GeckoGo.com Review: Brand New Social Travel Planning Community

If not evident already, I love web 2.0, online travel networks, and I now bring you a review of GeckoGo. First off, GeckoGo is basically a brand new travel recommendation and planning network, or ‘new blood’ according to my top ten travel social networks. So now Budget Globetrotting’s take on GeckoGo’s travel planning…

First Impressions

First, according to the site:

“travel planning made friendly” and “the fun and easy way to find out where to go and what to do based on your specific interests”

As for my first impressions- they were okay - clean layout, easy to navigate, etc. A drawback is that you have to sign up right away before testing out the service, but sign up is pretty quick and easy fortunately. As a travel guide connoisseur, I quickly jumped to the map to read some country reviews, where I became really really impressed with how much content is already on the site. The major destinations (the Paris Travel Guide for example) have the typical paragraphs and pictures to give prospective travelers a general overview of the country - but where I was really impressed is in the comments on the guides by participating members. The travel community seems to be very active at GeckoGo due to the amount of comments that are already up. For a site to only be live for 2 months and have that much participation, I was impressed.

More Review…

But moving elsewhere in the site, users have the ability to contribute their own guides, build their personal profiles, and connect with other travelers by adding them as friends - sot it’s a true social travel network.

Finally, one of the more unique features is under the “answers” tab, which acts as a type of Yahoo answers for travel. Members can ask a question that will hopefully be answered by an expert, and are encouraged to help out answering as well obviously. Pretty nifty, and with an active community, definitely a feature to watch out for.

Conclusion:

While most of the review has showcased the average, expected, and good features, the site does have its drawbacks as well like everything. The main drawbacks are

1. the required, immediate sign up which is just kind of annoying. and

2. the guides aren’t as intuitive as they seem. most of the specific categories under a country on the left, like “natural environments” and “politics and economy,” are empty and have no added content yet.

However, I think the site is worth checking out. While the guides aren’t perfect yet, that’s expected with a new site. But if the community involvement keeps up as the site grows, that is honestly all that matters, and everything else will fall into place. So check out geckogo if you have any travel questions and are looking to connect with fellow travelers.