My favorite places in Sardinia

We're all sure of it: the world needs earthfaves. Wouldn't it be just too cool to have all the great recommendations from your friends on a device with you, everywhere, overtime. You can! It's so much fun to browse our map showing an ideal overview of the best places in the world. Our idea and our product are worth to be used and loved, we at earthfaves are serious about sharing our passion of the good life, tasty food, wonderful experiences in nature with great people from all over the world.

My girlfriend and I went to wonderful Sardinia this June and I would like to share our experiences on this beautiful island with you so that you might go there as well when visiting Sardinia. I picked three of our most compelling places to give you an idea what our trip was like.

After arriving in Olbia we went to "Agriturismo Saltara" (those are former farms now serving as guesthouses with great local food) close to "Capo Testa" in the North of Sardinia. For stressed-out city folks like us,  staying in wooden houses in a wonderful parklike ambience for a few days was the perfect start for our 12-day trip. The food was excellent: home made pasta, various very delicious and self-produced sorts of meat and vegetables and seriously the best bread I've tasted in my whole life. Think of the best possible pizza, but even better: crispy but soft and covered with coarsely grounded salt, homebred in a classic stone oven. Very nice people, great food and a cosy environment, recommended!

Agriturismo Saltara
www.agriturismosaltara.it
www.earthfaves.com/AgriturismoSaltara

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Our second stop was the small town San Teodoro, situated in the Northeast of the island and famous for one of the most beautiful beaches in Sardinia: "La Cinta". Knowing that the city is very busy in summer, we were happy to be there in springtime. The whole island is blooming at that time of the year, it is sometimes overwhelming to have some of the finest beaches in Europe very close to the impressive mountainside and right next to a sea of blooming flowers. We were heartily welcomed at the guesthouse "Villa Minda" in San Teodoro, where Barara and Martin make it easy for you to relax immediately. If you are as lucky as we were you'll get one of the 2nd floor rooms with a breathtaking view from your balcony at / of the seaside with the golden stretch of "La Cinta" right in front of you. Your are really be part of their family in the best sense of the word possible, giving you advice where to eat (like the fantastic seafood restaurant "L'Artista" in San Teodoro) and where to go (like the two best beaches around: the incredible caribbean "Spiaggia Brandinchi" and right next to it: "Lu Impostu"). Definitely worth a visit, we didn't want to leave ever again!

Villa Minda
www.villaminda.it
www.earthfaves.com/VillaMinda

L'Artista
www.earthfaves.com/LArtista

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I really don't want to compare, but by that time we were not thinking to find even more welcoming people, tastier food or better beaches. When we arrived at "Villa Mercedes" in Siniscola and first went into our spacious room in this beautiful house we were stunned. Mercedes and her husband Paolo are very nice people and did a wonderful job renovating the tasteful house Paolo's father had built. They are great hosts helping you out with whatever you need and always have tips about places to go or where to eat. Close-by is another very good italian seafood place called "Albero Maestro" and be sure not to miss the long, almost mystical beach called "Spiaggia Berchida".

Villa Mercedes
www.bedandbreakfastvillamercedes.com
www.earthfaves.com/VillaMecredes

Albero Maestro
www.earthfaves.com/AlberoMaestro

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We are passionate photographers and took tons of pictures on our wonderful trip. Hopefully we picked the best pictures and collected them in a book to participate in Blurb's "Photography Book Now" competition. You can have look at the book here:
www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1473668


For more of our photos please have a look at our photo blog here:
www.actualcolorsmayvary.com/blog

If you'd like to receive my updates about the great places I've been to, send me an friend request, just follow me at earthfaves or drop me line, I would be thrilled!

Here's my profile:
www.earthfaves.com/user/oschneid.html

Oliver
 

Barrett in Stanford - Emanuel Rosen was there, too

Check out these new slides from Emanuel Rosen - great info. Our favorite line, when talking about how to “defeat” negative reviews by being proactive: “Counterbalancing this constant trickle of negative comments with honest positive word of mouth is critical”! Emanuel does not work (yet) for earthfaves, but that is what we tell business owners: use earthfaves you build up your community of satisfied customers that give and spread honest positive word of mouth about your business! Read his slideshow here.

Berlin is the new Brooklyn

Well we encountered a significant problem in our blogging efforts these past few days, as we were tragically isolated from the inter-web in our Berlin hotel room.  Instead of paying the criminals at the front desk something like 50 euros an hour for access, or going to a nearby internet cafe, we opted for the cheap and lazy solution, which was to do absolutely nothing.

But now I’m back in my Saarbrücken apartment, comfortably submerged in the life giving, blog enabling, amniotic fluid of the internet, the world returned to my needy, greedy fingertips. Elisabeth is currently getting job training in Frankfurt, busy learning the ancient methods of the Berlitz language program, so I will do my best to recount a couple of highlights from our two days in Berlin.

The first night was a night of coincidences. We met up with one of my sister’s Berlin friends, who’s brother, who coincidentally goes to school with me, was also visiting. We had never met, however, until that night. We then went to a club in which another alum from our school, Santogold, was coincidentally performing that very same night. And then we were coincidentally turned away at the door, after coincidentally waiting in line for two hours! ”We’re at capacity,” explained a bloated man at the entrance, whose tight fitting shirt was clearly already over capacity, “You can get in after the show.” But since we were only there to see Santogold, there was no way we were going to stay and wait until the show was over. So sadly, I will never know if the club, which I believe was called Tape, is worthy of an earthfave. But I know that Santogold is still worthy of a listen. Hailing from Brooklyn  she’s America’s answer to M.I.A., for better or worse, and she’s likely to get really big in the next few months, so get on the wagon before it’s too late.

Media_httpwwwfreewill_stddc

Santogold is the new M.I.A.

Having spent the last few hours amid the scummiest and creepiest club-goers that Berlin could conjure up, and the previous night in front of security checkpoint 5 at Stansted International, me and my sister had no choice but to walk dejectedly back to our hotel and sleep it off. Thanks, Santogold, for puking gold glitter all over our night. The next day, however, made up for the tragedies of the night before. Thai food at a restaurant called Mr. Hai and Friends, and later a club in the heart of Berlin, aptly named Weekend. Both places have been geobookmarked for everyone to see. So check them out at earthfaves, they're both great places, especially Weekend, which is truly one of the city's greatest clubs. The next day saw us both off at the train station, me heading for Saarbrücken, my sister for Frankfurt. So that's it then, unless my sister has something to add. The trip was great, and now that I'm back, I get to spend another week in the office before going back home to America. Farewell for now, friends and friendly people.

Another day, another earthfave

Hey fellow earthfavers, American intern Silverfish-Lis here, reporting from the aforementioned whirlwind tour of European centers of fun and excitement, metropolises saturated with a virtually endless supply of potential favorite places to uncover, photograph, and document for posterity with a cute little orange triangle.

Today was the first day of my first ever visit to London, and it did not disappoint by a long shot. My brother and I flew into Stansted airport late last night, passed out in a hotel, and hopped a bus into the city late this morning, after enjoying a leisurely and satisfying complimentary continental breakfast. The first thing we did when we arrived at Victoria station was buy a day pass for the Tube, which, while it cost us over 5 pounds each, turned out to be a good idea as it let us see a great deal in just a few hours.

We strolled along the Thames, looked at that fancy ferris wheel (the “London Eye,” as it is eerily named), though without really being tempted to pay exorbitant prices and stand in line for hours in order to ride it, crossed the river to gaze upon Big Ben, marveled at Westminster Abbey, etc.... Finally we decided it was time to stop looking at things and time to start picking things up and buying them, so we headed over to Covent Garden, where the vast quantity of shoes on sale was almost too much for one girl to take, and certainly too much for my brother, who was, understandably I suppose, not the least bit intrigued by the idea of waiting around with nothing to do while I tried things on.

At some point we agreed that we were starving, so we moved over a few blocks to Chinatown, and after a little bit of hunting setlled on a small Taiwanese/Dim Sum restaurant called Leong's Legends (check out the new earthfave), which seemed like a promising choice. Boy was it ever, and I'm pretty sure I'm not just saying that because we were ravenously hungry. It was great all around, and most importantly, it was reasonably priced.

Sated, we decided that no visit to London could be complete without a trip to Harrod's, so back on the Tube we went. It was full of expensive things, as expected, but certainly a step beyond any department store I've ever seen, even Berlin's famed KaDeWe. It was like some sort of catacombs containing everything your heart might desire, treasures uspeakable and profound and heart-wrenchingly out of reach. After some exploring, we even managed to find puppies (only 1500 pounds!). I bought a pair of jeans instead. More tomorrow, I'm exhausted!

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Break Out Options

It is vacation/hoilday time soon. I can’t wait to get away for a few days in July to worship the sun with my family and some friends on Mallorca. Last trip is long ago: check dis pic from Olli and my last trip to Andalucia last September. Looks kind of like a Crosby, Stills & Nash cover, Jon said back then. Especially Olli.

Markus Olli El Palmar

He was not completely wrong.

Crosby Stills Nash
And in case you need a break from all the European Championship stuff, invite some friends over and watch “Slim Susie”, one of the best and funniest movies ever made, from Sweden. This is a still image I have taken. I am a huge fan of this film. The soundtrack is pretty cool, too.

 Slim Susie, a great movie
Cheers
Markus

Vrooom...off to Berlin!

They’ve got wheels and they’ve got Autobahn…! Markus and Barrett are off to the ITB this morning. We’re all kinda hoping that Google updates their satellite images soon. Why? Check this out:

The earthfaves logo should be able to be picked up from space, right?

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Gearing up for WTM 2007!!

In two weeks, Markus and I are heading to London for the one of the biggest travel industry events of the year! WTM will be an amazing chance for us to meet the whole global travel trade industry, hotel owners, tour operators, destination marketing agencies etc! We’ll have plenty of time to network, find business leads, and stay on top of the latest Web 2.0 developments in the travel community.

We’re coming to the market with a new marketing message for the leisure and lifestyle industries that include travel. Just so you have a bit of background before I get into what our message will be, read this quote from Joseph E. Buhler writing about destination marketing in world of Web2.0 (written 1 year ago!!)

“Companies and organizations will in future increasingly have to try and interject themselves into all the conversations going on among customers in the marketplace about their product, service or destination for that matter, rather than dominating what in the past very often was a one way communication. This new C2C reality will have a significant impact on the role of marketing in any industry.”

full article here

Brilliant, I tell you, brilliant. Some may say “no kidding, man, just look at Facebook or YouTube, those guys are all about mass conversation…and Google intelligently posts sidebar advertisements in our email based on email content. Totally big brother, dude.” Right, well…you get the point…they are listening to us. But now let’s talk about those “companies that are interjecting themselves” into the travel industry; where even today, the C2C reality is making differences.

TripAdvisor, one of the clear leaders in the travel market, has accumulated a huge number of user-generated reviews and comments. Their site lets travelers search for hotels/restaurants/etc. and also lets them see comments from other traveler’s previous experiences. Fair enough, nothing really new. Users search, read, or respond to all sorts of comments, negative or positive, and when they finally find something of interest, they can use TripAdvisor’s own booking engine.

Here’s what’s interesting: from many of the folks that I’ve talked to and that are regular users of the site, many don’t actually book their hotels there at all. Mainly, they’re there to check out other travelers comments! One question I asked, “How do the negative comments affect your decision when checking out hotels at TripAdvisor?” Astonishing answers, actually. Almost every single person that I interviewed ultimately said that if there was more than 5 negative comments, they’d move on in their search. The next question was, “Do you read the comments entirely or do you just browse the title headers?” Again, amazing: about 1 in 4 people just read the title headers.

I’m not jumping off the deep end here and telling you that my little science experiment of interviewing a handful of people denotes a solid estimate of how the world thinks when it comes to travel recommendations – but if we did take it as a very small semi-truth, can you imagine what these negative comments are doing for the travel industry? People just blatantly skipping the hotels with more than 5 negative headlines? Could it be that negative C2C has an adverse affect on the travel industry?

Remember my first blog? Oh yeah, yesterday. Sharing the positives? earthfaves is about the best places, not second best places, or places that you “kinda like, but only sometimes go there.” We’re talking about the places you go to on a daily basis because you simply love what they offer, places you dream about going to or dream about going back to! The kind of places you want to find anywhere, no matter where you go! So when you start recommending those earthfaves on earthfaves, remember that those best experiences are the ones your friends are looking for – and these are the places you want to know about if you go to a place you don’t know that well. So tell your friends about every earthfave you add, and ask them to add theirs! This way, you can create YOUR PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION NETWORK.

Love makes the difference – therefore our focus on “earthfaves”, favorite place / places you recommend, is key if you want to not only provide a social recommendation management tool, but only a recommendation marketing platform.