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Who Knew? A Shangri-La Within Driving Distance
By Bob Tedeschi
Shorter vacations are again in vogue as a weak-kneed economy persuades more Americans to stick close to home. But coming up with a destination that is both nearby and unexplored can be tricky.
Enter TripAdvisor and its new Weekend Getaway Guide, which offers suggestions for trips to places that are 25 to 300 miles away from a given ZIP code. The guide, which made its debut in late April, is a weekly e-mail newsletter that users sign up for at tripadvisor.com; in addition to suggested weekend trips, it contains links to published information and user reviews on thousands of tourist destinations in the United States and abroad.
For a southern Connecticut resident, TripAdvisor recently e-mailed weekend road trip suggestions for Atlantic City, supplying directions, the driving distance, a five-day weather forecast and recommended attractions and hotels, among other things. In case Atlantic City wasn't a good fit, TripAdvisor included links to eight other archived suggestions, among them Newport, R.I., bucolic Lenox, Mass., and, of course, New York.
Given Atlantic City's raison d'etre, some travelers with young children might quickly dismiss the notion of such a trip. But Trip Advisor's recommended reading detailed several interesting attractions for children, along with beach suggestions. Armed with such information, users might consider a spur-of-the-moment trip to be less of a gamble.
From the New York Times, Technology, May 29, 3003
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