With the explosion in video on the Internet, it has always seemed a no-brainer to me that travel would be a hot sector. I mean, cameras are so cheap these days and they are easy to carry with you (we might even have “watch” cameras one of these days). Editing tools can be found for free download, assuming you don’t already have imovie of Final Cut Pro. And the young traveler types who are most likely to have the time and freedom to explore the media-saturated world are also likely to have the skills to put together something and put it up online.
And so it goes.
Now, that said, there’s one company out there for which having a travel-related video Web site also seems a no-brainer. The travel guidebook company Lonely Planet. Well, if you haven’t seen the LP video site urge you to click on over and check it out. Like YouTube and so many other Web 2.0 sites, they allow users to upload video from their travels, some of which are good and some of which are, well, rather awful. This one from Thailand, for example, is, well, pretty horrible. But then there are the vids from the Bluelist series that are rather good. Take this one from Antarctica. I mean, if that doesn’t make you want to go, I don’t know what will.
If you have a camera and a way to digitize the footage, you can easy contribute to the Lonely Planet website. It’s very Web 2.0/YouTube in that way. And while they don’t have the vast number of vids like YouTube, there are plenty there to keep you entertained and to inspire you to plan your next trip. And if they pick your video for the LP “pick” seems they’ll even send you $50. Sweet!