A New Web Site Will Give Women a Tool for Sharing their Travels

You know how you like to get recommendations from friends before you go someplace new? How you value the opinions of others more than you trust ads? And after your trip, have you ever felt like you just wanted to tell everyone about it? Have you ever wanted to say, “You just have to try this out for yourself!”? Thanks to technology, many women vet their destinations and share their insights—and you can, too.

A new Richmond-based web site is forming a partnership between readers, writers, and media agencies throughout the worldwide web. Active Woman Traveler is a new collaboration between Communication Creations Ink, in partnership with V Magazine for Women in Richmond, VA, to encourage women to share and learn from other women.

Readers will be able to browse the site and get travel tips and trip ideas—and they can contribute their own tales and recommendations, through articles, short or long, images, videos, or audio. Frequent contributors are eligible for their own department and status as editors. Professional freelance contributors can use the AWT site to promote their home blogs, web sites, and body of work to build their portfolio and credibility.

In emphasis of the “active,” the Active Woman Traveler encourages women to look beyond the usual chick vacation and highlight the physical side of traveling: hiking, kayaking, biking, and taking in walking tours and museums while still leaving time for dining, shopping and relaxing.

 

AWT was founded by V editor and co-publisher, Annie Tobey, who has been a writer for over 20 years and an active traveler for longer than she cares to admit. She was not only inspired by her recent travels, but she noted the enthusiasm that social media friends demonstrated for travel news. “Experiencing new places, savoring fine cuisines, and becoming rejuvenated by the R&R of a trip—these things excite people,” Annie says. “They want to hear more, and they want to share their own experiences.”

In order to make that sharing more accessible, Annie decided to take her experiences at V and transform them into a new business, a web site that gives people the chance to learn and share. The web site’s first content came from her own travels, a concept that she is by no means the first to launch.

Florida writer Loretta Lynn (no, not the singer) shares her trips on NewTravelAdventures.com. Heather Hills helps women take ChickVacations.com, while her husband guides the men as they go ManTripping.com. Wife and husband Paris Permenter and John Bigley team up to help couples spark the romance at LoveTripper.com. Travelers can even learn an alternative way of travel from BakPakGirl.

If you’d like to join Annie on AWT, sharing your travel news and views with other active wanderers throughout the world, contact her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . The AWT web site is already active, with seven contributors who have pens poised and camera ready, and it will continue to build in the next few weeks for a late summer launch—and is always open for more! In the meantime, you can watch it grow and explore from the comfort of your desktop, at ActiveWomanTraveler.com. Follow the Active Woman Traveler at Twitter.com/ActivWomnTravlr.

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V, SUMMER 2010

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