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Go To Lunch With A Llama In New Mexico's Mountains

TripAdvisor recently released their members’ picks for the best tours in America. While some were pretty blah, one that really stood out to us was the opportunity to trek through the wilderness in New Mexico with llamas by your side. You don’t actually ride the llamas, but they accompany you and your group, and apparently the critters are more than happy to carry your stuff. This leaves you and your back free to enjoy nature at it’s finest. Just remember to share your water bottle with your llama friend in case he or she gets thirsty.

The tours take you into New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and all treks are at your own pace. The tour guides, and probably the llamas too, aren’t looking for a stressful journey. After you work up an appetite as you make your way through the Carson National Forest, you’ll be happy to enjoy a fresh meal. All trips serve up “Backcountry Gourmet” meals and the head guide works as a chef in the off-season—so your taste buds will be in good hands.

Tours start at just $99 if you want to experience their Take a Llama To Lunch day hike. If you’re looking to spend a couple nights in the woods, and really get in touch with your new furry buddies, 3 night tours start at $499. Just remember to bring some llama snacks with you; you probably want to get them on your good side as soon as possible.

Related Stories:
·TripAdvisor Tallies America's Top 10 Tours [Official Site]
·Wild Earth Llama Adventures [Official Site]
·Tours coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo of some llamas: Big Grey Mare]

Tags: Germs / TripAdvisor / Ireland / Venice Travel / → All Tags

Ireland Wins A Kiss For Germiest Attraction

Among the tourist attractions that make us go "ew", Ireland's Blarney Stone has always been high on the list—the thought of kissing the same piece of rock that all those strangers have kissed is kind of gross.The great news today is we're not the only OCD travelers around thinking this.

A new TripAdvisor list says that the Blarney Stone is #1 on the "Top 5 Germiest World Attractions" list. Not the kind of list you want to be at the top of, right?

After polling some 4,600 travelers, TripAdvisor also discovered that Seattle's Wall of Gum and Oscar Wilde's tomb in Paris are considered very germy too. At number four, St Mark's Square in Venice is a clear germ choice thanks to the pigeons. Rounding out the top five are the famous hand and footprints in Hollywood. Looks like wherever we travel we totally need our germ-busting nano scanner wand.

Related Stories:
· Germiest Vacation Spots [Boston Globe]
· Ireland's Blarney Stone Stuff-Up [Jaunted]
· Nano Scanner Wand Makes The World A Cleaner Place [Jaunted]

[Photo: bowbrick]

Tags: Overrated Places / Arthur Frommer / TripAdvisor / Surveys / → All Tags

Art Frommer Really Ticked Off By Latest TripAdvisor Survey

We can't make up our minds about Art Frommer. Does he like the internet or not? On one hand, he has his own blog and he owns a Kindle. On the other hand, he's not a big fan of other online travel sites, especially review sites where amateur travelers detail their experiences.

His latest victim is TripAdvisor, a site with "some of the looniest opinions about travel." That's because TripAdvisor released a survey in which travelers said :

London has the worst food, Paris is the most overrated and Brussels is the most boring, according to a survey of what travelers think about European cities.

The report also said Prague was a bargain destination which practically made Frommer throw his typewriter in disgust. But you wanna know what? We agree with Frommer. Not necessarily because we think TripAdvisor is full of "loonies" or anything (their hotel reviews are always helpful) but these opinions of European cities are really off-mark.

Paris--overrated? Never. Prague may have been a bargain destination 10 years ago before people "rediscovered" it, but it's a bit of a tourist trap these days. Not to mention that one of the newest hotels there opened with rates starting at $444 a night. As if!

And London having the worst food also doesn't make sense. What about the gastropub invasion? The city has good mix of Michelin Stars and more affordable but still tasty options too. We're so angry we're about to throw our typewriter in disgust...if we hadn't thrown out our typewriter back in 1996.

Related Stories
· So What Makes a Place Overrated? [Jaunted]
· To find some of the looniest opinions about travel, head to TripAdvisor.com [Jaunted]
· Grazing on the Cheap in London [Jaunted]

Tags: TravelPost / Kayak / TripAdvisor / Travel News / Travel Websites / → All Tags

Kayak's TravelPost Tries To Win Our Hotel Review Hearts

Not to be outdone by TripAdvisor’s latest offering, Kayak has a little something up its sleeve. After hearing about what the competition has to offer, the travel meta-search king sent out a press release to illustrate what still makes it number one.

CEO Steve Hafner lets us known that he’s flattered that TripAdvisor has mimicked his site’s design, but tells us that Kayak’s caliber of results still sets it apart. Uh-oh, the travel bookings/review site feud is on!

Now, Kayak is creeping in on TripAdvisor's turf by launching their own hotel review website. TravelPost is going to, or at least hope to, take travel reviews to the next level. It promises to search over 200 travel sites to bring you the latest in reviews, information, and rates.

If we were TripAdvisor, we’d be worried. Sure, they have all the review mojo now, but they’ve kind of been resting on their laurels and Kayak is definitely up to the challenge.

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Tags: TripAdvisor / Travel Websites / Travel Booking Sites / Travel News / → All Tags

TripAdvisor Now Advising On Airfares

Just when you thought that everyone and their brother had a search engine devoted to travel, we get one more. Adding a little friendly competition to the mix is travel review king TripAdvisor. The site launched its own flight meta-search yesterday, and now hopes to save you money in the air and to keep you away from that roach motel.

We took the new search for a spin, and it seemed to respond well to our simple requests. It lets us know that it’s searching perennial favorites like Expedia, Travelocity, Hotwire, and many more. The results include all the legacy carriers, but like so many others, leave out our Luv buddy—Southwest Airlines.

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Tags: TripAdvisor / Lists / Surveys / → All Tags

TripAdvisor Survey: Travelers Fear Germy Planes, Love Provocative Dress, Crave Eco-Adventures

The opinion-sharing folks over at TripAdvisor recently released their latest annual survey on the top trends in travel. This year's obsession: germs on a plane. We probably would have pegged cruise ships as the most likely place to come down with a nasty case of the scoots from touching an exposed surface, but apparently most people fear picking up a bug while in the tubular confines of an airplane. Out of 2,500 respondents, 28 percent were concerned about germs, bacteria, and viruses onboard airplanes, while others reported having germaphobia relating to public transit, restaurants, hotels, and airports. The report should be good news for manufacturers of hand sanitizer, Wet-Naps, and Airborne dietary supplements, as travelers appear willing to try anything that might keep the creepy crawlies away.

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