Posts tagged Twitter
#NYCGO Writing Contest Winners
Hello Trazzlers—
Happy first day of fall! Thank you to all who participated in our #NYCGO Oasis Contest by writing trips or voting for your favorites. Many of you are new to Trazzler—welcome!
>Read the entries
Why Trazzler is Different
So many other travel sites are essentially reworded reference material with logistical information, tourist bureau propaganda, or an unedited, overwhelming morass of useful and useless information. Trazzlers meander through a world of trips—hand-picked, concise, compellingly written slices of life that pull the reader into a real experience: a hotel stay, walk, adventure, spa, restaurant, ice cream stand, pony ride… really anywhere that travel can take you. The more you use the site, the better our recommendations get.
Now, on to the big announcement…
#NYCGO Summer Writing Contest: Oasis
Winner: Stephen Bramucci, Laguna Beach, California
Winning Trip: Walking in the Footsteps of Pirates in Ambodifototra, Madagascar
Grand Prize: $10,000 contract to be a two-week writer-in-residence in New York City and write 30 Trazzler trips covering the five boroughs of NYC. Hotel accommodations (14 nights) provided by AKA luxury hotel residences. Round-trip airfare provided by JetBlue.
An island is a reverse-oasis for those who live at sea. Stephen invites us to imagine the world of the 17th- and 18th-century pirates who terrorized the trade routes and occasionally took a break by setting foot on dry land. All of the judges agreed that this trip was well-crafted and loaded with intriguing details. In just 140 words, Stephen was able to conjure up the weight of the past at the resting place of these rogues—a peaceful cemetery overlooking the sea.
9 Runners Up: Courtney Scott, Alex Dweezy Dwyer, Sandra Foster Lovas, Paul Justin Cox III, Kate Sommers, Marie Elena Martinez, Stephanie Fine Sasse, Paul Koning, and Traci Hui
Prizes: $250 freelance contracts to write 10 Trazzler trips
One of our objectives at Trazzler is to create a writing medium that captures the subjective and diverse nature of travel. We think the top ten trips illustrate how smart, adventurous travelers can experience the world in different ways. About the social-media savvy and creativity of all ten finalists (and those who came so close)—you far surpassed our expectations—thank you for making the contest such a success.
4 Editors’ Choice Award Winners: Craig Bridger, Ethan Gelber, Thalia Kwok, and Karen Dion
Prizes: $500 freelance contracts to write 15 Trazzler trips
It was no easy task to narrow it down to just four trips—a teahouse, a moderately seedy Class A baseball game, the world’s oldest sand dunes, and a nonexistent and poorly signed micronation. Each an oasis in its own way, these trips stuck with us, even after reading hundreds and hundreds of entries. For these awards, we didn’t take the wishlisting votes into account at all—we realize that not everyone is a social-media expert and we always want to find a way to reward writers who embrace the idea of Trazzler.
About Our Sponsors
nycgo.com—New York City’s official marketing, tourism and partnership organization—has very generously sponsored the grand prize: a $10,000 contract to write 30 Trazzler trips with free airfare and hotel for two weeks. Our grand prize winner will stay in the heart of New York City’s own urban oasis, and enjoy the attentiveness worthy a celebrity VIP at the AKA luxury hotel residences. Think insanely great location (one block off 5th Avenue and Central Park) and swanky in-suite spa services. JetBlue will be providing flight to NYC. JetBlue offers flights to more than 50 destinations, with free TV and the most legroom in coach.
Upcoming Contests and Giveaways
We have big plans for more writing contests this fall. For details, follow us on Twitter @trazzler or keep an eye out for our next newsletter (we send one per month). We will also be doing more travel giveaways on Twitter. (We just gave away a two-night stay at the Jupiter Hotel in Portland, Oregon.)
Happy Trazzling…
Megan Cytron
Executive Editor
P.S. If you have any questions or feedback, you can find us @trazzler on Twitter or on Get Satisfaction.
July Newsletter—#NYCGO Summer Contest
Hello Trazzlers—
It’s been a while… We’ve been busy putting together a big contest for summer—and coming up with a dream job for the winner, who will be Trazzler’s very first “writer-in-residence.”
#NYCGO Summer Writing Contest and ThemeOasis
1. n. a fertile or green area in an arid region (as a desert).
2. n. something that provides refuge, relief, or pleasant contrast.
(Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.)
Modern life can often feel like a trek through the desert. For this contest, we want you to write about a place that not only satisfies your thirst for a change of scenery, but goes beyond this, breaking the spell of everyday existence and providing the “refuge and relief” that we all crave, especially in the summer. Your oasis might be an urban park, a meal in a restaurant that you’ll replay for years, a swimming hole on a hot summer day, a romantic hideaway that you return to again and again, a museum where you lose yourself for hours… really any place of extreme beauty, culture, flavor, respite, or relaxation. » Read more
We’re Awarding 14 Writing Contracts:
About this contest:
Trazzler is a site for dreamers, so when we wanted to find a dream assignment for our first two-week travel writer-in-residence, we knew it had to be New York City. For generations, writers from around the world have flocked to New York to drink from the fountain of inspiration—where better to write a series of trips with the theme “oasis?”
Our summer contest is going to be bit different from our past contests. For one thing, it’s bigger, a lot bigger: 
New York City’s official marketing, tourism and partnership organization—has generously sponsored the grand prize: a $10,000 contract to write 30 Trazzler trips.
Our grand prize winner will stay in the heart of New York City’s own urban oasis, in the lap of luxury at the AKA luxury hotel residences one block off 5th Avenue and Central Park with swanky in-suite spa services.
The flight will be provided by JetBlue. JetBlue offers flights to more than 50 destinations, with free TV, snacks, award winning service, and the most legroom in coach.
» See rules and more contest information
May Contest Winners—Work of Art
Prizes awarded: Ten $250 contracts to write 10 trips
Kendra Hoover, Julie Hammonds, David Chachere, Kimberly Wadsworth, Anne-Sophie Redisch, Sami Esfahani, Hrvoje Karalic, Gladys Glover, Yoshi Salaverry, and Beth Green.
We also awarded 22 freelance contracts. You can read about them in the blog entry below this one.
Welcome Twitterers
Thanks for following—today we topped 760,000 followers. You
can always contact us with feedback and questions @trazzler. You can also now send a tweet about any trip by clicking the “share” button on the trip page. During Round Two of our contest, sending tweets about your favorite contest entries can help them win.
Don’t Stay Home!
I’m in Mexico at the moment and, like so many places weathering the past year’s economic downturn, the little guys here need your business. Whether you can swing a big adventure or want to explore your own corner of the world more, this is a great time to seek out travel deals and help others keep their businesses afloat.
Happy Trazzling…
Megan Cytron
Executive Editor
http://www.trazzler.com
P.S. If you have any questions or feedback, you can find us @trazzler on Twitter or on Get Satisfaction.
May Newsletter: Work of Art
Hello Trazzlers—
Pablo Picasso once said: “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” (A stain remover for the psyche!) And can’t the same be said for travel? As the days get longer, steal a moment for yourself for a weekend getaway, a day trip, or even just a walk across town to a different neighborhood… And why not seek out some art while you are out there (and share it with us)?
May Contest—Work of Art
http://www.trazzler.com/trips/tags/work-of-art
End date: June 15, 12pm EST; 5pm GMT
Prize: $250 contract to write 10 trips
We’ve found that taking on an entire museum in a Trazzler trip doesn’t do justice to the works contained within. So this month we are going to narrow the focus a bit and write about a particular work of art that is a microdestination unto itself—be it a favorite painting, or room of paintings, at a museum just down the street… or a masterpiece that you saw on a trip that you can’t get out of your mind.
We’re leaving the concept of a “work of art” quite open to interpretation. It could be a room of Calder mobiles, a mural that captures a neighborhood’s history, a nationalist painting that engulfs you with its symbolism, a series of curvaceous street sculptures, an industrial wasteland transformed into a garden of graffiti, ancient paintings in the Kalahari desert…
For inspiration, have a look at some past Trazzler trips that fit the bill and more recent contest entries: work of art.
See rules and more contest information.
April Contest Recap—Local Institutions
http://www.trazzler.com/trips/tags/local-institution
Prizes awarded: Twelve $250 contracts to write 10 trips
We are happy to report that local institutions are alive and well. The submissions were—to reduce it to one word—eclectic: a polka bar time warp in Minneapolis, an outdoor cinema in the shadow of the Acropolis, a decidedly non-corporate bookstore in Chicago, a classic corner hangout in Buenos Aires, an indie record store in Nashville, a beachside Balinese seafood shack that comes with a friendly cooking lesson… Find a local institution near you.
April Local Institution Contest WinnersAdam Bailey
Peter Dorrien Traisci
Simon Gray
Ifang Hsieh
Brian Lauvray
Marian Liou Black
Doug Mack
Amiee Maxwell
Alicia Miller
Diana Springfield
Jessica Stout
Christina Tse
Why Wishlist?
To move from trip to trip on Trazzler.com, you can hit “skip to next” or “add to wishlist.” Over the next month, we will be launching drastic improvements to our recommendations engine. We have thousands and thousands of trips and we would love to help you find the very best places to dream about—and we hope—travel to. The more trips you wishlist, the more accurate our recommendations will be.
Welcome Twitterers!
Thanks for following—today we topped 360,000 followers. You can always contact us with feedback and questions @trazzler. Our editors cherrypick their favorite trips every day. We have some big plans on Twitter this month, so follow along.
Megan Cytron
Executive Editor
P.S. If you have any questions or feedback, you can find us @trazzler on Twitter or on Get Satisfaction.
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.
