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Virtualtourist (VT) is a free travel oriented community website featuring user-contributed travel guides for locations world wide. More than 875,000 members provide content that highlights the places they live in or have visited with photographs, comments, detailed tips and reviews about their trips. This solution delivers the real inside scoop from people who know the location from the inside out and allows you to get a wide perspective from real people. It also gives you the ability to make friends with fellow travelers around the world or just next door.

Misc Forum is where VTers having funs and sharing mostly non-travel related topics from 'Men wearing pink' to 'The most beautiful VTers'. Undeniably Misc Forum is one of the most interesting and entertaining forums to...ahem...' waste time '. So please remember when the next time you feel bored, just say something at Misc Forum.

• VirtualTourist Miscellaneous Forum

VTers (members of www.virtualtourist.com) can rate each others base on honesty and trust, VTers received most ratings in their Travel Tips and Travel Pages will be ranked top of all members, a highly competitive travel page building society of no borders but fun, wisdom and pure entertainment. The function of Ratings & Rankings is to encourage more helpful travel pages on locations visited by VTers and information provided are unbiased and truthful.

• http://members.virtualtourist.com/vt/x/2/

Thousands of VTers have met and with photos as evidence, a new member only need to sign up for free to meet others in real life, regardless of distance, ethnics, religions, borders, etc. Each year, over 400 meetings happen in places like Sydney, New York, Santorini, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, Cairo etc. etc. etc.

• http://meetings.virtualtourist.com/

Wearing VT made products is to show your loyalty. VT-Gears are for members to wear at all functions especially at VT-Meetings.

On a destination page, you see:

• Local time and date
• Members living there
• Member tips
  • Hotel review
  • Things To Do
  • Restaurant review
  • Local Customs
  • Nightlife
  • Off the Beaten Path
  • Tourist Traps
  • Warnings or Dangers
  • Transportation
  • Packing Lists
  • Shopping
  • Sports Travel
  • General Tips
• Member pictures
• City Map
• Extra forums for each destination
• Hotels
• Flight connections

One of the most popular and useful sections of the site is the travel forum where you can ask travel related questions about any of the 2.2 million locations VirtualTourst knows about. The friendly and knowledgable membership answers questions within a day and many times in hours or minutes.

One of the newest features of VirtualTourist is the DEALS section where members (VTers) can post deals that they've found. Many deals are posted per day. This section is still in its infancy but will rival travelzoo.com's deals section.

VirtualTourist boasts one of the biggest image repositories of travel pictures in the world.

VirtualTourist's sister site, OneTime.com (a one stop shop to compare and book hotels, flights, car rentals, and cruises online) is integrated onto all VT pages.

When you meet travelers, you find that they have a broadened world view. You learn that you can't ever know everything about the world, but you feel thirsty to find out as much as you can. VT members boast about how many countries they have covered and share tips with each other. You can email members right from the site. Many members have become life long friends and enjoy staying with and hosting eac hother. VirtualTourist is an example of an online Utopia where people share not only information but friendship.

Also, one finds

• Travel Pages of each member as well as an unlimited space for own texts and pictures
• Member friends, member birthdays, VT mail, online/offline feature and so on

VT was founded in 1999 and has grown its member base to more than 800,000 members in 220 countries and territories.

The website is governed by Virtualtourist, Inc., Westlake Village, CA 91361, USA.

• Time: Recommended Travel Forum in 2003
• Yahoo!: Most Popular Guide site in 2002
• AOL: Editor's Pick in 2002
• USA Today: Hot Site in 2001
• U.S. News: Best of the Web Travel Site in 2001
• Travel + Leisure: 35 Best Travel Sites
• Yahoo!: Most Popular Destination Guide
• Newsweek: Featured Travel Site

• http://www.virtualtourist.com