Travelllll.com is a travel blogging and media news site. We’re going to be covering all the latest news in the niche which we’ve watched grow so heavily over the past few years. What sort of stuff are we going to be writing about, exactly? Well, for a start we want this to be the first site you visit each morning to know what’s going on in your industry. We’ll be rounding up all the latest headlines and coverage of travel events, blog trips, tourist board budgets and plans, technology – and of course the subject of travel blogging as a business. I want to tell you more about the sort of things we’ll be writing about, but first I want to introduce you to the team that’s making all of this happen.
The Team Behind Travelllll.com
Well, I guess first of all there’s me. Some of you already know me, but for those who don’t – I’m John O’Nolan. I’m an interactive designer with a client base ranging from Microsoft to Virgin Atlantic Airways. I also contribute to the core WordPress platform as a user interface designer, so some parts of your blog’s administration system were designed by me. I speak at conferences all over the world, both on travel and design, and I’m just about to take off on an indefinite round-the-world trip with nothing but my laptop and camera. Want to follow me on Twitter? I’m @JohnONolan.
But enough about me, it’s the rest of the team that are the real stars of this show:
Alastair McKenzie
The first of our two editors; former ILR & INR (Classic FM) radio presenter and Vice Chairman of The British Guild of Travel Writers, we think Alastair probably has more experience in the travel industry than the rest of us put together. Overseeing content strategy with a keen eye on future trends and early technology adoption, Alastair brings both wisdom and a very strong understanding of trends in this market to the site. Follow him on Twitter @AlastairMck.
Mike Sowden
The second of the editors; Mike Sowden is a Yorkshire based freelance writer with an unhealthy love of travel. Mike is a self-proclaimed travelling disaster, which generally leads to some truly fantastic writing on the subject of his misfortune. Mike will be overseeing content management to ensure that Travelllll.com is always churning out top quality posts for your enjoyment. Follow him on Twitter @Mikeachim.
Lezaan Roos
Lezaan is our Director of Operations. She’ll be working with sponsors and advertisers to bring you offers, competitions, promotions and relevant content from our partners on an ongoing basis. Lezaan comes from a background as an account director at LBi, one of the world’s largest digital agencies, where she works with major corporate clients across a wide range of industries – including travel. Follow her on Twitter @LezaanRoos.
Rich Whitaker
Formerly of STA Travel and currently of Brilliant Travel Media, Rich Whitaker is both our man on the other side of the pond, and one of our site development leads who will be pushing forward both our US promotion and technical development. Rich is probably best known for creating the list of Top 50 Influencers in Travel, which became rather popular in 2010! Follow him on Twitter @RMWhitaker.
Melvin Boecher
Few people in travel haven’t come across Melvin at some point. As the founder of the now-rather-large-travel-community of TravelDudes, Melvin has made a huge name for himself in the travel social media space. We’re very pleased to have Melvin working with us as our community manager, so you can expect to come across him plenty on our Twitter and Facebook profiles. Follow Melvin on @TravelDudes.
What Are We Writing About? And What’s up With The Influx of The Letter L?
Conveniently, the answers to these two questions go hand in hand. We wanted a name that was short, punchy, memorable, and fun. Pronounced: travel-dot-com-with-5-ls.We also decided that we wanted to write about five main subject-areas: Travel, Technology, Tourism, Business and Events. The 5 Ls (our 5 lines of inquiry) evolved from that pretty early on, and then it just stuck. For those still wondering… Travelllll.com is pronounced “travel-dot-com…-with-5-ls”. If you ever forget how many Ls there are, I refer you to the number of digits on each of your hands. Genius, I know.
So, we really want to cover what’s going on in the travel blogging market in these five areas. There are lots of niches and sub-niches within travel, but at present there doesn’t seem to be anywhere that unites them all or talks about what tourist boards and commercial enterprises are actually doing in this space. It’s not just going to be the six of us though, we want to work with you – our fellow travel bloggers – and commission content on an ongoing basis. More on that later.
To stay in the loop on the stuff we’re writing about, then there’s a number of great ways to keep in touch. You can follow us on @Travelllll, or you can Like us on Facebook, or you can subscribe by RSS, or you can subscribe via email newsletter (The newsletter form is at the top of the sidebar on this page).
Before I hand you over to Alastair and Mike for all your day-to-day content – There’s one more thing I want to mention…
We’re Putting Up Two Travel Bloggers in London for The 2011 World Travel Market
To celebrate the launch of Travelllll.com, we’ve teamed up with the awesome guys (and girls) over at Expedia to run a competition putting up two lucky travel bloggers in four star accommodation for the 2011 World Travel Market in London, from November 7-10.
Not only that, but we’re going to fly one of them into London from anywhere in Europe!
There are several ways to enter this competition, but first – let’s review the prizes!
- The Grand Prize
Only eligible to European residents, you will be provided with free flights to WTM London in November and stay at a luxurious (centrally located) four star hotel. You’ll enjoy access to the event, socialising with other attendees, and once you’re all partied-out, you’ll be flown back home again to reflect on the amazing time you just had. - Second Prize
Eligible to everyone in the world, if you’re already planning on attending WTM – why not let us cover your accomodation for you? If you can get yourself to London in time for the event, we’ll put you up in the same luxurious four star hotel so that you can stay as close to all the action as possible.
But wait! There’s more! Thanks to our friends over at @socialtrav, both winners will get complete press access to the entire event and access to the WTM press centre.
Don’t feel too bad, US visitors, this competition may have more prizes for people in Europe but we’ll be running future competitions geared specifically towards you. Now, here’s how you can go about entering:
- Follow us on Twitter – @Travelllll
- Like our page on Facebook and leave us a comment on this post telling us you’ve liked it (and anything else you want to share)
- Tweet this: “Travelllll and Expedia are putting up two bloggers at WTM this year – and I want to be one of them! http://su.pr/7ooEah #GIMME”
- Stumble this post using the button on this page, or your toolbar!
Each one that you do will get you one entry to the competition. You can do as many or as few of them as you like, but each person can only ever have a maximum of four entries. We’ll collate all the entries on Tuesday the 27th of September and pick two random winners! So what are you waiting for?
By entering this competition, you agree to our competition terms and conditions below.
Over to You
What do you think of the new site? What sort of content would you be interested in reading here? Got anything cool going on in your world which you think we should take notice of? Drop us a line in the comments below and say hi!
Finally, a very sincere thank you to Expedia for generously supporting our first ever competition and the launch of Travelllll.com.
View Terms & Conditions
As part of the Travelllll.com launch competition, Expedia has agreed to provide our lucky winners with:
1 x Economy class return travel by air from European airports to London airports for one winner to enable the winner to attend the World Travel Market in London from 7 – 10th November. The prize does not include ground transportation from winner’s home to departure airport or from London airports to the Event or hotel accommodation provided.
2x 3 nights accomodation in a 4 star hotel in London (one room, single occupancy – room only basis, with no meals, telephone calls or other inicdentals included).
For the full terms and conditions for this competition, please click here.
Post Revisions:
- 20 December, 2011 @ 5:21 [Current Revision] by John O'Nolan
- 26 October, 2011 @ 14:26 by John O'Nolan
- 26 October, 2011 @ 14:26 by John O'Nolan
- 29 September, 2011 @ 15:18 by John O'Nolan
- 29 September, 2011 @ 15:18 by John O'Nolan
- 14 September, 2011 @ 12:15 by John O'Nolan
- 14 September, 2011 @ 12:15 by Rich Whitaker
- 13 September, 2011 @ 13:52 by John O'Nolan
- 13 September, 2011 @ 13:52 by Rich Whitaker
- 13 September, 2011 @ 12:15 by John O'Nolan
- 13 September, 2011 @ 12:15 by John O'Nolan
Congratulations on the launch of Travelllll.com — I can see some interesting reading ahead!
Traveling is one of those things I’ve never really done, if you exclude 2 school trips abroad, one to Italy and one to France (I forget the name of the place we stayed!); it’s definitely something I’d like to do in the near future! :D
Good stuff! Congrats on the launching!!!! :D
Nice looking site, and even redirected when I put in 6 Ls, well done. I would like to read more about sustainable travel, as a recent study suggests that just over half of Brits would pay more to travel the sustainable way! Keep up the good work!
Thanks Nila – we knew some people would mash an extra L in there occasionally so we planned ahead ;) Thanks too for the content suggestions!
Congratulations on the launch! Looking forward to what’s to come on travelllll :)
Good luck guys, look forward to seeing it grow :)
Congratulations! I look forward to reading all the awesomeness that comes out of the site-looks like you guys are a great crew and I am definitely bookmarking this page. Awesome. Glad to support!
Congratulations! The site looks amazing – yes, John you are AWESOME! :-)
Excellent initiative and a stunning team to boot! Well done!
What a great idea – looking forward to seeing what you have to say about travel blogging. And I have my fingers crossed that I win the contest. I’ve already got the miles to get to London…
Nice job, Congrats!
Congratulations! And what a nice team :)
I can’t begin to tell you how sweet the site lookkkkks! :-P
Congrats guys….
Well done on the successful launch thus far! So excited to follow along from here on out!
Yeah! Travel bloggers get their own playground! I love it.
You can swing on my swing set, tweet with me @Nancydbrown or play foursquare with me anytime!
Congratulations on the launch and best wishes in growing this community.
Looking most handsome indeed, and tis high time we have something like this. Be interesting to see tnooz’s reaction to it. Keep it up. As the old fella from Are You Being Served used to say, ‘You’ve all done very, very well’!
@jools – yeah, woooo, what does Tnooz think ;)
I think a site for writers/bloggers, etc, keeping them up to date with stuff going on in the industry is fabulous and very welcome.
Have always liked Alastair, his style and attitude, and John has done a great job with the site.
We’ve all seen a heap of seminars, meetups, conferences, networks, etc in recent years, so seems sensible to try and coordinate some of noise into a single place.
Tnooz is a young media startup (still less than two years old) and has made it through that period through hard work, sheer bloody mindedness, some great scoops and just trying to do things differently than the rather tired, traditional travel trade media. I hope Travelllll
I’m a big fan of people trying something new, especially in the media, so Travelllll is going to be fun to watch.
Oh, yeah, competition? Not sure, maybe for some things, but our articles on blogging and writing was always a bit on the side from our core editorial proposition, so a much better fit here.
All good fun!
My only quibble. “5x as awesome” is so bad. But then many people hated the word “tnooz” at first ;)
Thanks Kevin – as a clarification, we’re only hammering home the “5x” thing as a short term branding exercise, not a long term tagline ;) Love it or hate it, either way I hope you’ll remember the important part next time you try and remember how many Ls are in the domain.
Congrats! I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with! Best of luck! :)
Good work guys, look forward to reading it! Nice design.
Well done travelllll.com! I look forward to watching this grow.
Many thanks, everyone. Are we thrilled about the welcome you’re giving us? You BET we are.
Megagrats boys and girls, can’t wait to see some quality stuff being created and will follow with interest.
Yeah, what Mike said! Thanks for all the kind wishes, guys!
A great idea with a great team. The site looks awesome and I’m looking forward to seeing it grow and flourish!
Heh. Now I know what you guys were up to in Valencia :)
Nailed it ;)
And I thought there could not possibly be any new ideas for a travel website!! Congratulations on coming up with a good-looking site with substance.
Wow the site looks great. Excited you have Mike Sowden onboard, I love his writing! Good luck to all of you. This site is going to go places…..literally!
I love the new site, and liked you on facebook, and tweeted my love for you to the world, so I sure would love that second prize. Looking forward to seeing what you have in store!
Congrats for the launch, The site looks great!
Have just signed up to the site and looking forward to keeping up to date with everything. Best wishes and good luck with the project!
Loving the new site! Even more excited that the group of you have joined together and created this! I just wonder how much beer was consumed while designing the thing! Congrats….and hope to see you all again soon!
Great design and interesting concept. I really like the typefaces. I guess the name will grow on me..?
Good luck with it!
Congrats on the launch! The site looks awesome so far. I can see big potential. I’ll remember the number of L’s by counting the toes on my foot. :)
Awesome site! Can’t wait to see how it evolves and hope to eventually contribute as well!
PS. I liked you guys on FB!
This site is gorgeous! Congratulations, guys and girls! Looking forward to watching you take off.
Congrats! The site looks very pro and I just love the designnnnn :)
A big thank you to everyone for all the kind words…
Really looking good and content so far is fantastic-congrats guys!
You’ve put together a really stellar team ~ I can’t wait to follow along with this new venture!
Great site! Something like this needed to come along and I’m so glad it did. One thing I would add is a forum…i.e. maybe we can transfer the Travel Bloggers forum to this site so you can search by topic—something you can’t currently do on the Facebook page (a board similar to chowhound for discussion). I think your site would be the perfect way to do so. Otherwise, great job on content and layout/design!
Hi Natalie, thanks so much for the kind words and the feedback. A forum is something we’re thinking about and we think there might be a way to combine Facebook discussions with the main site in an interesting way – I’ll let you know how we get on!
Liking it so far guys – looks really neat, is engaging and seems like you’ve managed to turn it around in no time at all! Well Done. I can only hope that our new site launch goes as smoothly as yours when the time comes! :-)
Thanks Aisleen :)
Keith Jenkins (@velvetescape) advises that you should look for new monetization opportunities all the time, so I’m sure I can sell you our design/tech/guru/CEO John. He’s not much use round here now we’ve launched. He just makes the tea at Travelllll Towers. ;)
Love the concept! Love the typography! Looking forward to more. In the meantime, we’re following, liking, tweeting and stumbling you so we don’t miss out on anything. Congratulations on the launch!
Thanks Shirlene :)
I am most impressed with what you are doing, all sounds and looks very logical and definitely something that was due. But, will this only be for Europe and US ? I am an ex tour operator who, at a “mature” age has dived into social media. I live in South Africa and my niche marker is the whole of Southern Africa. We may still be a little behind you guys on the social media side but are catching up fast AND, we have the most superb stories to tell. I look forward to following you all!
Hi Cynthia, thanks for kind thoughts.
No! Absolutely not, just Europe & USA. I am VERY keen to write more, engage more, and highlight more travel bloggers around the world.
We are an English language news site so that naturally points us in the direction of South Africa, India, Australasia, but if, for example one of my fav video bloggers, @alan_estrada from Mexico, were to sub-title in English (hint Alan!) he’d be featured in a heartbeat.!
So spread the word!
Congratulations.. can’t wait to see what more you come up with…
Great site guys, nice design looking forward to seeing more posts.
Congratulations to the entire team! Every ounce of your effort is truly paying off and I can’t wait to start using this site every day to get the latest and greatest travel info. Finally, a site I can rely on to keep me up to date and in the know!!
Thank you all for a job well done and I wish you the best of success!!!!!
Jeff
Sounds exciting. I’m interested to see how this turns out and reading some fabulous content in the upcoming weeks.
Also good luck with your travels John.
Congratulations on the new site. I “like” you and “follow” your every move. Hopefully I’ll see you at WTM.
This looks great guys. Congrats on the launch and filling this need.
Looking good congrats on the launch!!!
Looking forward to reading and learning more!
I’ll be watching You :)
Congratulations on the new site. I look forward to reading more interesting posts.
Regarding the name – and I thought Welsh with its double “l”s was difficult to pronounce.
Congrats on the launch :)
Looking forward to seeing the site evolve. Best of luck!
love the layout and the seriously relevant content you provide to travel bloggers.
hope to win and meet through my tweet, like and follow – re-tweet, re-like and follow backs are appreciated…
Congratulations! This looks like it’s going to be a really good site, I love it that the team is made of people with different areas of expertise. Looking forward to coming here first thing in the morning, as you say!
@AnisIbrahim
Hi, such a great idea and I’m on the side of the fence that loves the 5 L’s. Mostly the bit about looking at the number of digits on your hand. Nice.
I’d love to see some material on holiday rentals. I found the airbnb article but I’m a little bored of hearing about them. It’s such a growing market that it deserves some space. Of course I know this is all highly disingenuous being the owner of a fledgling holiday rental website!
Thanks for bringing us all such an interesting and informative travelllll space!
Hey all-
Congrats on a great-looking site and resource! I’ll be watching & sending you an email soon as well.
Always love more L’s out there! ;)
LL
The site looks great! I like the colours you used. Looking forward to reading some good articles and maybe even contribute something! ;-) Hopefully see you guys at WTM in London!
-The Young Foodie
Nicely done! Congratulations on the launch.
Great team… looking forward to 5x travel awesomeness.
cheers,
HipTraveler
Found the site through Gary Arndt’s post on FB . Very exciting concept and launch. Best of luck, Cheers
Great job so far! :D i like a lot your posts. very interesting (at least to me, i’m a travel blogger). Hope to win the free accomodation for the WTM London :) Cheers from Barcelona!
Love this!! Just getting adjusted back to Las Vegas time, so haven’t had a chance to properly stalk the site yet, but from what I have seen, WOW. So thrilled for this site and excited for what is to come. Best to you all!!
Nicely designed site not too surprisingly of course, and looking forward to some interesting content. I’ve liked the site on Facebook so yes please a free ticket to WTM & a place to stay would be nice!
Great new site – so excited to find it! I am now following you, I liked you on Facebook and I tweeted about the contest. Would love to win accommodation and entry into WTM as I’m getting serious now about my travel writing. Cheers!
P.S. I also just liked it on Stumble Upon, for full points for the contest. *fingers crossed*
I’m loving the content you guys are putting up on the blog so far!
Hi y’all!
Thanks for the offer of hotel at WTM! I hope I can be a part of the travelllll and Expedia crew!
I’ve tweeted, followed, liked and stumbled. Need your car washed too? :-D
-Robbin Gheesling
hey guys, that’s amazing! I love travelllll … feels like I as a travelblogger just found a new home! that’s all I was looking for for so long! and yes, easy to remember: cause it’s all about travel + 5 L’s! I don’t even have to bookmark it or write it down. It’s already in my head! will come back every day! would love to find some SEO and wordpress ideas!
Jeanette – traveller, blogger, trolleygirl
http://www.follow-your-trolley.com
Congrats !
Hi John,
I came across this site thanks to Julie Schwietert who is on a trip with Rich. I have liked your FB Page and will also subscribe to your feeds and newsletter as there is a lot I can learn from Travelllll.com. I love to travel and have lived in 3 different continents. I started a blog last year and hope to learn more about travel blogging.
Just realized I never commented!! yikes!! Hope not too late… liked your FB pg/ newsletter/ TWITTER!! I am @bestCapeTownSA, heard about the Travel Blogger conference from @MalayD and will LOVE to attend! Amazing event with great panelists + speakers~
I went away “disconnected” for 3 weeks and VOILA! a new, much needed industry was born. Congratulations! Y ou have clearly organized, professionalized and defined the Travel Blogging Industry! Seeing the team members who are involved, I’m convinced that you will soon articulate a code of ethics and guidelines for professional travel bloggers. So far your articles have been outstanding. Everything we all wanted to know and more. Wishing you much success and good times!
Great site! Found some tips for my blog, thanks :-)
I like this site..Its nice and it gave us lots of ideas..Thanks for sharing great info. about travelling.
Great website guys, first time I’ve had a proper look round and enjoyed the articles! The design is superb as well, very jealous!