I Always Thought Online Travel Should Be Fun...

In 1995 I abandoned the hostel-hopping circuit for my first real job, at AOL in Tysons Corner, Virginia. Traveling was definitely more fun than working at AOL, so when a position came up with AOL Travel, I thought it would be better because of the "travel" in the title. The job had its moments, but I learned there was a great divide between "travel" and "traveling".

I left AOL in 2002 itching to do something in travel that was fun. My friend Dave and I made several travel-related pilots for TV, including Bargain Travel Minute, Hostel Days and a bunch more. We spent some time in Los Angeles, had an agent at ICM, pitched a show to MTV — that was fun.

When I came back to San Francisco in 2004, I spent a year working at pre-podcasting company AudioFeast, then another at the podcasting pioneer Odeo. When Odeo morphed into Twitter, I continued to work in the office and eat the snacks, but I started working on my own project, 71Miles.

During my three-year hiatus from online travel, there was a lot of innovation and the creation of a number of new products, but almost all of it centered on search and price. Arbitrage can bring about useful results, but fun?

Trazzler is our attempt to bring at a much-needed dose of the fun of traveling into the world of online travel.