While few people chose to travel in pursuit of tragedies, occasionally a tragedy helps put a destination into meaningful context. No where is that more true than New York City. The attacks of September 11, 2001 are easy to overlook nowadays; New York is healing, moving on, looking forward not back. And yet 9/11 was (and remains) a defining moment of modern New York. You cannot appreciate the city and everything it has endured, without confronting the gruesome reality of the attacks, the death and destruction, the heroism of Ground Zero's rescue workers, the courage and resilience of everyday New Yorkers.
Continue reading...3. June 2009
Do the words "chocolate" and "French pastries" get you excited? If so you should keep reading. Otherwise this borderline Paris food porn post will rub you the wrong way. You have been warned. It all started a few days ago, when we noticed an excellent review of our Paris Chocolate & Pastry Tour by Marie Maguire on the Contra Costa Times website.
Continue reading...29. May 2009
Did you notice the Competitours ad on our blog? We don’t normally carry ads on the blog, but in this case we’re making an exception because (yes this is a pop quiz): (a) we at Viator like what they do (b) we’ve decided to provide their contestants with trip planning and tour advice (c) they’re paying us a [...]
Continue reading...13. May 2009
A few weeks ago we announced the launch of Viator's German-language website. At Viator we're not the sort of people to rest on our Lorbeeren (that's "laurels" in German, meine Freunde). This week we're very pleased to announce the launch of not one but TWO new websites for European-based travelers: Viatorcom.es in Spanish, and Viatorcom.fr in French.
Continue reading...5. May 2009
Dedicated readers of the Viator blog will remember that, just a few weeks ago, Viator was nominated for the 2009 Best Travel & Leisure blog over at the Chapeau Blog Awards. Today we found out that - drum roll, please - we won! Viator’s Travel Blog was voted #1 in the Travel & Leisure category. We’re [...]
Continue reading...18. April 2009
Mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut. No, don't panic. We are not writing this entire post in German. Though here at Viator HQ we're very pleased to announce the birth of Viator's German-language website. Head on over to Viatorcom.de and have a look. The tag line is 'Ausflüge, Unternehmungen und Besichtigungstouren', which is another way of saying, happy travels from Viator!
Continue reading...11. March 2009
Today we learned a happy fact - the Viator Travel Blog (um, the one you’re reading right now) was nominated as one of two finalists in the 2009 Chapeau Blog Awards. You can read the full announcement here, if you like. We were nominated in the Travel & Leisure category. What’s interesting about the Chapeau Blog [...]
Continue reading...19. February 2009
If you took a straw poll at the Viator offices, I reckon the Dearly Departed tours in Los Angeles would rank among the most popular we offer, anywhere. The reason? Partly it's that fantastic mug shot of Hugh Grant. And partly it's the concept of the tour itself: a 2-1/2 hour romp across Hollywood in a 'Tomb Buggy' tracking down gruesome, ghastly and notorious episodes in Tinsel Town history.
Continue reading...23. January 2009
This time last year I posted a list of the top and bottom searches of 2007 that occurred on Viator.com, and in keeping with this new tradition, I’ve updated the list for 2008. The Viator.com search box gained a ton of searches over 2007’s total - we had more than 1.35 million searches in 2008! Once [...]
Continue reading...21. January 2009
Before we say farewell to 2008, let us take a moment to honor the Top 50 destinations of the year as determined by Viator.com travelers. This is our third annual "Viator Top 50" list, and like last year, 2008 has been a great ride, full of surprises (good on ya Paris, Rome and Las Vegas) and some surprising absences (Mexico, we missed you).
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26. June 2009
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