San Francisco

When contemplating world exploration, plumbing the depths of the Internet can leave you with a vacation spent following crackpot advice, or a vacation spent plumbing the depths of the Internet. Get expert advice efficiently, with Trazzler.

Conceived in Berkeley, Traz curates an ever-expanding catalog of trip ideas, penned by pro writers (from Tablehopper to Salon.com to the NYTimes) and covering everything from spa treatments at the Half Moon Bay Ritz to watching lions maul wildebeest as you sip cocktails in a Tanzanian treehouse. Instead of letting you wander their virtual planet aimlessly, Traz guides you to your dream trip: first, pick a general category (e.g., "South America"/"Culinary"/"Boating") and they'll spit back a trip to either "wishlist" or "skip", then send you new options based on your preferences -- so if in "Parties" you forego a symphony picnic in Stern Grove for an Amsterdam rave, they'll pick up on your "worldliness" and suggest drunk co-ed mud-wrestling in Bratislava. All the while, Traz catalogues the trips you dig by country, and displays a pie chart of your "travel personality", with wedges like "five star", "wilderness", or "hippie" (i.e., your whole chart is Amsterdam).

For booking, etc, Traz'll link to external resources (Kayak, LonelyPlanet, etc). They're also actively hiring more writers all over the world, and beefing up analytics to track users' interests more painstakingly -- which unfortunately will reveal that you really want to spend your week off reading back-posts of AndersonFamilyTravels.blogspot.com.

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