► Blogging About Travel
From Afghanistan and Albania to Zambia and Zimbabwe we’ve got the world covered on TravelNotes.org – The Online Guide to Travel.
Christmas Morn painted by W.C. Bauer is a rural snow-covered scene with couple in horse-drawn sled; bridge in foreground; church in background.
The last Thursday in November is known as Thanksgiving Day and traditionally kicks off the ‘holiday season’ in the United States.
Thanks for Visiting.
Win free hosting for your travel images in our 2016 Travel Photographer of the Year contest. https://t.co/jUm8cPGkNT pic.twitter.com/p9a3vq7puf
— Michel Travel Notes™ (@TravelTweet) November 15, 2015
Yes folks, that’s the prize up for grabs at the end of 2016 in our Travel Photographer of the Year contest; and it’s free to enter!
The theme for Expo 2015 was ‘Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life‘ and included a number of food related clusters where visitors could learn more about food production and the countries providing the natural resources for our tables; seasoned with a large portion of tourist promotion.
There was something of a protest in Milan at the opening of Expo 2015, by a group of anti-austerity activists on May 1st; but then there were the annual May Day protests in Switzerland’s banking centre of Zurich as well, so nothing drastic.
When we visited on a warm, sunny day later that month, everything ran smoothly.
We chose to stay at the Novotel Malpensa; driving there early in the morning from Zurich.
Checked in and parked up, we caught the shuttle bus to Malpensa Airport; for the Malpensa Express, in to Milan.
Getting to the Expo Site from Malpensa, with Trenord, couldn’t be easier; we just followed the signs on the floor when changing at Milano Porta Garibaldi, for Rho Fiera.
Some people started with a plan of which country pavilions they wanted to visit and used the Expo Map to get to where they wanted to go as fast as possible.
Other individuals were happy to explore at a leisurely pace, tasting a little here and a little there, while snapping away on mobile devices and thoughly enjoying their day in the sun.
Then there were those who seemed to join the longest queues and waste away their hours in lines; not really knowing what to make of it all.
‘Of all the gifts with which God has blessed us, water is the greatest. It must be cherished and husbanded’
– His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, Sultan of Oman.
Expo Milano 2015: (May 1st to October 31st)
View the photo gallery of country pavilions if you don’t have time to visit yourself.
Submit your best three travel photographs in our free-to-enter travel photography competition.
The contest is open to anyone with photos hosted on Fine Art America. If you’re not a member, create your own artist website (for free).
Click on the image to print it.
The image(s) you submit to Best Travel Photography may not be altered within a photo editing software program; although cropping is allowed.
That means no cloning anything out of the original image, nor adding anything in; and no HDR enhancements.
We’re looking for travel photographers who know what makes a great shot, not talented photo editors who’ve learned how to digitally manipulate images that didn’t work once the shutter was released.
Our Best Travel Photography contest is sponsored by the Top Travel Pics group.
Voting will be open to the general public but there may be a special prize for an ‘Editor’s Choice’ winner. Details to be announced in the Top Travel Pics discussions.
To win the Editor’s Choice, your pictures should make the viewer want to travel there, or at least convey an emotion about a place you visited.
Why did you choose to go where you did? What made you press the shutter when you did? Is it really your best shot? Could you have done better?
Submissions End and Voting Begins: Tuesday, March 24th, 2015 – 8:05 AM
Voting Ends and Prizes Awarded: Tuesday, March 31st, 2015 – 8:05 AM
Times (Eastern United States)
Are you looking for a way to sell your travel photography online and find SmugMug getting a little too expensive? Join the club.
I’ve decided to move from SmugMug and think I’ve found the ideal alternative.
Let me know if you sign up to transform your images into a flourishing online business.
It’s taken a little longer than expected but we’ve finally added our new Meta-Travel membership levels.
I’ll outline the basic details below and will create separate posts later, to cover the actions allowed for each level, and link to them from here.
Standard Membership:
Can create a member profile for free; join a group; add comments and rate content. 5% Commission.
Promotion:
Members with a completed profile, including personal profile picture (not logo), a nice Cover image, and who are already active in a group may receive a ‘Promotion’ level for greater posting freedom. 6% Commission.
Tourist: 45 days – $5 (2,500 Points); 100 days – $10 (5,000 Points).
Tourists earn a short-term upgrade and can enter travel contests. 8% commission.
Verified Member: 180 days – $16 (8,000 Points); 360 days – $24 (12,000 Points).
Add a website and exchange community points for Meta-Travel credits + earn 10% commission.
Travel Blogger: 420 days – $32 (16,000 Points).
Travel bloggers and photographers showcase their work, for extra community points. 12% commission.
Travel Critic: 480 days – $40 (20,000 Points).
Travel critics savour life in hotels and restaurants; the proof is in the pudding. 14% commission.
Tour Guide: 520 days – $50 (25,000 points).
The tour guide waxes lyrical about the places to visit and things to do there. 16% commission.
Travel PR: 560 days – $70. (35,000 Points).
Public relations is good for business and these folk know how to travel right. 18% commission.
Travel Scribe: 620 days – $100 (50,000 points).
It’s all about crafting the written word; travel scribes live for the thrill of the quill. 19% commission.
Travel Editor: 710 days – $140 (70,000 points).
Travel Editors are highly respected members of the Meta-Travel community. 20% commission.
Social Log-in:
We’ve also added a Facebook Connect button and may be offering other social media log-in options soon; if there’s a call for them.
Your comments are appreciated. If you don’t want to post them in the open, feel free to use our Contact Form.
If you’re not a Meta-Travel member, Join Now.
A report by the World Tourism Organization – at the end of January, 2015 – claimed that ‘International tourist arrivals reached 1,138 million in 2014’. UNWTO forecasts for the year ahead remain positive, with another 3% to 4% increase predicted.
As Europe strengthens its ‘most visited region in the world’ status, with visitors from China increasing faster than Japan and South Korea, this trend is especially good for those employed in European Tourism.
Fittingly, the World Tourism Day theme for 2015, hosted by Burkina Faso, is ‘One Billion Tourists, One Billion Opportunities’.
With 2014 rapidly drawing to a close it’s time to plan where we’re going in the year ahead.
While spending most of the last year trawling through thousands of website submissions, in an attempt to drain the backlog and reach the elusive Inbox Zero, I made some notes of the many things that disturbed me.
As it seemed our Webmaster Guidelines were too often ignored, I thought it might pay to outline How Not to Get Listed on Travel Notes.
I hope to offer some form of consistency of what will not make the grade, in response to the growing use of similar SEO tactics and lack of consideration for website visitors in an alarming number of cases.
If it looks like text on the page is meant for search engine robots to read, then only search engines should read it; if they can find it.
That means if the font is too small, light grey on white or contains too many dubious anchor text links, then we won’t be listing the URL for a spider to follow.
If background music or videos on auto start stalls the loading of a webpage, we won’t encourage others to try and find the off button.
We don’t need a mailing list subscription form or Facebook Like widget to invade the content before we’ve had the chance to see if our visitors might find it useful. Thank-you for helping us make a quick decision for them.
If a service has been paid for it probably doesn’t need to be advertised on the homepage.
A travel website will need to be really exceptional if it’s stating that it’s ‘Powered by anything’, ‘Designed by anyone’ or promotes an Internet Marketing firm; no matter how small or unobtrusive the text link might appear.
If I get asked if I really want to leave the webpage, or every link I click on opens a new window or tab, I won’t be coming back and won’t recommend anyone else pays a visit to the website either.
Many of the older website submissions lost in the backlog returned the dreaded 404.
As having to manually remove dead links after the travel domain name has subsequently disappeared, changed hands or become sponsored link placeholders is a chore I don’t need, I’ve decided to implement a possible quarantine period of 18 to 36 months.
This will apply to new travel website submissions using the free Add URL service; that maybe didn’t break any of our webmaster guidelines in place, but failed to convince me that they’d be around for the long-haul.
A second review of the travel website at a later date can often save the hassle of deleting the dead link in a year or two.
New Advertising Rates For 2015
For websites that maybe don’t get listed immediately but have time sensitive offers for travellers, there’s always the option of advertising.
We’ve changed our advertising rates for 2015, now allowing for campaigns to be run by the month rather than on impression-based buys.
End Result
I hope we’ll have more time to concentrate on improving our own travel content in 2015 and continue to share some of the best travel destinations with our readers.
About The Photograph
Horseriding in Swiss Jura – The High Plateau of the Franches-Montagnes in the Swiss Jura is the birthplace of the Franches-Montagnes horse breed. This horse is descended from native mares that were cross-bred many times. It is the only breed of Swiss origin.
With 2013 drawing to a close, it’s time to start planning travel for 2014. To help you make your travel plans, or just dream a little over the winter months, here’s some travel book suggestions for the year ahead.
Lonely Planet Travel Book:
From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, every country in the world is covered in this amazing travel book. Explore some 229 travel destinations and be inspired by over 800 examples of travel photography.Best in Travel 2014:
Lonely Planet’s staff, authors and online community present a year’s worth of travel highlights to think about in the year ahead. Consider this a best of the best if you’re looking for travel ideas in 2014.Food Lover’s Guide to the World:
Travel is not only about the places we visit and the people we meet but also a culinary adventure of regional dishes and tasty flavours in the foods we eat.
And of course, here’s a great book to curl up in bed with or read while waiting for a bus, plane or train.
| Join the Travel Notes founder (that’s me) as he sets off on a literary adventure; a voyage of discovery in foreign lands.
Travel with Michel on trains and buses in Asia, then jump into cars with complete strangers in Australia; meeting the characters that bring Nomadic Gatherings to life. |
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| Sample Chapters: Taking Off; Kimchi and Gold Medals; Little Sister; Colonial Gateway; China Travel; The Northern Capitals; Grasslands to Terracotta. |
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On June 30th I took what was probably my last look at Google reader then spent much of the afternoon trying out some of the other options: Bloglines, Bloglovin, Digg Reader, Feedly, NewsBlur, Pulse, The Old Reader, and Yahoo Pipes.
That’s when I became totally confused; as I didn’t get the hang of Yahoo Pipes at all.
With one eye on the Tour de France, I decided to forget about trying to figure out which of the above options did most of what I wanted from a new reader; sorted some my subscriptions into regions and imported them into my own website instead. I also updated the feeds on the Travel Notes toolbar.
I had been wanting to clean up my blog reading list for a while and finally had the solution I needed, especially for those who might still want to follow the old travel bundles.
You can follow our newly sorted travel feeds on the Meta-Travel Community Website:
Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Europe, Middle East, North America, Oceania, South America, Worldwide.
Add your travel blog or news feed.
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