If you’ve been looking at my “Scratch Pad” Page you probably noticed that many of the sites and links being noted on the page are of the Philippines. It is a good possibility that Manila is going to be my first travel destination of choice for this project! The main reason being I always wanted to go back after visiting there when I was still very young; I think I was 13 years old when I visited Manila. Secondly, the total cost of the trip is very affordable, and it is a good starter travel location for the project. The total cost would be around $1,500 maybe even a little less for everything including the airline ticket, 5 day hotel stay, and a personal tour guide – with a few hundred bucks to spare for living expenses.  Once I do a little more research and have a complete itinerary planned for the trip I’ll make another post in the “Travel Journal” category.  Keep in mind, I’m also researching other destinations so Manila as a destination isn’t completely in the bag yet; it’s possible I can change my mind and select another destination while doing research.

While setting up Google Adsense on the blog I saw an advertisement titled “53 Places to Go in 2008″! Interested in the ad in hopes of getting some new ideas for future places I could travel too, I decided to click on the Adsense ad to see what places were listed. Out of the 53 places listed there were quite a few that really interested me including Laos, Vietnam, and Italy; but to be honest, many of the places I never really heard about or had the slightest inkling of ever visiting in my lifetime.

Since this travel blog is just starting out and I haven’t traveled anywhere to post pictures and write about, I decided it would be a good idea to do some research on some of the places listed in the article and make some review posts about some of the various travel destinations! Hopefully, these future posts will help jump start the project into full-speed, provide some interesting articles for readers, and give me some ideas of where I would like to travel! Here’s the full list of 53 Places to go in 2008:

1. Laos
2. Lisbon
3. Tunisia
4. Mauritius
5. Mid-Beach, Miami
6. South Beach, Miami
7. Maldives
8. Death Valley
9. Courchevel (French skiing village)
10. Libya
11. Hvar (tiny village in Croatia)
12. Puerto Vallarta
13. Sylt (Germany)
14. Prague
15. Quito (Ecuador)
16. Liverpool
17. Munich
18. Iran
19. Tuscany
20. Anguilla
21. Bogota (Fourth-largest city in South America)
22. Playa Blanca, Panama
23. Alexandria
24. Mazatlan (Located on Mexico’s Pacific coast)
25. St. Lucia
26. Oslo
27. Buenos Aires
28. Rimini, Italy
29. Malawi (tiny African country)
30. Roatan (Honduran island)
31. Mozambique
32. Kuwait City
33. Verbier (Swiss ski village)
34. Lombok (Indonesian island east of Bali)
35. Northwest Passage
36. Easter Island
37. Virgin Gorda
38. Namibia
39. San Francisco
40. Detroit
41. Itacare, Brazil
42. Kilimanjaro (Africa’s highest mountain)
43. Algeria
44. San Diego
45. Malaga (port city on the southern coast of Spain)
46. Puerto Plata (beach resort on the Dominican Republic’s north coast)
47. London
48. Vietnam
49. Essaouira (Moroccan port city)
50. Las Vegas
51. Barossa Valley, Australia
52. Tokaj, Hungary
53. New York

The actual article by the NY Times can be seen here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/travel/09where.html

I’d like to welcome you to “Traveling Project” for my first post! The official start date of this project was on April 19, 2008. I registered the domain name, installed Wordpress, and found a free Wordpress travel theme online which I really liked all in that same day! Pretty good to get things started right?

If your reading this post and it’s your first time here I suggest you begin by reading the “About Me” and “About Traveling Project” sections at the top of the blog, followed by reading more detailed information about this project by going to the “About” Page. Finally check out the “Sponsor This Project” Page, and if you like this project you can help support it by advertising on this blog or making a monetary contribution.

I’m really excited about getting this project started, and I realize in order for it to be successful I have to make it one of the most interesting and unique travel blogs so my readers keep coming back to support me! For this reason, you’ll be sure to find posts about various travel topics such as:

1. My personal travel experiences when I visit new places
2. Unique facts about various places around the world
3. The top places to visit in the world
4. Travel deals for hotels, airline tickets, cruises, etc.
5. Lots of high-quality and stunning photos of places I visit
6. and much, much more…

In addition to all these great travel topics, I have many more things planned which I will be writing about as I complete the “About” Page over the course of the next few days, so readers can get an idea of what to expect from this project!