Taking off Travel blog

Where The Locals Eat

There’s nothing worse than heading to a new city on business, arriving late at night and wondering where to go for a good meal. I should know. I once went on a business trip to Spain and by the time I had got my bags and found a taxi to my hotel, it was already nearly midnight. I know the Spanish eat late, but the local kitchens were closed and I found myself at the Spanish version of Mickey Ds - not what I wanted after a long trip. The next day, I was prepared and I asked the locals I met at the hotel where I could score a good meal so I could have a great dinner that night. When it comes to getting a good meal, you can’t beat local advice - and that’s the premise behind Where The Locals Eat.

Top Eateries In Each State

Where The Locals Eat gives you easy access to the top 100 restaurants in the 50 largest US cities. Since these are where you are likely to be doing business, then this is a great place to find restaurants serving your favorite dishes. The site balances ‘lengthy surveys of serious diners and hopelessly hooked restaurant habitues with the opinions and extensive research of certified foodies’ to bring you the top choices and they are constantly being updated. You can search the site by city and distance to select a restaurant within walking distance of your hotel. Read more »

 When doing some research for some recent posts on Indianapolis, I came across a resource that I think has great potential for business and other travelers. It’s called Offbeat Guides. Still in beta, the site offers you the chance to build your own travel guide for any one of 30,000 cities.

You can test the site without signing up, by inputting your name, location, desired travel dates and destination, then within seconds (which is quite impressive on my temperamental ADSL connection) you get a guide covering most things you would want to know about an area. You get an introduction to the destination, with a bit of history, as well as information about traveling to the city and getting around when you are there. Read more »

Sometimes you take a business trip and get back home, only to find that an old friend or colleague was in the same city at the same time. Think of the wasted opportunities to get together and have a bit of fun after a day of meetings. One way to avoid that happening is to use Dopplr. This site provides a simple way to keep track of your travel plans and share them with others whom you trust.

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Traveling on business is not just about booking flights, finding accommodation and locating airport parking at a good price. It’s also important to make those trips a little easier and, let’s face it, have some fun. To help you with that goal, we’ve compiled a list of useful gadgets for the business traveler. See if you agree with our selection.

Lost In Translation?

If you’re traveling abroad, you won’t always speak the language. That might be fine if you’ve got access to interpreters and translators in your meeting, but what if you want to get out and about and do a bit of sightseeing? If you do, then you need a dictionary, phrasebook or pocket translator. These little gizmos contain thousands of useful words and phrases which will ensure that you are never lost in translation. See Ectaco for some examples. Read more »

If you’ve ever had to schedule a business trip you know you can be deluged by confirmation e-mails for every detail, including flights, hotels, and car rentals. God help you if you have multiple destinations! Tripit.com promises to relieve the headaches of travelers by aggregating all the details of your trip into master itineraries, available to be shared with friends, accessed by SMS text messages and supplemented with additional information like weather, google maps, and more!!

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