Taking off Travel blog

While doing the rounds of some travel blogs, I came across PlanetEye. It aims to be a trip planning service with a difference, incorporating editorial content on destinations with useful information and help with bookings. I decided to put it to the test.

Planet Eye screenshot

Setup And First Steps

Getting set up was easy, but I hit my first snag when trying to create a travel pack for a forthcoming trip to Hollywood, Florida. You get the chance to add destinations, but of the handful of Hollywoods I was offered, I couldn’t tell which one was in Florida. So I created an empty travel pack, and added Florida as my destination, hoping that I would get the chance to specify later. Sure enough, I was able to find my exact destination on the map, but I couldn’t find a way to save it as part of my travel pack.

Mapping The Journey

On the left of the map was a color coded column showing photos, accommodation, activities, attractions and dining. Check the box and the attractions were pinpointed on the map. I thought this was a great feature, as it made it easy to see what was near to where we would be staying. As I chose each item, the list refreshed to show more targeted items of interest. I was also able to click on each flag individually and add these to my travel pack. These were saved automatically, so I could revisit my trip plan at any time.

Other Features

I then switched to the Journal view, which had a list of my planned stops and allowed me to write notes about each of them. I opted not to do this, but thought it was a useful feature.

Apart from the packs you create yourself, there are plenty of existing travel packs and guides, such as lists of top restaurants, major attractions in various cities and so on. These include articles written in trusted travel media such as the New York Times, as well as by PlanetEye’s own correspondents, and can be a good start when researching a new destination.

Limited Coverage

The site covers more than 50 popular destinations and since you can create your own travel packs and share them, you will probably be able to find user generated information on others. There’s still some way to go before you can find any destination on the planet (if you’re looking for South America or the Caribbean, you’re out of luck). However, if you are visiting a major North American, European or Far Eastern city, you will find a lot of information to help with planning your trip.

Tags: reviews, travel, travel reviews, Travel Tools

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 at 4:01 am and is filed under Travel Tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.