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New website, PublicEarth, shares hidden gems from around the globe
The new website PublicEarth may still be in beta, but it's already showing plenty of promise for travelers looking to find hidden travel gems and inside information for their next trip. The idea behind the site is that it is set up in a wiki format allowing contributors to share their experiences and favorite locations with others in a unique and interesting format. PublicEarth is the brainchild of Duncan McCall, an avid adventure traveler who has explored the far corners of the globe. While on those travels, he would often meet up with other adventurers, and swap stories over a few beers, sharing tips and secret destinations. Those conversations proved invaluable in getting the most out of those journeys, and upon returning home to the U.S., McCall wanted to come up with a way to create that same experience for travelers everywhere. PublicEarth was born from that idea.
The website's concept is simple. The plan is to combine "location searching and place discovery" with well designed and easy to use tools that make it simple for travelers to not only sift through the content, but also share their own experiences as well. With nearly five million places already in the system, it is clear that the concept is already resonating with travelers, who are contributing as much as they are reading.
Visitors to the site are able to find places in a number of categories, such as "food & drink", "history & culture", "outdoors & nature", and more. The entries are then dropped on to a map, showing locations and general proximity to one another, making it a perfect tool to plan your next escape.
PublicEarth looks like it has the potential to be a very powerful and useful tool, and it is already growing quite quickly. It just might earn a spot in your list of favorite travel sites as well.
PublicEarth looks like it has the potential to be a very powerful and useful tool, and it is already growing quite quickly. It just might earn a spot in your list of favorite travel sites as well.
Filed under: Arts and Culture, History, Festivals and Events, Food and Drink, Blogs, Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, South America, Middle East
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Michael Nov 25th 2009 11:31AM
PublicEarth definitely looks like a cool site, and I did a quick search for my neighborhood in Brooklyn and found some places I had never heard of and might want to check out.
At the same time, I still think there's a place for human edited and vetted websites that share "hidden gems". I sometimes find so much content ovewhelming, and I can imagine that a site like PublicEarth, still in its infancy, might eventually have so much content that it becomes almost useless. In other words, when there are 1000 restaurants listed in my nieghborhood, it's really no different than a phonebook.
An alternative to this model, which I admit is extremely time intensive, is our website, http://www.darngooddigs.com. Like PublicEarth, travelers suggest their favorite places - in our case, they are small hotels, b&b's, and hostels with rooms under US$150, but unlike PublicEarth, we actually research each suggestion, and only choose the best to feature on Darn Good Digs. We will never have 5 million listings, because the process is simply too time consuming, but that's not we want either. We're going for quality at the expense of quantity.
I think PublicEarth seems really cool, but in order for me to bookmark it there will need to be some way for the best content to rise to the top.