, natural history -- and a reality apart from the image. This site, the second of Terraquest's excellent virtual destinations -- the first is Virtual Antarctica at <http://www.terraquest.com/antarctica> -- uses a real world journey as the basis for an online exploring the current reality of the islands and it's governing country, Ecuador. A masterpiece of Web design, Virtual Galapagos is layed out in clean, graphically rich frames, and organized according to six basic categories. ³Atlas² gives visitors their bearings with excellent maps of the islands and Ecuador -- click on a quadrant or isle for more detail. The "History" section animates the geography, with tales of pirates and explorers. Links within the text take you further into the subject, connecting you with supplementary materials such as the pertinent chapter from Darwin's *The Voyage of the Beagle*. In "Expedition" and "Dispatches" you get a briefing on the Terraquest folks, their gear, and the itinerary for the trip, complete with daily reports from the team and direct links to the relevant maps. The trip may be over, but it's archived here in depth and indefinitely. For multimedia materials, be sure to go to the Quicktime VR gallery. Be warned at the outset that this is a heavily-sponsored endeavor and operates subtly as a brochure for World Travel Partners, Mountain Travel Sobek, Kodak and others. It¹s not a big detraction; the ads, such as they are, are largely unobtrusive. IBM sponsors a segment called "Education Workbook² which gives teachers ideas for integrating the virtual experience into the classroom. (For the curious, the 10-day cruise with Sobek, not including airfare to Quito, and other sundry expenses, is $3395 per person.) Terraquest is also allied, in some fashion, with noted environmentalist David Brower and his organization, Earth Island Institute. As such, you can expect an agenda that promotes eco-tourism while condemning most other human activities on the Galapagos. It struck me a little arrogant, this view, and prone to oversimplifications. Despite dispatches like the one that begins, "Ecuador is an Indian nation" and another averring that immigrants "come from the mainland of Ecuador [to the Galapagos] looking for an easy living in the tourism industry or in illegal fishing" the site pays a good deal more attention to the well-fed, easy-living Terraquest team (professional eco-tourists) than to any Ecuadorian of any ethnicity. Nevertheless, the site has a lot to offer, to educators, to travelers, to anyone who browses the Web to broaden their horizons. It¹s a beautiful introduction to a unique spot on the globe and well worth the visit. Bon voyage.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Paris Anglophone
URL: http://paris-anglo.com/index.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Are you Parisian and homesick? Or an American Francophile? Either way, you're sure to enjoy yourself on the Paris-Anglophone. Here you¹ll find complete and nicely arrayed listings for everything you'd want to do, see, or know about the "City of Lights." Whether your interest is business, pleasure, or a combination of the two, you'll want to check out cafe listings, classifieds, and Paris-Zoom, an interactive photographic journey through the city. Search the Paris-Anglophone directory with 4200 listings for English-speaking Paris, convert e-mail into French, or see an art exhibit. Come to think of it, I had more fun, met friendlier people, and spent much less cash on the Anglophone than on my last visit to Paris....
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

GNN Travel Center
URL: http://bin-1.gnn.com/gnn/meta/travel/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
Real travel, ideally, is more footloose and shambling than tourism. Travel is humbler in means, tourism an extravagance. Tourists tick off sights like chores on a ³to do² list -- now the Coliseum, now the Piazza San Marco; been there, done that. Travelers, by contrast, wake to consider the map over coffee. Where to today? South, across the border, or east to the mountains? Maybe nowhere; after all, you just got there. Maybe you¹ll make a day of chatting up the locals, shopping for gew gaws and gri gris...or doing f@#$ all, if it suits you. At the risk of alienating both camps, GNN¹s Travel Center seems to straddle the distinction. Content is everything on these pages. The table of contents is almost entirely void of graphics, the pages almost invariably white. There¹s no shortage of images, however -- Alison Wright¹s photo essay on Tibet is excellent, as is Linda Connor¹s Labyrinth -- but these reside in deeper territory, and there¹s no overall design to unify the features or compel you to go there. But do go. It¹s a minor shortcoming, more than compensated for by the quality of the writing, interviews, and resource information at the site. You¹d be hard-pressed, for example, to find better travel writing than the prominently featured essays by renowned Welsh author, Jan Morris. Morris¹s pieces and the lengthy interview with writer/naturalist, Peter Mattheissen, should be enough to lure any armchair traveler out of the Barcalounger. The lesser known writers are also worth reading; if they¹re not exactly household names, neither are they rank amateurs. The editor¹s notes operate, loosely, as an index to a variety of travel-specific websites, with links and commentary organized under an array of themes ranging from online mapping services to electronic site guides. It¹s a required bookmark for the inveterate traveler, keen on exploring. A feature which nudges the project closer to the more mannered, upscale journals like *Conde Nast*, is the rather large section devoted to food and wine. . While the writing in the section is good, (Bob Thompson¹s notes on everything from Chilean Reds to shi shi Champagnes had a refreshing knack for cutting to the chase) the material seemed out of place and a little frivolous. Culinary angles on subjects like the Chinese diaspora helped bring the subject back into the fold, but, even then... My gripes aside, the Travel Center is a great thing, a worthy addition to any travelers¹ bookmark list. Hopefully, the site will evolve into a showcase for the best travel writing and resources on the Web, and resist the impulse to become merely the online equivalent of the Sunday travel section.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Preview Vacations
URL: http://www.vacations.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Boy, this site is pretty: pretty like a stuffed peacock. There are over 500 colorful pages here, including destination information, photos, multimedia stuff, and ³real-time transaction capabilities.² But when you get down to the meat of things ‹ booking vacations ‹ you¹re stuck with the usual, boring, pedestrian vacation standbys. (³Would you like the $100-per-night room in Paris or London?²) There are lots of clever forms and games to noodle with as well. Fill out the survey: doing so enters you in a monthly drawing for $1,000 worth of credit toward a Preview vacation.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Embassy Suites
URL: http://www.embassy-suites.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This is a fantastic site demonstrating the commercial application of the Web. Anyone planning a vacation should definitely check this out: reserving a room at an Embassy Suites hotel is just a few mouse-clicks away. In addition to a reservation system, availability, and rate information are also on-line. The entire system is cleanly presented and simple in construction, easy enough for the net-novice but with enough functionality to prove useful. One question: how much longer must we wait for an integrated system which will book all of the hotel chains, much like SABRE does for the airlines?
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

The One and Only Morocco WWW
URL: http://www.agadir.com/maroc/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Ah, the mysteries of Morocco. Tangiers, with its connection to ex-pat authors like Bowles and Burroughs. Casablanca, made famous the world over by Humphrey Bogart. Fez, known as the source for shriner hats. While filling in information gaps about Morocco had every possibility of killing the mystique of the place, I had to know more. The One and Only Morocco WWW isn¹t the only Morocco guide on the Web, but it¹s probably the best one. I think the trick is not taking ³one and only² for its literal meaning. As a travel guide, it¹s not the most immediately practical. It doesn¹t have a complete listing of all the hotels throughout the country. There are no train schedules online. No restaurant listings. This is the kind of guide that tells you a lot about the country, and primarily whets your appetite for going there. It¹s also the perfect place for the virtual traveler. The virtual traveler might like to know what the restaurants are like, or see pictures of some of them, but a listing of all of them, with directions how to get there, is unnecessary. This site covers so much of the culture and what¹s in Morocco, and there are so many pages, you can get in pretty deep. The site is littered with pictures of Morocco that illustrate the various sections. History, which goes back beyond Roman times, is covered. The site describes the flavor of 12 major Moroccan cities, and even has some of the most beautiful and useless maps. They have great graphics, but don¹t really show much detail as far as streets go. The Moroccan cooking section is probably my favorite, listing recipes for delicacies like Bastela and Couscous. But just knowing how to make the food isn¹t enough; the section on culture tells how to serve the food. There actually is a section with practical travel information, but knowing how many kilometers of railways there are in Morocco doesn¹t exactly help me ride them. The whole site was created by two students, Nabil Zary and Mounir El Abridi, and the impression I get is that the site is a labor of love. Versions of the site exist in English, French, Swedish, and Spanish, so it¹s definitely got the World in World Wide Web covered.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Roadside on the Web
URL: http://www1.usa1.com/~roadside/RoadsideWebPage.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Even on a T-1 connection this one is slow -- so slow that an otherwise promising page is nearly undone by sheer sluggishness. Still, if you¹re a sucker for diner kitsch and want to see some of it online, pour yourself a cup o¹ joe and wait for Roadside to download. Once you¹re on, they do warn you about all the graphics. And I should warn you that it¹s regional, concentrating almost exclusively on great eateries of the Northeast. I visited a cafe in my old hometown of Newport, R.I. and felt like I¹d been there. For anyone interested in buying and running a diner themselves, the site is a required stop.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Europe by Eurail
URL: http://www.eurail.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This is a pretty snappy primer on seeing Europe by rail. Everything from fares and schedules are available, plus basic info on how to plan a trip and what to expect once you¹re there. Windows users can download EuroData, an itinerary planning program and anyone can visit the Elysees Cafe to share travel tips, relate anecdotes, and the like. Heading up the page is a pretty low-key pitch for two books on the subject, but there¹s plenty here to get you started for free. Only one problem: dense graphics make for slow-going.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Tourism, Tunisia
URL: http://www.idsonline.com/tunisia/tour/tour.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Well, it¹s travel bureau stuff -- is what it is -- but first-rate travel bureau stuff, with lots of idyllic images of art and architecture and brilliant sunsets through palm trees. There¹s some unexpected stuff, too: a great exhibit of Tunisian postage stamps and a pretty thorough, if unerringly positive, news section. You can get business news, including exchange rate information, and contact numbers for relevant agencies. It¹s a beautiful, straightforward and intriguing site that will go a long way to convincing you that Tunisia is the place to be.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Egypt has it all
URL: http://163.121.10.41/tourism/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Got an itch? Egypt can scratch it. Spiffy and a little tacky at the same time, this site is really just a fancified travel brochure with lots to look at but none of the nitty-gritty travel info that would make it truly useful. Instead, the whole thing smacks of a sales pitch. Netscape users can get an autopiloted tour of the site, but be warned: it takes a while. With a slight adjustment in tone and more hard data, however, this page could win a blue ribbon. Or a blue light.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Mountain Travel - Sobek
URL: http://www.mtsobek.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Thrill-seekers with money to spend will be interested in this site, online home to a company almost synonymous with adventure travel. It¹s quite a site (business must be good), with an interactive world map, a full catalog of excursions, reservation information, and electronic postcards. From here you can connect to Sobek joint projects, Virtual Antarctica and Virtual Galapagos. Or go to a Palace chat room where you can dress up your surrogate self to look like a penguin or zebra (or whatever) and talk to like-minded predator and prey. Seems a little bizarre, that, but okay.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

El Mundo Maya
URL: http://www.wotw.com/mundomaya/start.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
From the Maya morphing into a mask on the home page to the individually scrollable inset windows on its destination pages, this technologically savvy tour brochure is a masterful pitch for your vacation dollars. As such, it's also a sanitized view of the Maya and the world they inhabit--you wont' find any guerrillas in Chiapas. If you're intrigued by Mayan culture but don't know much about it, El Mundo Maya may whet your appetite for travel or study. If you're looking for substantive information about Mayan history and contemporary culture, you'll be looking in vain here.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Key West Paradise
URL: http://www.keywestparadise.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Vivid, low bandwidth images of tropical sunsets and crystal blue waters are sure to attract northerners, fed up with snow, to Key West Paradise. A beautiful site detailing the history of The Conch Republic, a "nation" of sun and paradise in the Florida Keys, as well as everything from accommodations to weather in Key West, Fla. Targeting potential tourists, this Web site has brief bios and price information on hot spots in the Keys. There's even a free beer coupon for Barefoot Bob's!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

National Park Service
URL: http://www.nps.gov/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Planning a trip to a national park this summer? This is the logical first stop to get your bearings. National Parks and historical sites -- and not just the major ones -- are indexed alphabetically and by region, and links to each one provides information on a variety of topics, including hours of operations, peak seasons, common sense safety rules, camping and lodging, reservations, and historical highlights. A unique feature allows you to search National Parks by theme, in case you or the kids wants to learn about something or someone specific while you vacation.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Les Pages de Paris
URL: http://www.paris.org
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Whether you're planning a visit or simply daydreaming of one, this site has something for you. With over 7,000 pages of information, things move a little slowly, but most of it¹s worth waiting for. The City-o-Lite Site has its own little magazine, Paris Kiosque (very cutesy throwaway schlock) as well as straight up tourist information, i.e. hotels, hostels, schedules, monuments, pictures, and the like -- more info than you¹ll ever need, and no scowls if you speak French with an accent.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Being There
URL: http://www/valpro.com/cgibin/var/valpro/bethere
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Now, from the drudgery of your desk job, you can visit Gary Valle¹s site, where the experienced hiker, mountaineer, and traveler has gathered some of his most spectacular photographs for you to ogle at. The photos are all beautiful, the kind that make you jealous and long for a vacation, but they aren¹t the only attraction at this great site. Most shots are accompanied by notes, sometimes providing context, sometimes a geographical aside, and often random musings on the landscape. Valle¹s writing, as you might expect, is very down-to-earth, hip to the pleasures of traveling, and seeing nature at its best. He wants you to get out there yourself, to prod you into getting up and going outside. It works; but until you save up enough money to take time off, follow Gary Valle¹s site and live vicariously, Walter Mitty-style.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Roam
URL: http://www.roam.org/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
An online travel zine, Roam is a great resource for intrepid wayfarers who like to travel on the rough, and hear tales from those doing the same. You can read daily travelogues from Roam writers who've gone forth to cover all manner of locales. Hear from a twosome who cruised the French Riviera sleeping in their car, another pair touring a Slovenian squat, or get the scoop from Pamplona on the Running of the Bulls. Roam can also help you locate a friend or item you might've lost on your journey and put you in touch with others who are going your way.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

The Local Guy's Guide to San Diego
URL: http://members.aol.com/localspage
Category: Travel
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The Local Guy, a San Diego native of 38 years, has crafted this dynamic Web site as an online ode to San Diego. Venturing off the beaten track, the local guy helps visitors and residents alike locate neighborhoods, restaurants, and night spots that aren't swarming with bermuda-clad tourists. As a former San Diegan myself, I can tell you he has covered a wide range of destinations and activities as he demonstrates that there's a lot more to this sunny city than Tijuana, the beach, the Republican Convention, and Pete Wilson. The site also looks good and is easy to use, which is an extra added bonus.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Shanghai-ed
URL: http://www.shanghai-ed.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
ShanghaiŠfew place names resonant like that one. Conjures up murky docks, émigré palaces, and opium dens. That Shanghai disappeared with the Cultural Revolution, but with China¹s ³Open Door² policy, this teeming city of 15 million (8 million in the city proper) is once again becoming a magnet for all sorts of international finance and appears to be booming. Shanghai-ed is extremely sophisticated and well designed, moving with ease between a history of the city and lists of restaurants, shops, and travel advice. May-May, cigarette-smoking, wartime partygirl that she is, will be your guide to the nightlife, providing lists of bars, karaoke joints, beer houses, and discos. A great site to visitŠmakes me wish someone would put me on a slow boat to China.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Travel Asia Net
URL: http://www.travelasianet.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Asia Net covers an array of Asian Countries, primarily in the Southeast. Each country gets it¹s own home page, designed like a Monopoly board. Each board contains, along with info on communication, transportation, entertainment, etc., a ³Go to jail² square which always renders this single sentence: ³(Country Name), like the rest of Asia, has strict drug regulations.² Unfortunately, only six out of the twenty-one countries on the Asian Heat list open. The Writer¹s Café offers an array of travel pieces; What¹s Cookin¹ provides regional gastro-news; and Travel Trends highlights new developments in international travel. Though extremely slick, the lack of content in some areas makes me think this one is still under construction. Well worth the visit all the same.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Backpacker Guide
URL: http://www.irelands-web.ie/tourism/bpguide/bpguide.htm
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
The Backpacker Guide is not about to replace the traditional travel guide, but if you¹re planning to travel Great Britain, New Zealand, or Australia on a shoe-string budget, this site will be an indispensable supplement to it. No paper guide can give you up-to-the-minute information on your destination, and what traditional guide would give you a list of cyber-cafes where you can take time out from your travels to sate your net addiction. The information is not so in-depth, and several links did not function, but there are a lot of tips and facts that you would be unlikely to find elsewhere.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Mirage Resorts
URL: http://www.themirage.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Las Vegas is a singularly American place: In a terrain where there¹s nothing of interest, attractions are invented and packaged. The Mirage Hotel is a perfect epitome of this, in that (fake) European food is served by a (fake) volcano while watching (real) tigers in their (fake) environment. And it¹s all available for downloading! Get the Mirage experience through pictures, sound bites, and QuickTime video clips ‹ or buy t-shirts and plush tigers via their Web site! You¹ll never have to leave the house. And isn¹t that what you want in a vacation?
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

ANZA Travel
URL: http://www.axionet.com/gday/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
I¹m a sucker for unusual travel. That¹s why I like places like ANZA: instead of the silly and overdone tedium of Dickens¹ London and New York Theater tours, they offer The Vintage Car Club of New Zealand Anniversary Tour and ³The Soccer Holiday of a Lifetime.² You won¹t find those at your travel agent¹s! The tone of the writing is relaxed, in the budget travel style, but note: these trips ain¹t cheap. Still, visiting the site makes me feel that Oceania is accessible ‹ even if I can¹t afford it.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Project Candide Intro
URL: http://candide.utopia.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Of all the ³you are there² travel writing on the Internet, Project Candide is one of the most ambitious undertakings around. Here¹s the plot: five yuppie-ish New Yorkers take off for Tanzania, to travel from Arusha to Zanzibar armed with little more than money, their wits, and some very expensive communications equipment. The result isŠ well, some will find it fun, some will find it patently offensive. (Our moneyed friends sure do love those charming third-world natives!) If you don¹t have Netscape, forget it: it¹s a multi-frame, background-patterned, referential-URLed mess.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

InfoHub Travel Guide
URL: http://www.infohub.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Hoo boyŠ yet another site proclaiming itself the ³most comprehensive travel guide on the World Wide Web.² Unlike self-serving travel agency sites, this one just might qualify. It¹s a plain-vanilla set of pages which lists links to other travel-related sites: very little information is at infohub.com. The links are arranged by country, with colorful image maps to guide you as you bop from continent to continent. I wish I had access to this site while traveling: maybe a cellular modem connected to a PowerBook and hooked directly into my brain. Bliss.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

The Brasil Page
URL: http://charlotte.acns.nwu.edu/rio/brasil.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Here it is, Brasil through the phone line: Brazilian sounds, Brazilian sights, the Portuguese language, Capoeira, and scantily clad women with skin like hot coffee. I just have one question: What ever happened to the Lambada? You know, the Forbidden Dance? Judging from this site ‹ which is just Samba all day long ‹ that other craze went the way of all things. But Samba! They¹re even doing it in Finland. The Finns! What a world.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Park Search
URL: http://www.llbean.com/parksearch/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
L.L. Bean sponsors this site, so it might be time to forgive it for trying to make the populace of this entire country look like it came from Maine. As a trip planner for you outdoorsy types, this is invaluable. The first page gives the option of searching by a park¹s name, which is good if you know where you want to go. Further in is a page to search by park activity, so if you need a place to go canoeing and horse riding, these can be your search criteria.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Scotland Travel Guide
URL: http://www.scotourist.org.uk/stb/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
I think the term ³guide² is pretty ambitious for this site. It¹s a fairly nice-looking site, and it was created by the Scottish Tourist Board, so it¹s got credentials, but it never get around to telling you what¹s there. No hotel, restaurant, or shopping listings. Nothing about the local cuisine, and I didn¹t even see anything about the Loch Ness Monster. There are neat, clickable maps that lead to poetic descriptions of the various regions of Scotland. The first improvement I would make would be to add a bagpipe soundtrack.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

The New V3
URL: http://www.dataflux.bc.ca/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The New V3 is the redesigned site for the city of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and it is huge. I clicked and I clicked until I was tired of clicking. There¹s stuff all over, from British Columbia ferry information, to a whole mini-site about Buchart Gardens, a large, private park in Victoria. Unfortunately, it¹s not very well-organized as a travel site. There are some maps of the area, but they are in the ferry section, and the museum information is pretty sketchy.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

The Russian Chronicles
URL: http://www.f8.com/FP/Russia/index.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
A photojournalistic account of a trip across Russia by train, truck, and car, this site is filled with great pictures of Russian people and cities. The text describes the individual stories of the people the two reporters came across, and the reporters¹ own adventures. Unfortunately, a lot of the stories seem to be missing. There will be a description of an experience, but the link will only lead to a picture. The site is a little slow, also.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Visit to Nepal
URL: http://enigma.phys.utk.edu/~syost/nepal.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
If you¹re planning a tour of Nepal, visit this site before your departure. It¹s an outstanding documentary of a one-month trip, and includes an expenses run-down, guide book info, a 70-page travel journal, and dozens of photographs with accompanying text. The overall layout is dry ‹ standard Netscape gray and prehistoric icon buttons. Still, given the breadth of content, this is a wonderful site.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

European Rail Travel Index
URL: http://www.starnetinc.com/eurorail/railindx.htm
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
It is very sad to look at this site and reflect upon the sorry state of American railroads. If you are going to Europe, however, rail is the only way to travel, and this site will tell you everything you need to know to make your trip trouble free. It is an amazing resource, packed full of detailed, factual information about the European rail network, Eurail passes, rates, trip planning, and much more. Particularly noteworthy is the detailed information about differences in railroads and eurail pass coverage from country to country. Essential reading for anyone Europe bound.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

American Borders Index
URL: http://www.gnn.com/gnn/meta/travel/features/borders/index.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Travelogues are like voyages themselves: they can be brilliant, witty adventures into unknown places or they can be hell, and the difference is often made by the quality of your traveling companions. I¹m pleased to report that Carla King, author of GNN¹s serial ³American Borders,² has created a distinct travelogue of North America, as original as it is well-written. Making her way around the continent on a Russian motorcycle, she reflects on the foreignness of our country and writes up a storm. Lots of photos spice up the tales, but there are virtually no links, even within the text itself.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Inns & Outs: The Bed & Breakfast Source
URL: http://www.innsandouts.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Whether you¹re a corporate executive seeking a secluded nook away from the conference or a budding entrepreneur with dreams of being a hotelier, Inns & Outs has information on about 15,000 bed and breakfasts and inns in North America. By plugging state or province names into a search engine, travelers can retrieve phone numbers and addresses for b & b¹s in that region. Inn owners can benefit from help areas, advertisements selling property or equipment, cookbooks, and a chat forum. Inns & Outs does not include information on hotel/motel chains. The site also includes "Win A Trip!" contests and bed & breakfast book reviews.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Welcome to Masala
URL: http://www.millworks.com/masala.htm
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
A truly *mast mast* (Hindi for ³very cool²) Web site that gives insight into the pop culture and on-line businesses of India. Read about Bollywood, India's answer to Hollywood in Bombay, it¹s hottest movies and rising stars. There¹s an on-line glossary of pop Hindi expressions. Also, listen to tidbits of Punjabi beats that have become the rave of *desi* (native Indian) clubheads in London. A section called Saffron details Indian on-line businesses and companies seeking global business connections. There are also links to Calcutta's "intellectual, romantic and night-life.² All this and some garam-garam ("Hot! as in really HOT!!!") recipes make the site complete.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Travels with Samantha
URL: http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/samantha/index.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Phil Greenspun is one of those people who you're going to love to hate. A computer nerd who teaches and advises electrical engineering and computer science undergraduates, he also travels extensively, takes magnificent photographs, and writes with flair. His Travels with Samantha Web site is an on-line account of the summer he spent traveling throughout North America. There story has beautiful women, fighting bears, francophone Canadians, Harley-riding North Dakotans, flood survivors, and people with AIDS. Interestingly, Greenspan's home page begins with others¹ criticism of his writing and ³poor attempt to reflect America.²
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Travel Org
URL: http://travel.org
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
A commercial site, this one is actually pretty useful and worth a look. At logon, the viewer is presented with graphic buttons for ten or so regions in the world, plus a list of travel agencies and airlines (the commercial part). Each region is split up by country. Having landed in a destination, one has the option of reading accounts on various expeditions, perusing a photo journal, viewing demographic information, or linking to an updated satellite weather map. The agencies are listed alphabetically with little information as to what they offer. But, overall, not a bad place to start when the cabin fever rises.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

No Shitting in the Toilet
URL: http://www.magna.com.au/~nglobe/nsitt/contents.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
A self-declared ³celebration of everything that is perverse about travel,² this site will be a favorite with veteran travelers everywhere, right down to the scatological title. After all, what traveler hasn¹t suffered bathroom mortifications to the point where it no longer seems odd to discuss the subject with perfect strangers? Folks who wouldn¹t have said ³shit² if they¹d had a mouthful prior to traveling are suddenly going on and on about some intestinal crisis that struck them dumb and blind near Delhi. Travel does that to people. I¹m not talking about package tours, you understand, but ,rather, travel of the backpack and flophouse variety; travel on the cheap to what are, let¹s say, sketchy destinations. As such, tourists with no inclination to venture off the beaten path won¹t find much to like at NSITT. It¹ll be about as appealing to them as venison to a vegetarian. Fair enough. More adventurous travelers, however, will find more relevant content here than in a month of Sundays elsewhere on the Web -- and all of it original. The creator of the site is an anonymous Aussie with incurable wanderlust and experience to spare. His observations on travel are wonderfully pithy; he¹s never self-indulgent, and the writing is full of hard-won wisdom and droll one-liners. ³I defy anyone to gaze upon a plate of Ugali,² he writes in a section on swindles, ³and claim that they haven't been ripped off. Even if they got it for free.² His site is no design marvel, but it is clean and consistent, better presented than a good many large, commercial sites. Speaking of which, NSITT even boasts a few advertisements; no small feat, considering the potential for it to offend, what between the title and the icon, a variation on the universal symbol for prohibited behavior. Neither of those things -- the title or the icon -- are gratuitous, I should quickly add. Inspired by an actual sign, hand-painted on a water closet somewhere in China, the title sums up the author¹s notion that ³travel is never as you expect. You end up in situations that defy logical and rational thinking. Yet you end up having a brilliant time, not in spite of these situations, but because of them.² I couldn¹t have said it better myself.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Travel in Washington
URL: http://www.travel-in-wa.com/HOME/WALT_HOME.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Chamber of Commerce type stuff here and a near miss for useful info. There are some ambitious features, like the interactive shockwave map of the state, the opening slide show, and the link to the Washington place names database, but none of it goes very deep and the navigational doesn¹t always make sense. Predictably, there¹s a thick gloss on subjects like unemployment of environmental degradation. This bit is from a section entitled Native American Heritage and Casinos: ³Despite any injustices experienced by Northwest natives over time, the cultural identities of their tribes have managed to persevere. Today, to our benefit, the people continue to carry on their unique ancestral traditions and rituals.² Bingo anyone?
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Welcome to Jamaica
URL: http://www.jamaicatravel.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
This is the official site of the Jamaica Travel Board, makers of the "Come to Jamaica and Feel All Right" campaign. Despite some nasty typos, it is a good resource with nicely designed pages and intuitive menus. You can find information on Jamaican hotels, resorts, and upcoming cultural events so you know when to visit. If you're traveling there, beware! You cannot bring in "dangerous drugs like marijuana". (As if you'd want to smuggle marijuana INTO Jamaica!) The best news? You can get married after just 24 hours in the country! Use the "Marriage Officers" list to find the best places to get hitched quick.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Mexico Connect
URL: http://www.mexconnect.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Going to Mexico? This is the place for you. This is Mexico, the happy place for tourists, business travelers, and people wanting to move South of the Border. There¹s lots of no-nonsense travel advice, and a Virtual Visit area (for selected areas only) so you can click and travel rather than actually go. For the business user, get the facts on NAFTA, government agencies and lots more. In the FAQ section, find out about the dreaded Montezuma's Revenge thing or get answers to such classic questions as "I am allergic to chickens - can I take the bus?"
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Central Park
URL: http://www.centralpark.org/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
The Central Park site is as close as you can get to this historic center without actually being there. Take a guided tour, check up on the myriad groups operating within the park, and learn its history: You might be curious to know that its creation caused considerable controversy. Expansion in 1863 required displacing roughly 1,600 residents and saw the downfall of Seneca Village, which had been one of the city's most stable African-American settlements. This is a useful way to tour the park if you're too far away or far too nervous to do the real thing. E.S. C-2, A-3, T-2.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Web Surfer Travel Journal
URL: http://edge.edge.net/~dphillip/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This densely packed and well-linked zine combines just about every travel resource you can think of with interviews and some darn good writing. Dan Phillip, editor/publisher, is a twenty-year exotic travel veteran with lots of good stories of his own. He's collected a slew of travelogues and tales from other wanderers, useful travel guides (check out Lonely Planet), maps, exploration outfits, and travel magazines. The Web Surfer Travel Journal is a dangerous place for those of us with itchy feet; if you haven't been bitten by the bug before you visit, you're sure catch it while you're here.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Vagabond Monthly
URL: http://www2.globaldialog.com/~tpatmaho/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
If you're in the market for some great travel stories, tales of the tortured and amused, head for Vagabond Monthly. There you¹ll be entertained by confessions of urban campers, spiritual quests to Bakersfield, monkey's caught in trees in Barbados, and an ode to Greyhound. Written with good humor throughout, Vagabond Monthly revels in the tragicomedy of travel. Even the letters page is a good read. Links to a site called Flifo, a great resource for low airfares. If you've got a travel story to tell, this is the place; otherwise, sit back and enjoy these strange but true yarns from the road.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Safe Return
URL: http://www.mdtv.com/safe.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Latest breaking news on travel risks, including revolutions, natural disasters and terrorist dangers. Unfortunately, most of this info can only be accessed by Safe Return members. One day of online information in members-only areas will cost you $9.95. For free, you can get Red and Yellow safety alerts for most countries. For a fee, you get access to in-depth Country Reports, which detail every imaginable aspect of health and safety in the country of your choice. With so much free travel info on the Web, however, Safe Return¹s daily fees seem a bit steep.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Pitcairn Island Home Page
URL: http://www.wavefront.com:80/~pjlareau/pitc1.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
What do the Mutiny on the Bounty and Pitcairn Island have in common? Well Pitcairn was settled by the Fletcher Christian party, once they¹d taken their leave of Captain Bligh: ³The British mutineers and their Tahitian wives/allies occupied Pitcairn Island as their new home because it lay some 200 miles from its charted position, was uninhabited, and could support a small settlement.² There are 50 people on Pitcairn today, all ancestors of six Bounty mutineers, but for such a small population, this site is packed with info on daily life, photos, and articles about the Island. Learn Pitcairn Patois (Tahitian and English), read ³Bloodless Genocide,² a very interesting history of Pitcairn and nearby islands, and browse the Pitcairn Virtual Shopping Mall. Very interesting and informative.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

On Safari
URL: http://www2.onsafari.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Ever hear of a Safari sanctioned by Green Peace and the Jane Goodall Institute? On Safari puts a new twist on the old Hemingway-style lion hunts and bongo shoots. Here, you can find out about photographic and cultural safaris, bird watching, mountain climbing, canoeing, ballooning, or game watching safaris. And, by the sounds of it, if you want to experience Africa¹s unique wilderness, you¹d better hurry: ³During the past twenty-five years man has destroyed much of the wildlife which has roamed the African plains for over 2 million years.² These trips don¹t come cheap, mind you, so if you¹d like to follow the Wildebeest migration or climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, start saving now.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

American Borders Index
URL: http://www.gnn.com/gnn/meta/travel/features/borders/index.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Travelogues are like voyages themselves: they can be brilliant, witty adventures into unknown places or they can be hell, and the difference is often made by the quality of your traveling companions. I¹m pleased to report that Carla King, author of GNN¹s serial ³American Borders,² has created a distinct travelogue of North America, as original as it is well-written. Making her way around the continent on a Russian motorcycle, she reflects on the foreignness of our country and writes up a storm. Lots of photos spice up the tales, but there are virtually no links, even within the text itself.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Healthy Flying
URL: http://www.maui.net/diana/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Flight discomfort is caused by more than just a fear of the plane crashing into the mountains and leaving your remains a charred, indistinguishable heap. Former flight attendant Diana Fairechild has documented why flying is uncomfortable in her book, Jet Smart, much of which is available in ³quick tip² form via her Web page. There¹s a neat bit of animation on the first page, but the focus here is on the content ‹ be sure to read about the ³Full utilization of air,² and how pilots can change the amount of air passengers breathe. Scaaaary.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Boat To Bolivia
URL: http://www.londonmall.co.uk/conway/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
With a title like ³Boat to Bolivia,² I expected swashbuckling adventure ‹ or, at least., adventurous writing. Sad to say, Tracy Morris is no adventurer, and her writing is about as thrilling as your cousin¹s slide show. (³This is me in front of the houseŠ this is me in back of the houseŠ²). She relates the story of two middle-class Brits making their way around the Americas, eventually to (you guessed it!) Bolivia. Expect a slow server and scanned postcards for graphics. The spelling and grammar are good, though.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

INNroads
URL: http://www.on-the-net.com/inns/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
The bed and breakfast fad has continued unabated for almost a decade and shows no signs of fading. It is no surprise then that fans of this cottage industry should have arrived on the Web. This page offers a guide to inns and bed & breakfasts throughout much of the U.S. Arranged by locale, a comprehensive survey of each outlet is presented, including rates, special dates and events, and an overview of facilities. This is a no-frills site, with sparse graphics and a direct user interface; as the underlying database of inns grows, the usefulness of the site will increase accordingly.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

The Adventure Shop
URL: http://www.ashop.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This site will appeal to anyone who has ever wanted to climb a mountain or explore a coral reef. The adventure shop offers the low-down on adventures of every sort, whether they be air, land, or water based. Just a few minutes of surfing this page is guaranteed to reveal some kooky, off-the-wall challenge you never imagined anyone would be daring ‹ or foolish ‹ enough to try. Rates and contact information are offered for each of the packages, of course, and tasteful graphics serve to further whet the appetite. Those who can afford such hobbies ‹ as well as those who can only dream ‹ will all appreciate this space.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

The Civilized Explorer
URL: http://www.crl.com/~philip/home.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This is the home page for the Civilized Explorer, a movement for those who believe vacations are meant to be peaceful. Arguing that free time should be spent wandering about and relaxing, not rappelling down cliffs or diving beneath coral reefs, the Civilized Explorer offer tips and suggestions for the more reflective among us: profiles of quiet spots on the map worth exploring, tips for filling the time, and more. A sly sense of humor imbues throughout, and the visitor leaves with the suspicion that these people may very well be onto something. Nicely arranged and tastefully presented, the traveler ‹ not tourist ‹ may appreciate this space.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Air France
URL: http://www.airfrance.fr/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The Concord, Air France¹s aging flagship, is featured prominently in this online equivalent of a corporate brochure. There¹s a brief history of the SST here with just a soupcon of the old Gaulist trademark, false pride. Another section is devoted in a cursory fashion to traveller¹s health concerns. There is no route, schedule, or fare information. While some sections are bilingual, others, like the new Concorde, le livre, are exclusively in French. And while the overall appearance of the site is nice enough, hot buttons did not necessarily reside on icons but oftentimes lingered out in the margins somewhere, aloof.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

The International Study and Travel Center
URL: http://www.isp.acad.umn.edu/istc/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The ITSC is a non-profit organization specializing in budget travel for students. Located at the University of Minnesota, some of the site¹s features are primarily geared to resident Gophers, as with the information regarding the ITSC¹s actual, physical library. There is, however, a virtual library as well. Travel magazines are available in Gopher format and there (appropriately) are numerous links to send you to many other online resources. A good place to get started planning for a semester abroad.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Ultimate World
URL: http://www.ultimatew.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The name here is a little misleading. Clicking South on the signpost doesn¹t get you to Tierra del Fuego or even Tijuana. It takes you to Dixie (you know, away down South). There is a search engine of limited usefulness; it only deals with major cities, and its restaurant and hotel listings are geared to those on expense accounts. What does it do? I haven¹t really figured that out yet.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

United Airlines Flight Center
URL: http://www.ualfltctr.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
If you¹re looking for United Airlines flight information this is not the place. You want http://www.ual.com/. This site is for those flight sim fans who want to try the real flight simulator (pardon the oxymoron) like the one the big people learn on. That¹s right, for about 500 bucks an hour, you can ³fly² the training simulator at United¹s flight center in Denver, Colorado. Oh boy, oh boy. And, hey, maybe on the flight home from Denver you can talk the flight officer into handing over the controls for a spell, let you take her for a couple of barrel rolls er somethin.¹
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Discover The Keys
URL: http://fla-keys.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
A tourism site for the Florida keys, this site has extensive information about Key West, Key Largo, etc. Each set of Keys has its own section of accommodation and shopping listings, history, and various relevant information. Although this is a graphically inclined site, I didn¹t particularly care for the colors and backgrounds used. There are times when you¹re sorry you can view all the HTML extensions. The site could have also used maps of the Keys, as maps are one of the great pleasures of planning trips.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

SF Off the beaten trail
URL: http://cyberE.creative.net/~brackish/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Ah, San Francisco, my favorite city. The home page suggests this is ³An Alternative Guide For The San Francisco Tourist,² so of course I have to inspect it, because I know The City. And, apparently the creator of this site does, too, although s/he hasn¹t done a very good job of communicating this knowledge via the Web. The neighborhood listings are unfortunately short and a little bit narrow in their view. The bar and club listings aren¹t very well contextualized, and most lack description.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Morocco
URL: http://infoweb.magi.com/~morocco/morocco.html?15,9
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
A good site for the virtual traveler, or those interested in general information without practical details of how to survive there. The home page has a graphic of the flag, followed by a description of the geography. Then there are links to history, people, handicrafts, etc., which are all a little haphazard, somewhat like an elementary school report on a country. O.K., it¹s a little more detailed than that. I think I found the food section the most interesting.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Tom's Virtual Vacation
URL: http://tjwww.stanford.edu/vacation/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This is the singular account of two dudes¹ collective odyssey across these great United States ‹ complete with an image map that allows you to easily track their 10-day trip. ³Odyssey² may be too strong of a word to use, considering that the duo¹s obstacles were problems like trying to find a motel room for the night. I¹m afraid the writing is dull and witless‹ umm, I mean technically oriented. You¹ll find a lot of thrilling information on interstate highways.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

The Rough Guide
URL: http://www.hotwired.com/rough/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Here¹s an excellent , very cool start for independent travel and adventure info: Rough Guides, a well-known travel publisher, has joined forces with Hotwired to offer a friendly Web umbrella over a host of their titles. You can browse their catalog, of course; you can also read selections of interest from numerous titles. These selections have links to RG¹s recommended hotels, restaurants, clubs, and so on. You can also link from here to RG phrasebooks, other travel sites of note, their women¹s page or a disabled travel anthology. The tone is low-key, the design is handsome, and the site is just plain good. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Fodor's Travel
URL: http://www.ypn.com/travel/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Get in travel mode by browsing Fodor¹s, which offers a good metapage of online resources that mirror the Net.Travel book published by Fodor¹s Michael Wolff. All the links and listings cover much of the same material: newsgroups, web sites, email newsletters covering most of the globe. (Not surprisingly, this US-centric guide lists the fewest resources for Africa, and the most for Western Europe.) There is a theme travel section that includes info on ³bizarre tours² as well as golf, skiing, fishing, gay, and gambling vacation packages.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Jerusalem Mosaic
URL: http://www1.huji.ac.il/jeru/jerusalem.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
A little dry in terms of presentation, this site is nevertheless full of interesting information -- mostly historical material on what may be the most consecrated spot on Earth. Navigable by timeline, from the First Temple period to the current State of Israel, each era can be explored at some length, with close-ups on costumes and personalities, even recipes from bygone eras. Regrettably, all of it suffers from a lackluster design and writing that will remind folks of nothing so much as junior high World Civ.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Cambodia
URL: http://www.cambodia.org
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Despite being relatively low-tech, this site is a valuable resource, providing an extensive, if not exhaustive, set of links related to Cambodia. Read US. Embassy postings, find out the proper way to sneak across the Thai border, visit the Digital Archive of the Cambodian Holocaust, download Cambodian fonts, or search the Columbia University database of rare Asian books. The possibilities are endless; unfortunately, on my visit, so was the waiting.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Global Passage netStop
URL: http://www.globalpassage.com/netstop/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Global Passage netStop is biting off a pretty big piece to chew in attempting to provide travel information for the entire world. With so many travel sites out there, it's a question of where prospective travelers want to invest their Internet time. Still, this site is worth a visit *if*: you are traveling to Australia, New Zealand or Thailand; *and/or* you want to live vicariously through the travelogues and photos of other travelers. For other destinations, there are many more comprehensive sites on specific cities, regions, and countries. C-2 A-2 T-2
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Tonga Online
URL: http://www.netstorage.com/kami/tonga/tstonga.htm
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
"Where the Hell is Tonga?" this site asks. For the geographically uninformed a detailed map of the South Pacific tells you exactly where it is. In fact you can get all your Tongan questions answered here. There is information on history, culture and yes, travel. Meet other Tongans on the net, too. Overall, there isn't much depth here, but the scarcity of Tongan web sites makes this a valuable resource for those interested. In all, this one has the feel of a work in progress: lots of potential.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Taiwan
URL: http://www.taipei.org/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
The recent climate in Taiwan (a.k.a. the Republic of China) makes for very politically oriented site. Still, there¹s all kinds of information here, brought to you by the New York branch of the Taipei Economic And Cultural Office. You can get news in Chinese and English in (unfortunately) zipped format, meaning you have to download. Of course, you also need the proper fonts installed on your system to read the news in Chinese.) There¹s also information on Taiwanese cultural activities taking place in N.Y. And for the politically engaged, there¹s news about the election in early 1996 and the full text of the inaugural speech by President Lee Teng-hui.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Ghost Town of the Month
URL: http://www.public.asu.edu/~wmogan/ghost.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
If you happen to find yourself in the Arizona desert with time on your hands, you'll be glad you consulted Mike's Ghost Town of the Month page. This site highlights 19 crumbling relics of the Gold Rush, providing photos, exact coordinates, and detailed directions. If you are out of the Arizona area, this page provides a brief but telling description of Arizona boomtown history, with enough photographs to make you feel like you've almost been there. Afterwards, you can look through Mike's personal photo album and watch as he and his intrepid buddies rappel down rock faces, fondle firearms, and rescue boy scouts.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Homer, Alaska
URL: http://akms.com/htguide/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Homer, Alaska, the halibut capital of the world, was named after a '49'er who helped settle the town. Homer's web site is a recreation and tourism guide for this Kachemak Bay town, "where the road ends, and the sea begins." There's more to do in Homer than you might suspect: The Homer Jackpot Halibut Derby, clamming, kayaking, hiking, sailing, and all of this in an area that combines Eskimo, Dena'ina Indian, and Russian history. Don't worry if you can't make it all the way to Alaska; this web site is a worthwhile read on its own.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

WebFlyer
URL: http://www.insideflyer.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
WebFlyer is geared to frequent flyers: how to get more miles and how to use them. This zine is the online synthesis of Frequent Flyer Services (FFS), a company that conceives, develops, and markets products and services for frequent travelers. Randy Peterson, a "frequent flyer guru," shares a host of mile-earning programs with you and includes reviews to make the choice easier. InfoFlyer lets you sign up with whatever service you choose while online. The site is repetitive graphically, and not too exciting textually, but if you're flummoxed by the world of amassed mileage, it's is worth a visit.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

MCW International Travelers Clinic
URL: http://www.intmed.mcw.edu/travel.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
The MCW International Travelers Clinic is a bankload of information, providing links to all manner of international health organizations and bulletins: U.S. State Dept. travel warnings, W.H.O. info, and even the C.I.A World Factbook. When you're dealing with the down and dirty of your life in a foreign locale, you may just need answers to questions like: Where can I turn if I get beriberi? Links like resources to The Moon Travel Handbook couold help you stay healthy in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and Travel Health Online provides country profiles and locates travel medicine providers. A great resource for travelers and health curious stay-at-homes alike.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Go Europe.com
URL: http://www.goeurope.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
If you're looking for help planning a trip to The Continent, welcome to Go Europe.com, brought to you by the European Travel Commission. With a comprehensive and searchable Events Calendar you can plan your trip around seasonal happenings, or hear from folks who've been there and back; ask questions and swap photos in the Travelers Forum; get the specs on the 26 member countries of the European Travel Commission in Gateway to Europe. Though not aimed at the budget traveler and lacking accommodation listings, Go Europe.com is useful in providing background information and a general orientation to most European destinations (Russian travelers look elsewhere).
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Tibet Online Resource Gathering
URL: http://www.tibet.org
Category: Travel
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
For those not familiar with the situation in Tibet, this site offers a good overview of politics, current events, and cultural influences which have led up to the current political situation (i.e. Chinese occupation and subjugation of Tibet and its people). The site is a well-organized collection of links and feature articles that offer those interested an hour or so of relatively easy, informative reading. You can also take a more active role by e-mailing your representatives and voicing your opinion about the Chinese occupation as well as their recent detainment of the Panchen Lama, Tibet's second most important religious figure.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Boswell's Travels
URL: http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/jbb
Category: Travel
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
If *Trainspotting turned you off on the idea of a visit to Scotland, Boswell's Travels will turn you back on. This charming Web site, maintained by John Boyd-Brent, is a compilation of photographs, water colors, history, philosophy, and travel information about Scotland. Photographs of fog-enshrouded lochs and gently rolling hills evoke the distant sound of bagpipes; visions of urban blight and nationwide employment are left far behind. Boswell's Travels is a bit cutesy for my taste, with perky descriptions of Scotland from a terrier's‹yes, a terrier¹s‹point of view, but the HolidayNet section has excellent descriptions of unusual holiday accommodations (castles, charming cottages, etc.) for those planning a visit.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Web Travel Review - Australia and New Zealand
URL: http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/nz
Category: Travel
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Compiled by one lone traveler, these trekking tales are a good read and will make you anxious to don hiking boots and head to Aukland. The focus here is much more on New Zealand, finally, with links to related sites including Mountain Biking Through New Zealand, excerpts from New Zealand Handbook, and a short history of the country. Check out photos and journal entries as well as in-depth pieces covering all sorts of adventures and characters, including takes from the Great Barrier Reef, The Flying Kiwi Tour, and ³17 days with 17 Germans.² Part of the larger Web Travel Review.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Have Toothbrush Will Travel
URL: http://www.globalpassage.com/netstop/storyboard/have_toothbrush/home.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
If travel writer Rick Steves embodies the American spirit in traveling ‹ fun, easygoing, out for a respectful good time ‹ then Simon Rowe is his Australian counterpart. From him, you¹ll learn as much about Australian culture as you will about his his destinations. He¹s brash, opinionated, a bit obnoxiousŠ and he writes a lot. The site has about a dozen tastes of his writing, but it mostly serves as a way for him to market his sixty-odd stories to interested publications: he also does travel photography which is, sadly, not displayed here.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Hong Kong Home Page
URL: http://www.hongkong.org/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This very complete guide to Hong Kong has a specific section for travel and tourism, but there¹s also plenty of other information for the virtual traveler, including history, government information, business and economy, etc. The tourism information is pretty good, including a section on shopping that lists the kinds of products you might want to buy in Hong Kong, along with advisories on shopping strategies.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Parks home page
URL: http://www.awinc.com/users/ewilliam/parks.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
An independent effort to provide information about a couple of parks in British Columbia, this site has content that¹s a little brief and a perspective that¹s too narrow, but the design is really good. The graphic design, at least. The site has a 211K GIF of Bowron Lake Park and a 207K GIF of Murtle Lake in Wells Gray Park, which are both a little unwieldy for my tiny computer screen. Strangely enough, certain parts of the site have German translation.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Turtle Expedition
URL: http://www.4x44u.com/pub/k2/am4x44u/whats_new/turtle.htm
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This is the fairly interesting ongoing reportage of a couple¹s road trip across Russia. Our protagonists have, for the last 20 years, driven beefy trucks through the world¹s most remote regions. Reports of their trips have regularly appeared in *4x4 Magazine*, and now the Russia trip is accessible online. As of this writing, the last update to their trip was from October. Did Russia conquer this intrepid couple?
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Alaska¹s Kenai Peninsula Resources
URL: http://www.ptialaska.net/~kenaipen/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
A man sits in a small room in Alaska. Having heard the Web is where it¹s at, and possessing a little techno-smartness, he decides the way to make his Alaskan fortune is to start a local business directory and charge business $15/month to be listed. Three months later few businesses have signed up and in desperation he pleads with them on his Web site, even trying to enlist the community for help. All to no avail, the Web has just not caught on with businesses in southern Alaska. So he sits at his computer, hoping the phone will ring. I hope it will too.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Slowwwenia
URL: http://www.ijs.si/slo/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Part of the former Yugoslavia, Zagreb lies just off its Eastern border. Despite the ominous proximity of its war-torn neighbors, this Slovenian home page projects a sunny disposition, with a whimsical cartoon chicken and egg motif. The site is not so much a travel bureau site as it is a site for all things Slovenian. As such, much of the site is in the Slovenian language only, including the ³top secret² section devoted to erotica. To get your bearings go to the interactive map of the country, but don¹t expect to be floored by the links. Things are still a little rudimentary here.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Staten Island Online
URL: http://www.walrus.com/~smithj/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
A less-than-enthusiastic site, Staten Island Online is more of a sales pitch for site designer Johnathon Mark Smith's Internet consulting and Web designing business than it is an informational spot for the borough. There are a few local ads, train and ferry schedules, and links to weather forecasts. Don¹t expect to learn about Richmond County's history or people here though. In fact, those interested in JavaScript may more find more of interest here than folks curious about Staten Island. There are a number of book reviews and chat areas on the subject, though the site itself does not make effective use of it.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Green Tortoise
URL: http://www.greentortoise.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Beautiful Places at Bargain Prices aboard Sleeper Coaches with Fun People! So reads the ebullient text under the logo banner. Bout says it all, I¹d say. But although well known in certain circles up and down the West Coast, the Green Tortoise probably draws a blank in most parts. So if your curious, go here for the quick and dirty run-down of the Greyhound alternative¹s package tours -- prices, schedules, dates and contact numbers are all in place at this no-nonsense Web site. Read the ³Why Green Tortoise?² bit, then the ³Why Not Green Tortoise?² to decide whether or not it¹s for you.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Hit the Beach
URL: http://www.hitthebeach.com/main.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Even if done well, it's difficult to imagine a web site serving as even a poor substitute for a fresh ocean breeze, a swim in the surf, or just digging naked toes into hot sand. Hit The Beach attempts to provide a forum for ocean lovers to interact with each other in a virtual beach type atmosphere. Beach Boards features posted messages on a variety of provocative and thought-provoking subjects like Naked Women on the Beach. The Swim Suit Shot of the Week highlights, you guessed it, a women in a tiny bikini. I wouldn't advise diving here-the water's pretty shallow.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

California Travel Parks Association
URL: http://www.campgrounds.com/ctpa/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Primarily a home base for members of the CTPA, most of whom are campground or RV park owners, this site lets you find any campground in the west (whose owner is a member). Click on the tag for California, Nevada, or Oregon, and you can search by region, city name, campground name, accommodations, etc. Since there are 500 listings, chances are you'll find the place you're looking for. If you're a member of the CTPA, the Professional Services page puts you in touch with all the other members. The site is not much to look at, but it will help you get to places that offer a more impressive view.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

European Rail Travel Index
URL: http://www.starnetinc.com/eurorail/railindx.htm
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
It is very sad to look at this site and reflect upon the sorry state of American railroads. If you are going to Europe, however, rail is the only way to travel, and this site will tell you everything you need to know to make your trip trouble free. It is an amazing resource, packed full of detailed, factual information about the European rail network, Eurail passes, rates, trip planning, and much more. Particularly noteworthy is the detailed information about differences in railroads and eurail pass coverage from country to country. Essential reading for anyone Europe bound.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

TALES: Visit California
URL: http://www.tales.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
You¹re better off visiting a bookstore to find California than you are visiting this site, which is a mighty poor display of the state¹s tourist outlets, retail shops, and historical snapshots. When I checked, many of the links didn¹t work, and there were scant listings for cities and services. The best part is the colorful image-map of the state on the top level, which does work. But once you¹re searching for city names, stores, or sights to see, there¹s not much there.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

Wine Country Review
URL: http://felix.scvnet.com/~jkolesar/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
What ever happened to the Dionysian debaucheries once associated with the grape? Whence all this hoity-toity stuff, the quaint sipping tours of the vineyards? Rhetorical musings aside, I didn¹t find much to like here. The graphics looked like they were scanned through gauze. A good deal of the text is in a shade approaching hot pink and is full of that wine critic cant: ³The 1993 Chardonnay has a medium to light straw color with aromas of butterscotch, light vanilla, citrus and poached pears. On the palate its flavors are hints of red delicious apples, vanilla and inklings of grapefruit.² Uh-huh.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

the Tantalizing Texas Thangs site
URL: http://www.intertex.net/tttt Travel
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Larry McMurtry, where are you when we need you? What we have here is a goofy effort at stream of consciousness on the part of (my guess) a bored, sticky travel agent in Dallas staring across the room at a dog-eared tourist poster; drawing a blank, she calls her boyfriend, Jerry Jeff, for inspiration. He free-associates a list of terms vaguely associated with Texas, which she then types, alphabetically, onto the TTT page. The only use of HTML are some Bar-B-Que links. Call this a Web page? I dont think so, Sue Ellen.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

New York City Smart Guide
URL: http://www.nycsmartguide.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Quite a few billboards dot the otherwise sparse (and gray) table of contents at the NYC Smart Guide. Big ad accounts, too -- everything from Aeroflot and Beck¹s Beer to Proctor and Gamble. There are even more Under Construction signs. Those things notwithstanding, the site provides a pretty serviceable index of maps covering the Big Apple. Not all the boroughs are represented, however, and while there¹s a points-of-interest listing, the entries there are not linked to the maps. Navigation throughout the site is a little confusing, and there¹s no background information of the sort you might expect; that is, no history, no recommendations, no ratings. So, what¹s the use?
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

The Ruins at Nan Madol
URL: http://taylor.scra.org/nanmadol/nanmadol.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Though this sounds like another adventure game title, The Ruins at Nan Madol refers to "one of archaeology's best kept secrets" -- an intriguing little equatorial island in the Micronesian group. The focus is on uniquely built structures, left hundreds of years ago by an obscure people known as the Saudeleurs. The buildings are constructed from pillars of crystalline basaltic rock, each one weighing tons. The text reads a bit like a "What I did on holiday..." essay, and is rife with embarrassing spelling errors (from a teacher, no less). Check out the photos of 3 inch cockroaches and footlong centipedes for a wriggly thrill.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

Bus Plunge!
URL: http://www.users.interport.net/~tcs/index.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Have you ever peered out the window of some ancient bus careening along on some sketchy backwater road to see the skeletal hull of an identical vehicle upended in the chasm beneath you? If so, the phrase "bus plunge" will have real significance to you. This page chronicles the all too mundane occurrence of this world-wide catastrophe. It's hard to say whether the authors are acting more out of civic duty, xenophobic dread, or just macabre fascination (one suspects the latter). No gory GIFs, though, just the raw news text, cataloged for perusal.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

The Bahamas
URL: http://microstate.com/bahamas/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
They bill themselves as "The First Bahamas Web Site!" Let¹s hope it¹s not the best. The tone here is dry as a bone, acting more as a glorified database than a relevant travel resource. It has scant images, links to Gopher sites that didn¹t work when I tried them, and outdated travel info. For Bahamian trivia and dull overviews it¹s not bad, but for real Bahamian insight and spirit, look elsewhere.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

Internet Way Homepage
URL: http://www.iway.fr/internet-way/uk/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
It takes a few minutes of wandering to realize that Internet Way is an Internet Service Provider in France, offering access, Web design, and the usual blah blah blah. But there are a few unusual nuggets here of use to the traveler: Take a gander at the ³Virtual Champs-Elysées,² which lets you walk in the door of dozens of companies located along that famous street. There¹s lots of stuff here about France in general, although the depth of info in this section is disappointing when compared to the Champs-Elysées area. But all in all, c¹est magnifique!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

London Calling Internet
URL: http://www.demon.co.uk/london-calling/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Dribs and drabs, odds and ends -- that¹s London Calling Internet for you. After wading through some heavy marketese up front, you¹ll find a hodgepodge of theatre, movie, music reviews and listings -- reasonably current ones -- but with nary an address or schedule in case you actually wanted to catch the show. There are gossipy newsbits about the London scene, but these aren¹t dated (nor are sources cited). A few London shops and community organizations are grouped together, but not compellingly enough to make you want to return. C¹mon, sweeties, this is too far from ab fab.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

In Italy
URL: http://www.lainet.com/~initaly/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Confusing organization keeps this page from being very useful. The nice-looking, well-meaning folks who assembled it have put stuff for sell (villa rentals, tours, cooking schools) next to (undated) journal entries next to travel advisories on exchange rates and weather. The regional festival listings are hard to read. The best part of the whole site are the links to other Italy sites, including chat rooms, regional info, business pages, and even Italian web servers. Go straight there (http://www.lainet.com/~initaly/itonweb/links.htm) and skip the rest.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

South America Explorer's Club
URL: http://www.samexplo.org/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Amongst itinerants on the rucksack travel circuit, the South American Explorer's Club is a well-known haven. There you¹ll find the cumulative wisdom of scores of knowing backpackers collected by the notebook-full -- accounts of Andean adventures, lists of places to sleep, eat, teach, and study, plus information on trail conditions, guides and local lore. I don¹t know,...maybe this well-grounded, hands-on approach doesn¹t translate so well to the digital mode, as the site is despairingly short on content and graphically sparse. In place of HTML links, you get addresses for SAEC offices in Quito, Lima and Ithaca (?!). I hope they beef this site up; the club deserves a better Net presence.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

Onward
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/onward/home.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Did you keep a travel diary on your last vacation? Do you find yourself wanting to share it with the world? Tell it here and share it with the millions on the net. Well, okay, ... maybe not at this site. It has a stale, under-used look and very few stories indexed against default gray. In fact, there isn't much here except a few external links and some in-house travel diaries in plain text. You might try ³Remembering Jack² by Phillip Reilly for a good sample; it¹s the well-told tale of a crosscountry Kerouac pilgrimage. Other than that, ... the invitation to send in stories and diaries still stands if anyone¹s interested.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

American Airlines
URL: http://www.amrcorp.com/aa_home/aa_home.htm
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Now we know what all those flight attendants do when they¹re not serving drinks and emptying barf bags: They¹re writing HTML code. That¹s the only way American could have produced such a mammoth site, with pages on more than 50 subjects such as flight schedules, fleet composition, and corporate structure. Unfortunately, AA¹s most useful wing ‹ the online ticket-booking service known as Sabre ‹ isn¹t directly accessible via the Web site.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 11

Web Travel Review
URL: http://webtravel.org/webtravel/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Philip Greenspun offers a good deal more than a ³we-went-here-and-we-did-this² report: There are travel tips, colorful photos, side stories ‹ like the fascinating tale of a criminal auto-repair shop ‹ and lots of downright good writing. In the end, that¹s what sets this site apart from other, more self-indulgent travelogues: The professional level of the text and photos makes this site a special, moving experience. But what¹s this guy doing studying artificial intelligence at MIT? Condé Nast, sign him up!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 11

Alaska¹s Kenai Peninsula Resources
URL: http://www.ptialaska.net/~kenaipen/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
A man sits in a small room in Alaska. Having heard the Web is where it¹s at, and possessing a little techno-smartness, he decides the way to make his Alaskan fortune is to start a local business directory and charge business $15/month to be listed. Three months later few businesses have signed up and in desperation he pleads with them on his Web site, even trying to enlist the community for help. All to no avail, the Web has just not caught on with businesses in southern Alaska. So he sits at his computer, hoping the phone will ring. I hope it will too.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

Guyana Gateway
URL: http://www.surinam.net/guyana/guyana.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Guyana is best known to U.S. residents for the religion-centered mass murders in what is commonly known as ³Jonestown.² But then again, we¹re not the best political/geography students in the world, are we? The Guyana Gateway is a good place to increase your I.Q. about this small Latin American country, located in a wedge between Venezuela, Brazil, Surname and the Atlantic Ocean. It also sports one of the best uses of frames I¹ve seen to date: visit it with a frame-capable browser, such as Netscape 2.0 or later (but try to ignore the ubiquitous ³blink² tags, if you can).
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

Life Following the Dead
URL: http://www.rox.com/quarry/NUVO/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
I¹ve had a fantasy of collecting all my old letters, souvenirs, photos, diaries and tape recordings to definitively archive my life on a Web site. A full life is perhaps too ambitious to fully document, but how about a road trip? That¹s what Joe Nickell has done, transcribing copious notes of his adventures riding a Magic Bus, following the Grateful Dead. What makes this site great is the minutiae he captured in sound and imagery. Example: You not only read, ³Marty curses loudly,² you also get to hear him. Awesome.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

Rec.Travel Library: Worldwide Travel and Tourism
URL: http://Alpha.So lutions.Net/rec-travel/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Newsgroups often have stewards who are kind and organized enough to encapsulate community wisdom in a relevant FAQ file, but few boast the riches that Internet Solutions has archived for this Web-based rec.travel.* hierarchy. Besides the usual FAQs, it¹s chock-full of information on lodging, travel, places to go, and things to do. Unlike commercial travel sites, this one¹s not stingy when it comes to linking outside sources: Thousands of them are spread throughout literally hundreds of useful pages. If you don¹t find what you need there, check out the rec.travel.* newsgroup archives. And it¹s all searchable. For its friendliness and its depth, this is one of the best sites I¹ve seen all year.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

Southwest Airlines Home Gate
URL: http://www.iflyswa.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Southwest Airlines is famous for having the funniest ³hold² messages in the travel business: I once called, and heard, ³If you have a touch-tone phone, press eight. It won¹t make us respond faster, but it¹ll make you feel better.² Similarly, its home page has the same sort of small-company irreverence: How many corporate sites do you know of that feature a cartoon flight gate as its main interface? Click on the cash register, and you find ticket information; click on the wall map, and learn about the amenities at Southwest¹s home airports; click on the company president¹s photo, and you getŠ well, you get the photo. Fun and informative. What more could you want?
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

CHINA
URL: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~felsing/cstuff/cshelf.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
This site on China is much, much deeper than any other I¹ve ever seen. Sponsored by the Council on East Asian Libraries, it¹s broken down into areas of interest, such as Art, History, Language, even Gender Issues! Some pages are chock-full of links (the ³Art² area has several dozen), while other areas are a bit shallow. There are similar pages on other major East Asian countries, at http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~felsing/ceal/welcome.html.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 7

The French Travel Gallery & Hotel Reservation Center
URL: http://www.webcom.com/~wta/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
I have an affinity for any site that welcomes you in more than one language. The FTGHRC (gesundheit!) is one such site, offering menus in French, English, and Spanish. Hélas, such multilingualism fades away below the first level or two ‹ quelle dommage. What is there is nicely arranged, though: hotel reservations, boutiques, regional information, and, of course, the obligatory link to the Webmuseum. Unfortunately, the content isn¹t nearly as deep as it should be. And, as with most other hotel reservation systems, this one isn¹t good at finding rooms at less than $50/night. Sigh.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 7

Bridge
URL: http://www.nmt.edu/~bridge/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Now that *Monk* magazine and its imitators have gotten some recognition, on-the-road writers are springing up all over the place. But how many of them get around on bicycles laden with 125 pounds of crap? That¹s what Holly Hughes and George MacLeod have done since 1993, covering more than 35,000 miles, carrying a message of community art to distant towns and writing, writing, writing about it. These folks have real heart, and that¹s what makes this site great. Be sure to check out Holly¹s statue/sculpture of Einstein, made of ballpoint pens, tennis balls and 5-1/4² floppy disks: It¹s great fun, and captures the site¹s spirit perfectly.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 7

U.S State Department Travel Warnings
URL: http://www.stolaf.edu/network/travel-advisories.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
It may seem strange that the official repository of State Department information is at St. Olaf¹s College in Minnesota, but it makes sense when you consider that Travel Advisories have been available through this site since 1991, long before the Internet was used outside of universities. This site remains a prime source of information for international-minded citizens. If you¹re a regular traveler, you¹ll want to subscribe to the mailing list that started it all: simply send an e-mail message that says only ³subscribe² to travel-advisories-request@stolaf.edu, and you¹ll get updates as they¹re released.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

Expotel Home Page
URL: http://www.expotel.co.uk/expotel/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Want to know about hotels in Zimbabwe? Check out Expotel, the world¹s largest hotel and mobile phone reservation system. Well-heeled travelers have quite a selection: seven high-quality tourist hotels in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, for example, with prices ranging from 87 to 290. But 87 to 290 what? This is a typical hole in the site: nowhere does it tell you that prices are in the local currency, in this case guilders. At the time of this writing, the site had lots of hotels listed, but lacked some key information. Keep an eye on it for improvements.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

The Electronic Embassy
URL: http://www.embassy.org/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
The Electronic Embassy reminds me of a bank lobby: lots of space, nice marble and brass fittings, and people in business clothes, but there isn¹t much you can do there. It¹s a program of TeleDiplomacy (a non-governmental organization) to serve the ³diplomatic community² in Washington, D.C. As such, it has some good, basic information. But most pages eventually recommend that you call the appropriate parties. Like, by phone, man. But I¹m glad it¹s here: it¹s an evenhanded and nonpolitical way of improving communication among governments. And that ain¹t bad.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

GNN Travelers¹ Center Homepage
URL: http://nearnet.gnn.com/gnn/meta/travel/index.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
The Travelers¹ Center doesn¹t look that rich at first: just a few links to articles and companies. But what makes it exciting is that the articles (actually, first-person travel accounts) are regularly updated, and the companies are off the beaten track. Want to go hiking in Africa? Here, you can book the trip and read stories to prepare you. A drawback: The site¹s organization requires you to click through several screens to find what you want. Don¹t overlook that link at the bottom, which leads to the ³Travel² section of GNN¹s business pages, and more links.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

France Travel Tourism Tours Festivals Studies
URL: http://198.147.102.107:80/francescape/top.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Tourism is big business in France; that¹s why the French Tourism Board in the U.S. is actively promoting its country via all media, including the Internet. This site from that governmental body is full of the kind of language you¹d expect from a P.R. firm. (³This region abounds with treasures...,² etc.) That¹s not to discount it, though: there¹s tourism info (duh), stuff on studying in France, and legal information you¹ll need about visas and such. None of the areas is very deep, but they¹ll get you started. Beware the occasional ghastly color scheme.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

Travel Weekly
URL: http://www.traveler.net/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Is this a commercial site, or just the work of some travel agents with too much time on their hands? The confusion stems from the fact that 1) it¹s really, really well done; 2) it¹s sponsored by a travel industry magazine; 3) you¹ll find no ads, and 4) it features fun, sometimes sarcastic writing. So what¹s to dislike? The site¹s accessibility, that¹s what. Several visits on two separate days brought up the ³this server isn¹t accepting any more connections² message. Clearly, demand has outstripped supply. If you can get through, though, you¹ll find the biggest set of travel links around. If they¹d fix a few links and beef up the server, this site would rock.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

Travel Source
URL: http://www.travelsource.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Travel guides are popping up all over the Web, each promising to be the biggest, best or otherwise most superlative. Travel Source is no different. This commercial collection of links is supposedly ³The Internet¹s First Interactive Travel Guide.² At first, it seems that its pioneerism has given Travel Source time to build quite a content base, but beneath the 35 categories of travel information (from Wine Tours to Yacht Charters), there are typically fewer than three links per category. Still, what is there is reasonably diverse and interesting, even if it paints an incomplete view of the wide world of travel options.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

Walt Disney World
URL: http://www.travelweb.com/thisco/wdw/wdwhome/wdw.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
If you know Disney, you know that everything it publishes is the epitome of advertising hyperbole. Here you¹ll find the Web version: clean graphics, professional (albeit vapid) copy writing, and endless superlatives, all leveraging the highly bankable images of Mickey Mouse and Pocahoozits. In keeping with Herr Disney¹s vision of a perfectly controlled universe, there are no ‹ count them, zero! ‹ external links. It¹s like visiting the Disney parks: a nightmare of grinning cartoon characters, shiny buildings, clean streets, and no way out. Stay in line, please. Children below this height will not be allowed on this ride. You will be assimilated. Have a nice day.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

Southwest Adventures
URL: http://animas.frontier.net/~swadv/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Does the thought of ice climbing appeal to you? How about mountain kayaking? These activities are the purview of Southwest Adventures, a Colorado firm that arranges outings for those sports which ³can only be enjoyed in the high mountains.² Its products and recommendations are described in exquisite detail, and links connect you to sites and newsgroups of interest to the rugged soul. Despite occasional misspellings (for example, ³inable²), annoying blink tags, and naive page design, Southwest Adventures¹ site does a good job of bringing its offerings to the Net. Durango, ho!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

007 Travel
URL: http://www.omnitravel.com/007travel.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Lots of forms. Lots and lots and lots of forms. That¹s what you¹ll find at the 007 Travel site, which acts mainly as a device for a crafty travel agency to collect information on your travel plans. Want to know the lowest prices on flights to London? Fill out a form. Renting a car overseas? Fill out a form. Need to know where the 007 Travel agency is located? Sorry, you¹re out of luck: That information isn¹t available. You¹ll find some useful information here, such as a list of moderately priced international hotels and restaurants, but otherwise this is a mess of broken links, missing graphics, and mystery. WARNING: Never send your credit card number to a company that doesn¹t give *its* phone number or mailing address.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 4

The Internet Guide to Travel
URL: http://www.guideto.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
With a title like ³The Internet Guide to Travel,² I expected a heck of a lot more. Like, maybe, some information about traveling. But nooooo, all you get is a link to a hotel chain and an airline (apparently, the service¹s only paying customers so far), and a tiny bit of information about Hawaii and Los Angeles. Oh, wait: Neither of those links seem to work. So, I guess there¹s nothing here except for ugly banners, inconsistently done HTML, and an ad to get prospective hotels to pay for listings.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 3