How do you plan your travel trip? Sift thru’ travel sites/books?
My personal experience has been that none of this helps. Travel sites’ have vested interest [interested in your pocket, so mostly biased reviews] and travel books are, most of the times outdated.
How about a guided tour/video of the place that you wanna visit? Try out GeoBeats.
In GeoBeats, you can watch free short videos on international destinations that highlight history, culture, shopping, food, nightlife, lifestyle, and other aspects of interest to travelers.
According to their site:
Our videos are different than other travel videos in many aspects. The content in the videos is well researched which means you will get consistent quality and reliability across our videos. Also, the videos have a “down to earth” feel as opposed to a heavy commercial angle. At the same time, they are created by professional filmmakers and feature interesting hosts who add a unique and personal flavor.
The video quality, I must say is damn impressive and also very informative. Infact, GeoBeats is a must see for those who wanna travel to new destinations.
Beats missed?
I am a little disappointed to see that GeoBeats doesn’t allow user content. It’s purely an editorial site [which is understandable, since they need to maintain the video standards/quality], but I would still say that my expectations from a disruptive travel site are:
- create new travelers.
- create new filmmakers/story tellers
Also, GeoBeats doesn’t have an offline presence. For e.g. I plan to travel to Malaysia in another few months. Do you guys want me to keep checking out your site for the new content? How about a watchword mechanism/RSS feed?
To cut the long story short, GeoBeats is a wonderful start, but lacks user engagement [feels as if it’s just a “read” permission site!, there is no way a user is supposed to interact with the site!]
But then, this is just the beginning for GeoBeats, a startup still in beta mode. The good news is that they are focusing on increasing the relevancy of the product, i.e. great content and high quality travel videos.
Meanwhile, have some fun with their videos and let me grab a piece of Led Zepp’s Kashmir!
Oh, pilot of the storm who leaves no trace, like thoughts inside a dream
Heed the path that led me to that place, yellow desert stream
My shangri-la beneath the summer moon, I will return again
Sure as the dust that floats high and true, when movin through kashmir.
Filed under: GeoBeats
