ON TRAVEL ~ Travel Gems...

About a month ago I sent an e-mail to some blogging friends who I thought might be interested in UpTake's new Travel Gem program, asking them if they wanted to take part in the advance release. Some of them responded and have Travel Gems featuring their posts on UpTake's search engine right now. If you would like to be considered a gem yourself, keep reading.

UpTake is a travel search engine that helps visitors to their site find existing reviews and links throughout the web to all things travel - lodging, restaurants, attractions, etc. Their blogs in each category provide further in-depth opinions from their contracted writers, of which I am one.

The newly launched Travel Gems program means that if you link to a page in UpTake within a post in your blog, your post can be featured on the UpTake page that you linked to. Ideally, this provides better information for visitors to read via UpTake and provides the blogger with new traffic.

UpTake has asked their staff blog writers to get the word out and collect any links our blogging friends or writers may have created so we can get those posts set up as Travel Gems more quickly.

So if you have a post on your blog, regardless of when it was written, that specifically addresses a site, attraction, hotel, restaurant, beach, campsite, or even a general overview of a vacation spot, all you would need to do is find the corresponding item on UpTake. Then link to the UpTake page within your post, e-mail me the address of your post, and I will pass it along to the UpTake editors. They will then create the Travel Gem box on the UpTake page, featuring and linking to your post. (note that unless it is in the U.S. or Canada, it will likely not be found on UpTake since they have just started branching out to international spots in the last few months)

This program is available to anyone and is not complicated. Any post that links to an UpTake page will automatically be pinged to UpTake for consideration by an Editor. But if that post address is also provided to me via e-mail, I can bump it up in the queue so to speak. You can find my e-mail address on our About page here in the side bar.

Here is what they look like:



Sandy of You've GOTTA Read This has two Travel Gems - the one pictured above about Universal Studios in Orlando, FL and another about the West Baden Springs Hotel in West Baden, IN.

Matty of Matty Thoughts has one Travel Gem about the Mill Grove Mansion in Audubon, PA.

Kaye of The Road Goes Ever On has two Travel Gems - one about Goblin Valley State Park in Green River, UT and another about Manti-La Sal National Forest in Price, UT.

There are 2 ways to find something within UpTake's search engine:

•Go to UpTake
•Type in Things To Do, or Restaurants, or Hotels under the Find box
•Type in the city/state or country in the In box
•Peruse the list and if you find something that you've written about or want to write about, open the link and copy it into your post (the link can be subtle via the name of the place or more direct through a reference to UpTake specifically)
•E-mail me your post's address

OR

•Go to Google
•Type in UpTake and then the name of the attraction, restaurant or hotel in the search box
•Click on any UpTake link that is not a part of one of their blogs
•Copy that page's link into your post (it can be subtle via the name of the place or more direct through a reference to UpTake specifically)
•E-mail me your post's address

If you would like to participate and have a question, or are interested but are having trouble technically - just let me know. Feel free to share this post with anyone you know who may also be interested. Just be sure to have them e-mail me their post addresses that they have linked to UpTake for speedier Travel Gem creation. A friend of yours is a friend of mine - you are all gems to me!