Last week, when it was cold and pouring outside, you know the typical Dutch weather, and my motivation to study reached once again a very low point, I decided to do what everyone in the Netherlands does at a time like this, start planning my next holiday.

As it was not sure that my friends would be able to join this summer, I went online and came across this platform called TravBuddy, which is a community for people who want to discover the world.

TravBuddy
Traveling is an amazing experience and allows you to create the greatest memories. As a lot of people are deciding to start these adventures on their own, TravBuddy was created to bring these free minds together everywhere around the world. TravBuddy is social network platform where travelers can be in contact with their peers to meet up somewhere around the world.

 

More than just Facebook?
To distinguish itself from other social networks as Facebook, TravBuddy is trying to create a tied community of people with a passion for traveling. Currently, over 620.000 people are signed up as a travel buddy. After singing in to the website and paying an one time fee of €9.99, you will be able to post a message about your next trip and be able to find buddies that will also be at your destination.

Next to the ability to meet new people during your trip, the platform has an extensive database of blogs, reviews and photos about all kinds of destination. This allows you to research the perfect holiday location with person experiences of other travelers. Furthermore, TravBuddy also facilitates to find a hotel in your preferred location. By combining different providers of hotel rooms, they create the best prices for your criteria. As travelers of the community are able to comment on hotels, you have a wide range of reliable reviews from people of the community.

One of the most interesting aspects of TravBuddy is that besides meeting up with other adventurers, you are able to meet with or get insides from locals. The greatest advantage is that it gives a total different perspective of a city than the standard touristic spots and really can experience the city as a resident.

Review system
Due to the highly anonymous nature of the Internet, it will always be difficult to tackle the problem of abuse of the platform, as people might not turn as you expect. To avoid tricky situations, TravBuddy recommends to always meet in a crowded public place and report any deviating profiles. Furthermore, to enhance the trust within the community, TravBuddy developed an internal award system to honour buddies that contribute a lot to the platform. The different awards vary from “Community Leader” (overall contributor to the website) to “Bedbug” (someone who finds the best hotels), and from “Photographer” to “Spambuster” (someone who helps to find fake reviews) and all have their own specific requirements. Next to the awards, travel buddies can write a review about a specific person to enhance the trustworthiness of that person.

TravBuddy is the way to expand your network and meet people from all over the world to share that special moment with during your holiday!

(www.travbuddy.com)