Togo What Are You DoingKpalime, Togo West AfricaSunday, March 25, 2007 I am lacking in a French phrase, word, or words of explanation, I wish to say to people I meet,- I am a tourist.- Je suis un touriste. Masculine of Feminine TouristeorFeminine touristique I was having a conversation with a highly educated man from Togo last night in […]

Talk of DangerKpalime, Togo West AfricaSunday, March 25, 2007 The leaders of Iran appear to be lining up to be shot.- Time to make a move. - I try to imagine traveling the planet with the idiot notion that I can talk my way out of danger, or discuss, be diplomatic, or in someway we can share […]

All Things GoodKpalime, Togo West AfricaSaturday, March 24, 2007 I am ahead of schedule today as normal, I have no schedule or need to plan, at least no I-NEED this or that I-NEED that to plan, mostly just I want. So, being ahead of schedule, on top of the world, I went for a morning walk up […]

Kpalime AubergeKpalime, Lome West AfricaFriday, March 23, 2007 I have made another Auberge change here in Kpalime, Togo. I am now in a Hotel for 3000 CFA or about 6 U.S. Dollar. I am still debating, I think it is much better, however, I need to wait for the night, when people from the night come […]

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Never Give UpKpalime, Togo West AfricaFriday, March 23, 2007 - It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up. -– Babe Ruth I found this quote, on this page:http://www.jordoncooper.com/resources/quotes/t-quotes.htm I hope the Babe said this, and if he did not, then no problem anyway, somebody like him needs the credit. My friend Gary said something like this to […]

Lots of “years” there… But those were the words used by one of the most senior people in the travel industry this week when, during a private dicussion, he described the reasons behind events of the past few months. There is no doubting that what has happened, for example, with the planned mergers between four of the […]

Blogger.com a Need For SpeedKpalime, Togo West Africa I have a need for speed!. Something from the movie - Top Gun - I want to log into Blogger.com and post my blog fast, it takes me about 5 minutes now to log in because the Togocel GPRS connection is slow, but great. Fastest - No I-frame, no foreplay, […]

Tropical Sleeping ProblemsKpalime, Togo West AfricaFriday, March 23, 2007 I do not remember West Africa being so hot the last time I was here; I do remember Niger being very hot. I am more committed this time to Africa though, I want to travel here for a long-time, not just a brief interruption. This is it, […]

If you thought your perfume was safe in Australian airports - think again! From Saturday March 31 new security measures for carrying liquids, aerosols and gels on flights into and out of Australia will be introduced. In line with rules already in place in Europe and the United States, passengers need to carry all their toiletries, […]

Fionn Davenport gets philosophical (has a rant?) in Dublin… I don’t like parades, and I couldn’t care less about floats or fireworks. Watching Dublin’s St Patrick’s Parade I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell we were all doing. What is St Patrick’s Day really all about? We’re not celebrating an event in Irish history - nothing […]

There is no doubt that the mainstream giants are facing many of the same challenges as some of those in the travel industry. The final session of the day demonstrates this is many ways. The heavyweights have finally been wheeled out: Alan Rusbridger (editor of the Guardian), Andy Duncan (CEO of Channel 4) and Tom Loosemore […]

Ben Hammersley, a multimedia expert from GuardianUnlimited, when asked about his reaction to US media giant Viacom and its $1 billion court action against Google/YouTube over copyright infringement: “They are taking a Valentine’s Day card and burning it in front of the person who gave it to them.” Although this came a close second, also from Hammersley, […]

Travel ArmamentariumKpalime, Logo West AfricaThursday, March 22, 2007 My friend Chris wrote me today about a Solar Cooker he purchased, and his dealing with a Chinese Company. He wanted to know if I wanted to add this to my— Armamentarium — in the future. Now, that word is 50 dollar word, if I every seen one, being I […]

Antony Mayfield from Spannerworks is here and has already got himself into trouble. Our man with the heavy fingers irritated a fellow delegate by bashing away on his laptop during one of the sessions this morning. Word of his dastardly crime is spreading amongst the assembled bloggers in the room. Vecosys.com puts its very well: “And possibly some conference […]

The current debate is about advertising and getting brands noticed in the digital age. Representatives from Sony Ericsson, Vodafone, Lateral, Internet Advertising Bureau and Millward Brown are on stage. Douglas Smith from digital marketing agency Lateral suggests three rules for creating strong brands on the web - tips that some online travel companies embrace wholeheartedly (Lastminute.com, Expedia), […]

It is a somewhat fanciful notion that there are hundreds of companies out there that are in constant “blue-sky” mode, lazing around on wacky designed chairs in bold-coloured rooms, coming up with great ideas for their brands. And, what’s more, risk-taking is apparently a lot of fun. According to Joanna Shields, the international president of social networking […]

For obvious reasons the conference here focuses heavily on how mainstream media companies are tackling the new media landscape - but there are heaps of interesting parallels for the travel industry. While the delegate line-up is made almost exclusively of media-related people (newspapers, magazines, radio and TV folk, plus the trendy young things from digital marketing, […]

French Pronunciation RulesKpalime, Togo West AfricaWednesday, March 21, 2007 I am up to rule number 61, and my guesstimate is I will have trouble going beyond 100-120 rules of French Pronunciation. Everyday, I listen to words on my computer, when I am listening, and I am to able to phonetically sound out the world, and I […]

A bit self-indulgent maybe, but one of our regular Google Alerts notified us this week of a scheme being run by the Audi car company, called “Travolution”. What on earth is going on? We can cope with an Edinburgh-based travel agency called Travelution, but do we see competition on the horizon? Well, no… It appears Audi is […]

Tomorrow (Thursday 22 March) sees Travolution break away from travel for a day as we will be attending the MediaGuardian Changing Media Summit 2007 in London. Speakers include senior representatives from Bebo, Internet Advertising Bureau, Netvibes and Google. Alongside them will be plus a host of high profile brands - just like those in travel - that […]

Fascinating post on the excellent Blog on Travel about Spanish hotel brand AC Hotels, which has apparently been de-listed by Google. The post explains at length perhaps why the chain has fallen foul of the search engine giant. But in a nutshell: Poor SEO Mis-use of Flash Bad meta-tagging Tom’s post is well worth a read. [Check the comments at the […]

Togo Drinking WaterKpalime, Togo West AfricaWednesday, March 21, 2007   Drinking water is a major concern of people traveling the planet.   There are some incredible beliefs held by very intelligent and well-read people. I think this […]

Hotel Kpalime TogoKpalime, Togo West AfricaTuesday, March 20, 2007 I am in a very quiet hotel, it is about 3:41 am in the morning, and I woke very early, because I went to bed very early. I suppose about 9:00 pm, I am awake now, about 7 hours later, my normal pattern of sleep. I wake […]

Togocel GPRS ProblemsKpalime, Togo West AfricaTuesday, March 20, 2007 When I visited the internet café in Lome, Togo, I had about a 1 in 5 chance of a problem. The internet would go down, the electricity would go off, the problems were unknown, and more or less, when annoyed, I would leave and come back the […]

Ryan Ver Berkmoes - Lonely Planet’s foremost St Patrick’s Day Parade Critic - tells us how it is in Limerick, Ireland… ‘That one sucks,’ said the little boy next to me as a barely decorated pickup truck rolled by. He was right of course, like many of the ‘floats’ in this minor-league parade, the truck was merely […]

Togo beats Ghana in Football 2-1Kpalime, Togo West AfricaMarch 20, 2007, 5:28 PM Kpalime, Togo is exploding in the streets as Togo just beat Ghana, the neighboring counry a stone throw away from the village of Kpalime, really just over the hills. I will not be able to leave the Hotel tonight, I think both the Islamic […]

Don’t say you haven’t been warned. If you miss the deadline tomorrow, Wednesday 21st March at midday, then you will have to wait until next year to enter the Travolution Awards. Categories are listed here. And there is an online entry form here. The response to this, our first awards programme, has been excellent, with nearly 100 […]

This week we re-launch our guest blogger programme. Kicking us off is Justin Morshead, chief executive of AdPrecision. Recently one New York Analyst suggested internet advertising will be worth over $80 billion in 4 years (that’s a compound growth of about 21% per annum). Here in the UK, partly driven by the strong broadband uptake, we […]

A quick moment to bask in some happy news. Travolution has been shortlisted for this year’s prestigious PPA Awards, in the category for Monthly Business and Professional Magazine. [They allow bi-monthlies to enter, before you ask] These are the leading awards for the UK publishing industry and cover both consumer and business titles. The winner will be announced […]