The staff at Viator are passionate travelers. When we’re not busy talking about our last trip, we’re busy planning our next adventure.
In that spirit we’ve created the Viator Travel Blog. It’s a place where we can discuss travel, discuss what’s new on Viator.com, answer your questions, and generally post and discuss news, features, wishlists and more about the world we live in. At Viator we believe that travel has the power to make the world a better place. This is our place on the web to share our passion and inspire all of us to make that next trip.
The Viator Travel Blog Team & Contributors
Scott McNeely is the director of Viator’s online efforts. Over the years Scott has traveled by camel, rickshaw, elephant, ox cart, yak, and 4th-class train in 45+ countries; appeared on Syrian television meeting President Bashar Al-Assad (don’t ask - it’s a long story); was kidnapped from a train in Morocco and forced to buy over-priced rugs as a ransom; and has written more than a dozen travel guidebooks, including a doozy of a guide to post-revolution Romania (1991 was not a great year for Romanian tourism). Scott’s favorite city? Istanbul. Scott’s favorite thing to do on viator.com? Skydiving tied with shark diving.
Christine Cramer manages Viator’s website marketing. Having caught the travel bug (watch out, it’s contagious) after years of studying evolutionary psychology, she has decided to focus on the psychology of travel addicts. Having covered a lot of ground in Europe and the USA, next on the list for Christine is South America for some travel research of her own.
Suzann M wrangles anything online marketing related that comes her way. Hailing from a town of 400 residents on the US-Mexico border, she’s a small-town expert who is known for getting to know a new destination inside and out with lightening speed. Suzann has sought out hidden desert petroglyphs, laid eyes upon Blackbeard’s “dead man’s chest” and climbed two ancient temples with the same staircase. Favorite holiday? New Year’s Eve and Talk Like a Pirate Day. Favorite tours? Dearly Departed and the New York City Rock & Roll Tour.
Rod Cuthbert is Viator’s founder and chairman. Rod has traveled extensively throughout the Asia-Pacific region, Western Europe and North America. Rod believes strongly in the importance of working with the very best suppliers in each of our markets, and has personally “road-tested” many of the tours, activities, shows & attractions offered by Viator. He is a lousy golfer and a below-average surfer who has enjoyed those pastimes in every destination he finds with a golf course or a beach (with waves.) When not traveling, Rod shares his time between San Francisco, USA and Sydney, Australia.
Kelly Gillease directs and contemplates all things marketing at Viator. Always up for a new experience, Kelly learned in the past year that World Cup fans are really loud, Iceland has nice food, surfing is fun and there are better places to sleep on your honeymoon than the Buenos Aires airport. Kelly’s favorite city? San Francisco, of course. Favorite things to do? Glacier hiking and surfing. Check out her marketing musings on her blog, inhousesem.com.
Liz Pagano, having worked in the travel industry for many years, has a passion for exploring the unknown and her own backyard. There are so many wonderful places in this world… some trips are chosen to visit friends & family, some because she is intrigued by the culture and others the more scientific method of eenie-meenie-miney-mo. Having experienced elephant trekking in Thailand, spelunking in Belize, abseiling in South Africa, and wine tasting in Australia she is always on the look-out for the next adventure. In 2007 she plans to journey to distant places in eastern Europe like Estonia, Russia, and Turkey and places closer to home like Washington D.C., Phoenix, and Los Angeles.
Kerrie O’Mahony is one of the voices for Europe and Africa at Viator. As a product co-ordinator she takes every opportunity to experience the tours we sell and always has an eagle eye out for the next hot thing to do. When not traveling through Europe she is dreaming of her ultimate holiday experience which is trekking the mountains of Uganda for a rare meeting with the endangered Mountain Gorillas. Having survived London’s Heathrow airport at the start of a gulf war, a near death experience at the hands of a local Roman driver and too many big nights out in Spain, Kerrie proudly considers herself a tourist and not a traveler. Despite her passion for European travel her heart is, and always will be, in Australia with her favorite place on earth being Port Douglas.
Bruce Melendy is a writer, musician and IT analyst. He’s traveled through over a dozen countries; food and architecture generally shape his journeys. He’s survived tornadoes in Louisiana , snowstorms in New Zealand, and alcohol poisoning in Georgia (as in the former Soviet republic). A longtime San Francisco resident, Bruce now lives in Melbourne with his wife and stepson.
Gail Goldberg is a freelance writer hooked on travel, a passion that was fueled during her years as editor-in-chief at Travelocity. Lucky she, who gets to write about travel for a living. (Thank you Viator.) Fashion is her other obsession, and she waxes stylish for many websites and mags including AOL’s Stylelist, DailyCandy, Moxxie, Ocean, Aishti and Simply Smart. When she’s not working, Gail can be found enjoying non-fat vanilla lattes and downward dogging at cafes and yoga studios all over San Francisco.
Cheryn Flanagan is a writer, photographer, and designer. Having spent a year on the road in Asia, she’s also been called a professional nomad (this, her favorite occupation). Cheryn travels to understand the world and the people within it… and as a side effect, she gains a greater understanding of herself, which usually results in a comical essay on the travails of foreign adventure.
Shelley Ruelle is the writer behind At Home in Rome, the blog with a behind-the-scenes look at the Eternal City, her home since December 2001. She meets world travelers at Really Rome, two vacation apartments she manages in the heart of old Rome, Trastevere. She and her Roman husband Alessandro are frequent travelers in search of great food, wine, and culture in the bel paese.
Amy Langfield is a freelance reporter who also edits the NewYorkology travel blog. She previously worked as a reporter, editor and producer at news outlets including Reuters, ABCNews.com, the LA Daily News and Czechoslavakia’s first English-language newspaper, Prognosis. She’s married to newsman and thriller author Martin Langfield.
Rowan McKinnon is a freelance travel writer and musician. He’s traveled widely but specialises in the island states of the South Pacific. He has contributed to many Lonely Planet travel guides, and newspapers and magazines including National Geographic Traveler. Rowan’s earliest experiences of international travel were as the bass player for touring arty-rock band Not Drowning Waving in the ’80s and ’90s. The band still reforms occasionally to play gigs and festivals. Rowan has four kids and a mortgage on a weatherboard house in the Melbourne suburbs. He was once arrested in Papua New Guinea on suspicion of being a mercenary.
Kim Cofino is an American international school teacher addicted to the expat life. She and her husband, Alex, moved overseas in August 2000 and haven’t looked back since. After five years in Munich, Germany, they decided to follow the sun to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where they have spent the last two years happily enjoying life without socks. Kim enjoys traveling above all else, which, thankfully, the school calendar accommodates quite nicely. She recently fulfilled her self-imposed challenge of traveling to 30 countries before she turns 30 (officially, she’s reached 35, but who counts Vatican City and Liechtenstein?). She chronicles her expat adventures on her blog, Follow That Elephant!
Luke Crosthwaite looks at all the chances for Viator to sell stuff that come from other than the US. “Half the fun is getting there” is an understatement, since he’s a mad-crazy aviation buff having gained his private pilots’ license when he left school oh, about 1,000 years ago. Being based in Sydney means there are plenty of chances to see the inside of planes. Favourite city would have to be his home town of Sydney, and favorite destination? Well - that depends on what sort of trip it is. London, Chicago and Paris all come up trumps in the busy and beautiful city stakes, but for the battery recharge it’s Bora Bora, Broome or Byron Bay (no alliteration intended).
Christoph Courth is a half German, half English graduate of anthropology who has lived and travelled in six of the seven continents and who will one day don a woolly hat and venture to the last, Antarctica. For the past two years he has been working in the Dominican Republic for the UK registered charity COPA, and is now back in London. A passionate photographer and writer he has made a documentary on Shamanism in the UK and one on the sugar-cane cutters of the Dominican Republic. His dream is to become a full time documentary maker.
Ken Frohling manages Viator’s partner programs in the Americas and tries to keep abreast with the ever changing online travel industry. Typical of Viator, Ken is another travel nut and loves to explore whenever he gets the chance. He got his first bite of the travel bug when he woke up one day in the early 90’s and realized his “dream job” in pharmaceutical sales was no dream. He quit the next day and spent six months in
Emilia Ljungberg is a recent literature graduate cum freelance writer. Swedish in origin, she is currently living in Edinburgh after a short stay in the States. Her interests cover such varied topics as the colonial discourse and shopping. One day she will find a way of combining the two.
Anthony Lye is currently training as a lawyer in the UK, but would happily swap to be a full-time traveller any day. Having been fixated on the Hispanic world since teaching English in a Costa Rican village in 2002, he also worked as a volunteer journalist in Bolivia during 2005. Aside from working on his tan on foreign beaches, he enjoys song-writing, playing the piano and creative writing, and looks forward to the time when his no-doubt monumental debut solo album finally sees the light of day.
Dawn Lyon is a San Francisco-based communications consultant who has been able to combine her passion for travel with clients and employers that have included Expedia, Hotwire, Cheap Tickets and Viator. Dawn has logged more than 35 countries and is on her way to 40 by 40. (No, she won’t say when.) Not one for idle relaxation, Dawn is border-line obsessed with discovering “firsts” and you’ll most often find her cycling, diving, sailing or hiking through her destinations. Her favorite destination? There are favorite things about everywhere she’s been but she rates Thailand, Costa Rica and New Zealand as tops. Her favorite tours? Anything cycling, the waverunner tour in Grand Cayman and swimming with the dolphins in New Zealand. Next stops? Panama, Mexico and India.
John Ryan is a native of Melbourne, Australia. John knows a thing or two about good bars, good music and good food in Melbourne and across Australia. John is also the author of the travel book Micronations.
Melissa Llanes Brownlee currently calls Las Vegas home as she slaves away at her graduate degree in creative writing. Supposedly a fiction writer, she is currently the copy guru of Viator’s Look Tours series of sites. While not a world traveler (she dreams of a day when this is possible), she hails from the Big Island of Hawaii – yes, she is Hawaiian – and has lived for 3 months in the hurried heart of Tokyo. At present she is finishing her short story collection about growing up in Hawaii and hopes someone will eventually publish it. Until then, she tries to find a calm center in the whirlwind that is Sin City.
Jenny Crossling is a native of Sydney, Australia, but is currently living in the bright-light city of Las Vegas. She has traveled throughout most of the USA and a few of the Caribbean Islands, some of Asia and a tiny little bit of Europe. After a 4-year stint as an apprentice chef (long hours and way too much stress), she has traded that for a life at Viator (with long hours and way too much stress), but as a perk, gets to live in her favorite city (Venice is a close second, but hey - you have that in Vegas too, right?). With a penchant for Jaegerbombs and deep-fried mac & cheese balls - Jenny has found her new home in America!
Philippa Burne caught the travel bug late in life. Too afraid of flying to board a plane for over 10 years, she was trapped in Australia. She finally succumbed to hypnotism when offered the job of a lifetime in London, travelling by ship sadly being no longer an option. Since that fateful day, she has lived and worked in Croatia, Poland, Holland, London, Slovakia and the USA. Currently she is travelling, working on a book and travelling. She is also travelling a lot.
Jeff Lewis is Viator’s VP of Engineering, where he has the pleasure of managing the creation and operations of all Viator’s fantastic technology. Jeff came to Sydney for 4 months from chilly Canada in 1995, and hasn’t managed to leave (for good reason). Having gotten married and witnessed the production of 2 kiddies since arrival, his travelling is more about family than adventure, though he has managed to travel around most of Asia on business trips over the years and more recently to Malaysia and Hawaii with the family. Favourite destinations and activities include beaches (digging holes), wildlife (the boys like to catch everything, lizards especially) and good food. Dream destination is Italy for lazy exploration of small town culture, punctuated by unique fresh dining experiences (and maybe some iguanas).
Vicki Potts manages Viator’s finances and reminisces fondly of her younger carefree days backpacking around the world. Originally hailing from New Zealand, Vicki has also lived in the UK for ten years, and has resided in Sydney Australia for the last seven. Her habit in the UK of taking 6 months off work every year to go traveling gave her a fantastic opportunity to explore 60+ countries around the world, and asking her to name her favorites inevitably leads to at least a seven-hour soliloquy and an invitation to view her photos. Vicki has experienced some of the most exotic locales around the world in fascinating ways - white water rafting down the Sun Kosi in Nepal; trekking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu; traveling through Iran to Kathmandu on an overland truck; kayaking through the islands of Fiji; and swimming with whale sharks in Ningaloo Reef in Australia; and her to-do list currently includes Laos and Antarctica. Her only regret is that she didn’t start working for Viator sooner.
Ian Frentz is Viator’s quality assurance (QA) manager, which means he gets to break the Viator websites before they’re released to the public. Originally hailing from
Writer, sound artist and cultural nomad, Jodi Rose has travelled the world since 2002, creating Singing Bridges, a conceptual sound work using the cables of bridges as musical instruments on a global scale. Recording the vibrations in the cables with contact microphones, editing and composing the sounds to create experimental music, performances, and installations has taken Jodi to festivals and events across Europe and Australia. She has dangled from the top of a crane in Bangkok to listen to the cables being ‘tuned,’ sampled cocktails in the bar of the UFO Bridge in Bratislava, been guardian of a bridge over the Danube, and traversed the globe from Helsinki to the Mekong Delta in her endless quest for bridge music. Jodi is working with engineers, architects, software developers and musicians to link the sounds of bridges around the world in the ultimate live networked ‘Global Bridge Symphony’, and writing her memoir of this quixotic philosophical journey.
Jordan Digby works on Viator’s technology, building the programs that Ian breaks! In previous lives (i.e., before Viator) Jordan has lived in Melbourne, Chicago and London, but now splits his time between Sydney and his small farm in eastern Thailand. Getting away from the ordinary is his travel mission, to which end he’s managed to go polar bear spotting in Canada, camped out in Botswana’s Okavango Delta with the hippos and hyenas, and get himself well and truly lost in Laos, ending up on the Ho Chi Minh trail by accident (but that’s a a story for a later blog…).
Jessica Kruse is a recent graduate of the University of Nevada’s Creative Writing MFA program, and she has no idea what to do with an advanced degree in poetry. Her love of travel brought her to the Viator family, and so she has temporarily set aside her idea of blindsiding the greeting card industry with sarcastic and insincere verse for her just as lucrative dream of travel writing. Which unfortunately, for right now, means other people’s travels.
Jack Brown has been rustling cattle, chasing trains, flogging loose change and mustering trouble since he ran from the east coast of Australia back at the end of the last century, citing musical differences due to the impending O-limp-ick Games. He’s wandered round a fair bit of the country and crossed the Territory more times than he can remember – he’s seen it all, and, of course, wiser men have said less in adventures that run the gamut of dubious and doubtful all at the same time. He’s younger than you think and currently itinerant, which he reckons means “looks good in a travel diary.”
Paige R Penland is a SoCal-based freelance writer equally in love with travel and custom cars. She’s covered her own country from Alaska to Florida, and recently returned to the USA after three years in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama. Life is good.
Peter Hall is Viator’s information architect, with the task of designing Viator’s technology the way users want it to work. Peter came to traveling later in life, though he did spend time in Europe and North America as a youngster. Endless trips to UK’s cathedrals and castles as a three-year-old brought on an aversion to anything with flying buttresses in later years. But he’s learnt that there’s no cure to the travel bug once you’ve been bitten. A round-the-world trip with a stop in Asia, and a trek through Europe before returning home via the US was just the start. And it cleared up that allergy to gothic vaults and gargoyles!
Brad Atwal has spent the last decade traveling throughout Asia, in particular the Himalaya, from his various bases in London, San Francisco, Coffs Harbour, Nawanshar (India) and Sydney. He has dedicated his life to promoting the virtues of traveling to Asia with the help of some of the world’s most famous adventurers, including Peter Hilary, Doug Scott and Simon Yates (the man who cut the rope in Touching the Void). He has been spotted riding horses in Mongolia, paddling with Polar Bears in Spitsbergen, trekking in Sikkim and Bhutan, surfing at Manly as well as helping Mongolian smugglers sell their goods on various Russian train platforms between Irkutsk and Moscow. What’s in Brad’s Viator wish list? Shark Dive Xtreme with the shark that lives 100m from his house at Manly Beach!
Sue Warnke has recently relocated to Las Vegas from Jamaica because she heard “it’s different - it’s a dry heat” which supposedly makes for easier hairdo’s. Born and raised in the Midwestern U.S., she has been attempting her entire adult life to become more of a “traveler” and less of a “tourist” in her sojourns through Europe, South America, North America, Mexico and the Caribbean (and one brief foray to Morocco, which really doesn’t count as Africa!) Her dream is to have a passport stamp from every continent before she dies…which is why she took this job as she is missing the coveted Australia stamp! Until this elusive dream is filled, she is happy to stay put in Las Vegas and enjoy her family and the 24/7 pace of Fabulous Las Vegas. If all else fails, she would like to become a Sherpa Guide.
Tamie Walsh works tirelessly ensuring the Europe and UK trips on the Viator.com website are 100% perfect and always up to date, as they should. Tamie has backpacked her way through Europe supporting herself the way any respected Aussie would, pulling a pint or two whilst living in London and Edinburgh. Although she has celebrated St Paddy’s day in Ireland and Hogmanay in Scotland, there’s still no place like her hometown of Wollongong. Tamie has also enjoyed trips to China, Thailand and Hong Kong and her wishlist includes anything that involves Scandinavia or Eastern Europe.
David Barnes left England to live in Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia; Andalucia, Spain; and in the foothills of Mount Olympus in Greece, as well as travelling around most of former Yugoslavia. He is now based in Paris and divides his time between teaching English and indulging his compulsion to write in Parisian cafes.
Anto Howard is a travel writer and playwright who returned to live in his hometown, Dublin, a few years ago after a long stint in the rotten apple that is New York. He has written for Fodor’s, The AAA travel guides, National Geographic Traveller, Frommer’s Budget Travel magazine, and numerous other publications about Central American, the U.S.A., Canada, Europe, and, of course, Ireland.
Benjamin Cunningham is a former newspaper journalist and current freelance writer. As American as apple pie, he has lived in Amsterdam for the past year. After a brief stop in Paris, he’s recently moved to Serbia (at least temporarily). Someday he would like to become an expert on international beach resorts, but that day does not appear to be coming anytime soon.
Jane Rawson launched her traveling career at age one, when she moved to Delhi, and her writing career at age five, when her poem “My pussy cat” was published on the fridge. Since then, her fiction has been published by Cardigan Press and her travel writing by Lonely Planet, while various employers have paid her to churn out copy on topics as gripping as management training, Eastern European hotel bedspreads and superannuation legislation. After stints in Phnom Penh, Prague, San Francisco and Canberra, she has settled down in Melbourne with a truck driver and a small cat (but not the cat in the eponymous poem) where she worries about the future and enjoys microbrewed beer, vegetable gardens and arguing online with people she has never met. You can find her online (occasionally) at travelskerricks.blogspot.com.
Ever since Alex Landragin won a travel writing competition at college he’s been travelling and writing about his travels in one way or another, all the while dreaming of writing fiction and making music — which is precisely what he does in his home base of Alice Springs, Australia, in between trips. He publishes alaslandoforigin.net, blogs at alaslandoforigin.blogspot.com. Alex’s Myspace page is myspace.com/alaslandoforigin.
David Stanley is the author of Moon Fiji and Moon Tahiti, published by Avalon Travel Publishing of Berkeley, California. He also wrote the first two editions of Lonely Planet Cuba and the first three editions of Eastern Europe on a Shoestring. David is a collector of countries, having visited 195 of the world’s 245 countries and territories. His South Pacific travels began in 1978 when he researched the original South Pacific Handbook. Paradise isles like Bora Bora, Moorea, Mana, and the Yasawas draw him back again and again, but he also enjoys exciting cities like Papeete, Nadi, and Suva.
Robert Curgenven is an Australian musician on tour in Europe for the foreseeable future. He has worked in the arts, health and radio as graphic designer, editor, sumo wrestler, community cultural development advocate, roadie, festival director, conference convenor, gallery coordinator and on the occasional odd job. Preferring to travel overland than by air, Robert has a degree in philosophy and is fascinated by culture, language and the strange things that make places what they are. He has lived throughout Australia, runs his own small record label, Recorded Fields, and is in Europe for his third and most extended stay (till he cracks the Big Time).
Tom Downs is the author of Lonely Planet’s New Orleans city guide. His most recent edition was awarded the Lowell Thomas Gold Medal for best guidebook of 2007.
Terry Carter has photographed and, with his wife and writing partner, Lara Dunston, written or contributed to half a dozen travel guides to Dubai and the UAE. The UAE has been the couple’s base since 1998. Terry and Lara write frequently on Dubai for magazines, newspapers and websites around the world, from National Geographic Traveler to The Independent.