Alex Travel Guide Proposal

Note, right now there is a CouchSurfing Guide where you can work on a travel guide for and by CouchSurfers.

Note: This is a proposal for future CS Enhancements. They are nowhere near fully developed or at all set in stone. In the essay below, I concentrate mostly on providing a strong justification for why CS members should be interested in developing this project. This content is intentionally weak on design detail and technical schematics. I encourage you to rigorously challenge my assumptions and the feasibility of implementing these ideas in the appropriate group forum. Thanks, Alexevasion

Before beginning, it is important to note that we have no vendetta against the writers and publishers of today's travel guides. They are far smarter, more ethical, and culturally sensitive than their predecessors - read the old colonialist accounts of fifty years ago to get a drastic contrast. Also, we cannot deny the utility of travel guides - there are good reasons why they are regularly lifted from hostel libraries. Still, to travelers increasingly immersed in digital media, these books seem somewhat archaic. Though essential, they remain among the heaviest and most expensive pieces of travel equipment. In many ways, they epitomize key problems plaguing the print industry and driving the revolution in open source information. However, their shortcomings go beyond their ever increasing price and thickness.

The information contained within them can only be semi-current (thus semi-accurate) since it is updated only on a semi-regular basis. The newest editions are 90% reproductions of the previous years, though they cost around five times as much. Still, guides sell because travelers feel like they need their own personal copies. They may be right: there are linguistic barriers as well as concerns about theft when they are loaned out to other travelers. Finally, the paid cadre of travelers who write the guides cannot fully represent the interests of an increasingly diversified tourist population. At best, they can provide only a somewhat caricatured description of what certain well defined groups are expected to enjoy (GBLT, backpackers, museum hounds, etc).

With these shortcomings in mind, we are developing a module within Couchsurfing that would at least supplement, if not take the place of travel guides for our members. We are not the first to have embarked on this mission. Wikitravel, a Wikimedia project, already maintains a well designed forum for submissions. However, perhaps because the common wiki format is poorly suited for the task or because the site itself has not yet become an intensive component of travel culture, its content can only be described as superficial at best. It seems likely that open source travel guides would flourish more in a webspace like Couchsurfing which is more commonly and intensively used during travel. We want to create a central forum in which travel information can be created and edited by all interested members. This information will be geographically represented in Google Maps so that users will be able to better place the content.

The space where CS would fit in the travel information ecology is already fairly well defined. Lots of great general information (history, statistics, politics) about cities and exists on wikipedia and other municipal websites. There is an expanding body of ratings for restaurants and entertainment venues, yelp.com out of San Francisco is our favorite. CS Guides would fill the gap between general knowledge and specific business-central information. This would mean providing more specialized "off the beaten path" ideas for having a great time in the area. This could include some great viewpoints, hole in the wall establishments, walking tours, current events, and underground happenings. The information would be reviewed and edited by both couchsurfers and local residents. By linking user profiles to the content creator(s) and reviewers, prospective visitors will get a much better idea of how well particular experiences fit their needs.