Slow Travel Newsletter - March 2005

2004 was a fun and busy year for the Slow Travel website and message board! This short newsletter will tell you about some of our activities.

Message Board 3rd Anniversary Contest

We had a contest to celebrate three years of running our message board (it started in June 2001). Much of the contest took place online. We had over 50 prizes donated by various businesses and members and over 150 entries (trip reports, travel notes, photo essays). See the list of prizes and winning entries here:
www.slowtrav.com/about/prizes_2004.htm

We had a few online "easter egg hunts" where I asked questions and people had to find the answers on the website. On one hunt, I hid clues throughout the site. These online contests were great - everyone was waiting at their computers and once I posted the question, it was a race to the finish. I kept the forum where we ran the contest, so you can see how we did it:
slowtalk.com/eve/ubb.x/a/frm/f/10510283311

Classified Listings

Visit our Slow Travel Classifieds to find vacation rentals, hotels, tours, tour guides, cooking schools, car services, travel information and more for Italy and the rest of Europe. Support the businesses who support Slow Travel!

We launched the Slow Travel Classifieds in January 2004 and are pleased with the listings we received. During 2004, we wrote a new version of the classifieds software, and launched it in January 2005. Come and have a look!
www.slowtrav.com/cl/

SlowTrav Favorites

In 2004/05 we added more SlowTrav Favorites for Italy Vacation Rentals. See the list here:
www.slowtrav.com/italy/listings/favorites.htm

Send in your vacation rental reviews, so we can pick more favorites:
www.slowtrav.com/reviews/

Our Next Slow Travel Contest - January 2006!!

We had so much fun with the first contest, that we have decided to do one every year. This time we will hold the contest in the winter, instead of in the middle of summer when everyone is traveling! (What was I thinking, making the contest in July??) Entries are due by November 1, 2005. Winning entries will be announced January 11 and the drawing will take place January 14, 2006.

Anything submitted to the Slow Travel site since the last contest is eligible. More details will be posted soon on the website.

Prizes may be donated by businesses that have Classified Listings on Slow Travel. You will receive a mailing with details about this in the next few days.

Lots of Great New Content on Slow Travel

New pages are added to Slow Travel every week or two. Pages that I write or articles sent to me by other Slow Travel members. Check our "What's New" page for the new articles:
www.slowtrav.com/whats_new.htm

Slow Travel Trip Reports

The trip reports are the most popular pages on the website! New trip reports are added every week. Trip reports are a great way to plan your travel. Read the details of someone else's trip to help you plan your own travel. Our Slow Travel members spend a lot of time working on their trip reports and we all appreciate it!
www.slowtrav.com/tr/

Slow Trips - Our Photo Gallery

We have over 7000 photos, posted by Slow Travelers, on our Photo Gallery:
www.slowtrips.com

Message Board is Busier Than Ever!

Our recent software upgrade on the message board changed it so that it is now indexed by the search engines. Consequently, the board is busier than ever! More people, more questions, more advice - more fun!
www.slowtalk.com

Kaydee's Blog - 14 months of Slow Travel in Europe

Kathy and her family are on a 14 month tour of Europe and they are doing it the Slow Travel way - staying in vacation rentals for weeks or months at a time! We have been following along with their journey since they left last summer. You are invited to follow along too, by reading Kathy's blog:
www.slowtrav.com/blog/kaydee/

I keep an up-to-date list of our favorite blogs and webcams on the site:
www.slowtrav.com/blog/

RSS Feeds

We introduced RSS Feeds this year for new classifieds, new vacation rental reviews, new trip reports, and new topics on the message board. Read more about RSS feeds here:
www.slowtrav.com/rss/

Support Slow Travel

Support our website and message board by becoming a premium message board member ($25 or $50 per year). This gives you access to private messages and email digests.
www.slowtalk.com/membership

See you on the message board!!

Slow Travel becomes a community on the message board. This is where we talk about travel, plan our travel and help others plan. Come and join us there!!

On a personal note, the downside of the message board is that I seem to be traveling more than ever because I read the board, or a trip report, and think "I want to go there"!! But, is this really a downside? Last year, Steve and I were in England and France for the fall. Next month we leave for a month in England. Like many of you, I have more trips planned in my head that we can possibly do!

Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who posts on the board, sends in trip reports, writes travel blogs, posts photos, and writes articles for inspiring all of us to travel more - and to travel slowly so we enjoy it more.

Pauline Kenny
admin@slowtrav.com
www.slowtrav.com  - Slow Travel
www.slowtalk.com  - Message Board
www.slowtrips.com  - Photo Gallery

If you no longer want to be a member of the SlowTrav message board, reply to this email with DELETE ME as the subject and I will delete your membership. This does not delete your posts on the board.