Resources for travelers along the vaunted information highway are sprouting up faster than Wal-Marts, but lately, there’s good news: You no longer need to write computer programs or wear a pocket protector to uncover them.
Imagine an enormous guidebook with chapters about most parts of the world and discounts on rental cars and hotels, and you pretty much understand the travel forum on CompuServe, a subscriber-based personal computer service.
Unlike books, however, the computerized guidebooks talk back.
“I’m warning you, it’s addictive,” travel forum systems operator Jerry Schneiderman said in an electronic, or e-mail, message.
Schneiderman’s job puts him in charge of updating the forum’s libraries with travel news from around the world, seeking out and posting new discounts for his “tens of thousands” of members, and answering technical questions from neophytes and old hands. The more interest in the forum he’s able to generate, the more money he makes, but Schneiderman is no mercenary. His good humor and accessibility make him seem more like an amiable restaurant owner, roaming from table to table. Under Schneiderman’s tutelage, figuring out how to use the forum becomes almost as much his problem as it is your own, and anyway, getting on-line is not difficult.
He is right, the travel forum can be addicting-and expensive-when users aren’t mindful of the time they spend on-line. To hook up to CompuServe, users need a PC, a modem and a willingness to spend $8.95 a month for hook-up to 50 basic, non-travel services. The 500 or so forums (of which travel is only one) cost $8 an hour to use with 1200- and 2400-baud modems.
Travel forum members include travel agents who provide quotes for trips by computer, and even several well-known authors and travel writers. Most users are just people who like to travel.
While Schneiderman says his goal is to make enough discounts available on the forum so users save as much money as they spend on line charges, there is more to the forum than saving money. There is knowledge. Recent topics on his message board included a debate between dueling Caribbean island proponents and a discussion about tipping.
Then there is the library, with its several thousand files organized by geographical region. Before leaving on a trip to, say, Jamaica, travelers can look up files relevant to their destination, and then send follow-up e-mail questions to the writers.
Since users get only as good as they give, helpfulness pervades the boards, and friendships sprout quickly among users with common interests.
Consider Australian Harry O’Neill. Last month he wanted to discuss by e-mail his recent yearlong round-the-world trip.
O’Neill, 35, took a lap-top computer with him on the trip, and kept in touch with forum members wherever he went. As North American members watched his trip progress toward their homes, he said, they lobbied for him to visit them in places as scattered as Huntsville, Ala.; Vancouver; and Worcester, Mass.
“I’d been at a bash in New York in my honor at which a total of 19 people showed up,” O’Neill said. He accomplished it all by putting 12,000 miles on a Cadillac rented with help from his forum discount for $175 a week and upgraded by a friend at the rental agency.
Chrys Wu, 24, a communications consultant from Redondo Beach, Calif., said she got good travel advice from Mike Endres, an organizer of Hawaiian information on the forum who is also a citrus farmer and bed-and-breakfast owner at Kula, Hawaii.
During her trip, Wu stopped by Endres’ impressive property to say hello, and departed with ears of corn for herself and a friend, and a giant pineapple. Wu also vouched for the forum car rental rates after checking them against others after arriving on Maui. “They turned out to be the most economical deal for me at the time,” she said.
Information is a call away
With its 1.5 million members, CompuServe Information Systems (800-848-8199) may have the most offerings, but another large on-line service with travel information is Prodigy (800-776-0836).
America Online has fewer members than these two giants but is growing quickly. Call 800-827-6364.
For more information about the non-profit group SERVAS, call the New York headquarters at 212-267-0252 or write to: U.S. SERVAS Inc., 11 John St., Room 407, New York, N.Y. 10038.
