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'Social travel' start-ups help travelers gather friends' tips

May 19, 2012|By Peter Delevett

Zuckerberg, who runs social media start-up R to Z Studios, said she's advising Trippy's team — which is led by the founder of VirtualTourist — because they're building "a travel tool that I want to use."

She and Trippy's other advisors each maintain their own "visual inspiration boards," filled with photos from their favorite travel destinations, along with tips and insights for each place. (Zuckerberg's, for instance, includes her favorite restaurant in Buenos Aires, which she said made her "never want to eat red meat again anywhere else in the world.")

Travelers can browse the site's images, collect what sparks their wanderlust and add the photos to their own boards. Think Pinterest for the travel set.

Francis Tapon, a travel writer based in San Francisco, said social travel apps and websites "are going to do to the guidebook industry what Wikipedia did to the Encyclopaedia Britannica."

Tapon recently returned to the U.S. after spending three years traveling around Eastern Europe. And, he said, "I never used a guidebook."

Delevett writes for the San Jose Mercury News/McClatchy.

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