In this economy, campsites are the hottest tickets in town.

Around this time of year, I start to ask myself — is it too late?

To get Cubs v. Brewers tickets at face value? (Yep.) To get my kids into swimming lessons? (Not where we live, thank goodness.) To reserve a few campsites for this summer?

This year, the answer to that last one is hurry the heck up if we want to stay in a desirable area! Turns out the economy has driven many summer vacationers to the affordable territory of canvas lodging. Back in January, California’s Department of Parks and Recreation told the San Francisco Chronicle it had an unprecedented level of early reservations in 2009. And New York State Parks say reservations are up 6 percent over last year.

Camping truly is the best vacation value around, if it suits you. Last summer I spent a gorgous twilight in front of a twinkling Wisconsin lake, watching my children play with some friends’ kids on a well-kept playground near our campsite and thinking, “If this were a hotel resort, we wouldn’t be able to afford it.” (Of course, if it had been a hotel, the next day when it rained for 9 hours would have been a little more pleasant.)

So it’s not surprising that campgrounds are the only part of the travel industry actually making more money in the downturn. However, I wouldn’t expect to see them sprucing the places up with all their newfound cash. Since so many campgrounds are state, county and federal operations, depending on public budgets that keep shrinking, being fully booked can only go so far. In fact, despite the general upward trend of campsite bookings, New York State also closed several parks due to budgetary constraints.

Budget cuts are shrinking the number of campsites out there just as demand is rising. And it’s not pretty to think of this, but recreational campers will also be competing with newly homeless families as  foreclosures send folks to find other arrangements.

So check out some campsite reviews on Uptake, then get onto ReserveAmerica and grab that site while it’s still open. Then count your blessings that sleeping outdoors is still a refreshing change of pace for your family instead of a new way of life.

Photo by rvaphotodude, used via Creative Commons license.

The Great Barrier Reef represents the great beauty endangered by climate change.

It was with a muddy mixture of sadness, selfishness and guilt that I read CNN.com’s piece this weekabout the top five places on earth to see before “global warming messes them up.”

The targeted locations — Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, New Orleans, Rocky Mountain National Park, Switzerland’s Alpine Glaciers and the Amazon rain forest — all face degradation in the near term and destruction in the long term due to rising global temperatures.

We are often warned about the impending effects of climate change in terms of very practical disaster — lost homes, lost crops, lost lives. But I appreciated taking a moment to ponder the beauty that will be lost too. My children may not get the chance to take in the breathtaking variety of a coral reef as I have. I know they will not experience the same New Orleans I visited; the Ninth Ward tavern where we ate crawfish has likely been torn down or gutted.

That’s the sadness. My selfish reaction is the one that drives me to get on the stick and see all these sights before I can’t.

The article acknowledges this irony — if you hop on a plane to tour one or more of these endangered natural wonders, you’re just contributing to the problem by burning jet fuel. And that reminds me of another sad possibility in our lifetimes: That the relatively free range of travel we’ve enjoyed will be unavailable due to fuel shortages or restrictions necessary to stem global warming. Even if we manage to save the rainforest, those of us in the Northern Hemisphere may never have the freedom to go see it that we have now.

To say such changes would affect the travel industry is the understatement of the year. Will there even be a travel industry in 2050?

The guilt in my reaction is to be contemplating my future vacation opportunities when I am part of the privileged world that is creating global warming. The most immediate and extreme suffering will hit those who did the least to contribute to the problem — the poor, unindustrialized inhabitants of tropical islands and coastal fishing communities. But I think this article is a reminder that sooner or later, if its causes are not stemmed, global warming will hit us all — even those of us who are privileged enough to look at a rain forest or a beautiful stretch of coastline as a source of pleasure and not sustenance.

Photo by Leonard Low, used via Creative Commons license.

Will the wisdom of traveling crowds be a boon or a bane to travel booking sites?

The Chicago Tribune reports that the big travel booking sites — Orbitz, for one — are taking cues from social networking and incorporating more user-generated reviews. The idea is to engage users while they’re in the planning phase, not just when they’re ready to book a trip. And with the slow economy, the Trib says, the planning (and dreaming) phase is longer than it used to be.

When these companies tap user-generated content, they’re dipping into a deep well indeed. But the waters in that well — to stretch the metaphor – are anything but still.

There are more than 20 million travelers’ opinions on UpTake – collected from sites like TripAdvisor.com, organized and analyzed. The level of detail available thanks to travelers’ reviews is staggering, even for less well-known destinations.

For instance, my husband and I took a trip over the holidays to La Paz, Mexico, a city a few hours north of more heavily visited Los Cabos. Using online reviews, we were able to learn in detail about tiny resorts and hostels that would never have merited more than a sentence or two in published travel guides. The level of detail was such that many words were devoted to the personality of one specific property owner: an expatriate named Eberhard.

Many travelers adored Eberhard, finding him unusually hospitable, helpful and entertaining, with “great knowledge” of the area. Others, though, found him “difficult” and bemoaned a lack of privacy.

The more I read, the more fascinated I became with this Eberhard character. We eventually stayed elsewhere — Eberhard’s place was fully booked and although he magnanimously offered to rent us his personal RV, I was leery of feeling indebted to someone who some people described as “disrespectful” and “inappropriate.”

And that is the rub for companies in the business of selling vacations. Some user reviews will convince people NOT to visit a certain hotel or even an entire destination. Anonymous reviewers feel no compunction to hold back on opinions or verify facts, and fear no slander charges. So while some user reviews steer consumers away from legitimately bad establishments, others may unfairly cause perfectly nice places to lose business.

Then again, getting reviewed by a whole group of consumers may result in destinations getting more of a fair shake than they would have if reviews were limited to only a handful of professionals. As in the case of Eberhard, one person’s overbearing innkeeper is another’s charming and colorful host. If one guidebook or magazine writer had visited and declared Eberhard a boor, his establishment might have closed forever. As it is, we can read about everyone’s experiences and decide for ourselves whether Eberhard is our kind of guy.

Photo by Carrie Kirby.

UpTake Launches Travel Blog Network

We proudly announce the launch of UpTake’s new Travel Blog Network today.  The blog network helps travelers find vacation information across six travel categories, including attractions, beaches, hotels, lodging, restaurants and travel industry news. The network, a new addition to UpTake’s corporate blog, provides in-depth, complementary information to the site’s travel content and search engine. The UpTake blog network supports the company’s mission to improve search by offering information from local travel experts and writers.

UpTake Beaches Blog	UpTake Attractions Blog	UpTake Hotels Blog
UpTake Restaurants Blog	UpTake Lodging Blog	UpTake Travel Industry Blog

Meet UpTake’s Editors & Writers

We have five lead editors and a team of twenty-nine contributors. Each blog has its own tone and style which is determined by their editors and offers insights and opinions on day-trip excursions or longer vacation options in the writer’s local community. The lead editors are:

• Whit Honea, a professional writer and blogger on many of the web’s most popular blogs is the lead editor on the Vacations’ blog.
• Gudrun Enger, an independent blogger helped launch the original UpTake blog and is now the editor for the Attractions’ blog.
• Sebastien Tobler, a videographer and blogger combines his love of travel, beaches and his story-writing skill to create the Beaches’ blog.
• Colleen Lindesay is a popular writer for several blogs and leads a team of bloggers with suggestions and ideas on how to improve your next hotel stay on the Hotels’ Blog.
• Nancy Brown, a well known travel writer, built a team to offer suggestions about resorts, alternative lodging and campgrounds on the Lodging blog.
• Alison Osborne, an UpTake employee, suggests savory restaurant excursions, dining and food experiences on the Restaurants’ blog.
• UpTake senior executives contribute travel technology and industry news to the Travel Industry News.

If you have a story idea or need more information about a particular blog you can contact them via email:

UpTake Editors’ Email Addresses:

• Vacations’ blog editor (vacations.blogeditor at uptake.com)
• Attractions’ blog editor (attractions.blogeditor at uptake.com)
• Beaches’ blog editor(beaches.blogeditor at uptake.com)
• Hotels’ blog editor (hotels.blogeditor at uptake.com)
• Lodging’s blog editor (lodging.blogeditor at uptake.com)
• Restaurants’ blog  editor (restaurants.blogeditor at uptake.com

Blog Marketing Advisory Board

Prior to launching the blog network, UpTake sought the advice of three top bloggers who now comprise the company’s Blog Marketing Advisory Board, Stefania Pomponi Butler, Pam Mandel and Sheila Scarborough. UpTake also formed a content partnership with the Traveling Mamas who write for the network and provide periodic guidance about content and blog improvements.

UpTake’s travel search and discovery engine continues on its promise of being complementary to existing travel sites by providing relevant summaries and direct links to partner sites for complete, accurate results. By being complementary to its partners, UpTake helps their products get discovered and travelers find relevant vacation information more easily. The new blog network continues on this promise by incorporating travel information from sites and blogs across the Web, giving users a truly comprehensive online travel resource. If you are an independent blogger or a blog network, please contact pat at UpTake.com about potential partnership opportunities.

Here is a sampling of a few posts reflecting the content of the blogs from popular destinations to attractions far beyond the tourist track:

Attractions:  Backroads of Ohio

Beaches: Best City Beach on Gulf of Mexico, Clearwater Florida

Hotels:  San Ysidro Ranch Named  Forbes’ Top Hotel in America

Lodging:  Budget Lodging Gone Bad; Circus, Circus, Las Vegas, Nevada

Restaurants:  Best Upscale Restaurants in Santa Monica

Interested in reading more about travel in the U.S.? Please subscribe to our RSS Feed:

• Uptake Attractions Blog
• Uptake Beaches Blog RSS
• Uptake Hotels Blog RSS
• Uptake Lodging Blog RSS
• Uptake Restaurants Blog RSS
• An Honest Take on the Travel Industry RSS

We hope you will take a tour through our blogs when you plan your next trip.