Have been a dormant user of Ycombinator for some time. I have been researching on this topic for the last 4-5 years. To be really honest I think TripHobo.com does not fit SomeCallMeTim's use case. I think Roadtrippers.com may fit the bill. Having said that, I am a big fan of TripHobo.com. I have seen the portal evolve for sometime and I see it as the closest solution to fixing travel planning
I have my reasons here:
1) The only source which gives you draft itineraries created by other users. This is immensely useful as i can see what other are planning to my destination. I planned a trip to Rome using TripHobo.com and i find it immensely useful..
2) If you hit Plan my trip button, the TripPlanning functionality is awesome. You can add almost all attractions in a city to your trip plan and you can hit the optimize button, you get an automated route planned. What TripHobo claims is that the route plans generated are not only optimized for distance but also for opening and closing times of attractions. I think this is really cool.
No one does it so easily.. not even google!
3) The ease of usage: This is the most easy to use portal for trip planning.
Limitations:
I think there is only one limitation as SomeCallMeTim pointed out..
Limited number of cities .. I counted the number of cities manually in August last year, i could find 171 cities to which i could plan trips to. I counted again on 5th october 2014 and i found that there were 243 cities. Today i saw that they have changed their interface to a search bar and hence I am not able to determine how many cities are enabled on Triphobo.com.. If they go on increasing the number of cities to which one can plan his/her trip to say 3000-4000 cities around the world.. i think TripHobo.com will have fixed travel planning for sure. My 2 cents!
I am also tracking folks like roadtrippers, mygola and tripomatic. To me these (along with TripHobo) are the leading 4 travel planning players today. MyGola has been a disappointment..Tripomatic is difficult to use..Roadtrippers and TripHobo are i think getting some serious traction .. Roadtrippers has primary focus on roadtrips whereas TripHobo is a holistic leisure travel solution if they are able to scale their content..
Have been a dormant user of Ycombinator for some time. I have been researching on this topic for the last 4-5 years. To be really honest I think TripHobo.com does not fit SomeCallMeTim's use case. I think Roadtrippers.com may fit the bill. Having said that, I am a big fan of TripHobo.com. I have seen the portal evolve for sometime and I see it as the closest solution to fixing travel planning I have my reasons here: 1) The only source which gives you draft itineraries created by other users. This is immensely useful as i can see what other are planning to my destination. I planned a trip to Rome using TripHobo.com and i find it immensely useful.. 2) If you hit Plan my trip button, the TripPlanning functionality is awesome. You can add almost all attractions in a city to your trip plan and you can hit the optimize button, you get an automated route planned. What TripHobo claims is that the route plans generated are not only optimized for distance but also for opening and closing times of attractions. I think this is really cool. No one does it so easily.. not even google! 3) The ease of usage: This is the most easy to use portal for trip planning.
Limitations: I think there is only one limitation as SomeCallMeTim pointed out.. Limited number of cities .. I counted the number of cities manually in August last year, i could find 171 cities to which i could plan trips to. I counted again on 5th october 2014 and i found that there were 243 cities. Today i saw that they have changed their interface to a search bar and hence I am not able to determine how many cities are enabled on Triphobo.com.. If they go on increasing the number of cities to which one can plan his/her trip to say 3000-4000 cities around the world.. i think TripHobo.com will have fixed travel planning for sure. My 2 cents!
I am also tracking folks like roadtrippers, mygola and tripomatic. To me these (along with TripHobo) are the leading 4 travel planning players today. MyGola has been a disappointment..Tripomatic is difficult to use..Roadtrippers and TripHobo are i think getting some serious traction .. Roadtrippers has primary focus on roadtrips whereas TripHobo is a holistic leisure travel solution if they are able to scale their content..