By Ethan Gelber

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On Thursday 1 April, Urban Adventures was featured on Getaway, Australia’s favourite travel show (link directly to the video).

San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, perhaps its greatest landmark, was built in 1936 and earned its name as gateway to the gold that helped fuel the development of California

The chosen destination – one of more than 50 in 30-plus countries on six continents in which Urban Adventures offers unique day tours – was the inimitable Golden Gate city of San Francisco, California. Getaway filmed with the Urban Adventures local partner and unveiled the latter’s novel approach to helping travellers step into the lives of the locals and unlock the secrets of some of their favourite urban centres.

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Posted under General, USA, countries, local tips, media, responsible travel, responsible travel news

By Ethan Gelber (@whltravelblog)

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Inspired by Make Travel Fair’s 10 #whltravel Tweeps Twittering, which was in turn inspired by the 10 #Travel Tweeps Twittering post published on Matador’s Travelers Notebook, here are another 10 pictures of twitter users from the WHL Group.

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Posted under Brazil, Cambodia, Estonia, General, Indonesia, Laos, Montenegro, Portugal, Thailand, media

By Ethan Gelber

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A Local Travel movement is finding its legs. Strong legs. Last weekend, in a step to find good solid ground upon which to exercise those legs, I published two blog posts about it, one on the now-defunct Lonely Planet Travel Blog hosted by Yahoo!7 Travel in Australia and the other on The Brooklyn Nomad’s blog.

It’s true. Local Travel’s here. It’s a small new movement, but it’s gaining momentum. Stay tuned for more…

Lonely Planet’s Travel Blog (hosted by Yahoo!7 Travel in Australia)

On 17 December 2009, I wrote a post about the misunderstood merits of Local Travel on Lonely Planet’s Travel Blog hosted by Yahoo!7 Travel in Australia.

Judging by the glowingly supportive comments, I apparently tapped a rich vein of local travel enthusiasts eager to lend credence to a cause.

Given that, I was invited by Lonely Planet to write a follow-up post, digging a little deeper into the fertile earth I’d found. That text – Get Lost, Go Local – has again fielded some welcome input from readers.

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Posted under media, opinion, responsible organisations, responsible travel, responsible travel news, responsible traveller, whl.travel newsletter

Following the successful completion of a Balkan Hotel Market Access Program, independent travellers exploring the Balkans can now research, plan and book their trips online through locally owned and operated travel websites.

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The Stari Most (Old Bridge) of Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, spans the Neretva River. Originally built during the Ottoman era, it was destroyed during the Bosnian-Herzegovian War and then rebuilt according to the old design and using as much of the recovered original stone as possible. The bridge and surrounding historic neighbourhoods are now a World Heritage Site.

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Posted under Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, General, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, countries, media, responsible travel, whl.travel news, whl.travel newsletter

On Sunday 10 October, Ethan Gelber, editor of this blog and at present visiting New York City, appeared on Heritage Radio Network’s Q-Report to talk about responsible travel and whl.travel.

A full recording of the conversation with hosts Katy Keiffer and Patrick Martins is available online here. (The segment with Ethan begins at 30 minutes and 22 seconds into the broadcast or can be jumped to by scrolling down the page to the segment entitled ‘Ethan Gelber of www.whl.travel Talks About Responsible Tourism’.)

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Posted under General, media, whl.travel news

On July 16, 2009, .travel posted a congratulatory news flash recognising whl.travel’s continuing success and its recent announcement that it’s expanding into more than 100 countries worldwide.

It reads as follows:

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Posted under General, media, whl.travel news