addictedtotravel.com is growing-up fast!

Hey - thanks for reading...

I thought it was about time for a progress update with addictedtotravel.com - a new experience, activity and adventure travel portal incorporating the latest in social networking and community-building functionality!

Well I can't quite believe that 10 weeks has passed by so quickly! Never mind the dream liftestyle objective that myself, Colin and Dave - the two other co-founders - set ourselves 18 months ago - some lifestyle - very long days (and nights) and not a huge amount of free time.... But nevertheless woudn't change it for the world - you just can't beat being your own boss.

It has been a great 10 weeks though - summer holidays at home with the kids - a great 12 days touring the Pyrennees, Andorra (didn't take long...) and Eurodisney - and the delight in seeing the daily development and growth of our new baby (it seems to need feeding and changing pretty regularly). Yep - addictedtotravel.com is already growing-up fast! It is quite remarkable how 1,000 page views quickly became 5,000 - then 10,000 - 20,000 - 50,000. Brilliant!

Every day we're attracting new community members all with a shared passion for travel (plus it's free to sign-up). It didn't take long to reach our first milestone - the magical 100 - and we've had people check out the site from over 80 countries already - including Antarctica (thanks Drew...). Google seems to like us too - we're already hitting page 1 of search results for many many keyword searches.

We've also been really pleased with all the new Travel Expert community members that have joined. Some of the world's leading local (based in the country they operate in) tour operators, activity operators and quirky/distinctive accommodation suppliers have all committed to sharing some of their best adventures with us. 20 countries already! Phew.

Dave, Colin and myself racked our brains for weeks about how best to facilitate great communication between our members - both traveller to traveller and traveller to travel expert - the result was... forums, reviews, blogs, messaging, chat and a bespoke online enquiry system - just in case anyone decides they actually want to travel! We got most of our wish list live and tested - but still more to do. Nevertheless, we've seen a really encouraging number of enquiries.

Anyway, that's enough from me for now - I've got to get my head stuck into a couple of Morocco books - still more 'Great Places to Visit' to create and cracking images to load. Also lots of replies to send to some great folk who are asking if we've got any jobs going...

Keep an eye on my blog - more coming soon.

Travel safe and travel smart.

Nick