Obama and Clinton may still be battling it out for the Democratic nomination, but TravelMuse’s Washington, D.C., issue is now final and live on the site! The capital is one of the country’s top family vacation destinations, and you’ll see why after you check out all the great D.C. coverage we’ve added: from a breakdown of museums and monuments by age appropriateness to recommended family-friendly Washington hotels and restaurants to special events and children’s theater and more.

This issue also includes articles on renting a Tuscan villa; Birmingham hiking trails; Cape Town, South Africa township tours; and a road trip survival guide by Amy Hatch, our Back Page columnist.

We’re also officially weekly now. I don’t know whether I should jump for joy or scream and cry. I started out in publishing at a trade paper that came out 18 times per year:  monthly during slow periods, biweekly during busy seasons. When I moved over to a monthly magazine, I thought it would be a breeze—I’d be in production only one week a month, not two! Little did I know that no matter what your set schedule is, you’re always going to be scrambling to make sure the latest issue is “just right.” Or “good enough,” when it comes time to call an end to the fixes and just get it out the door—especially when the staff has been downsized and you’re producing 50 percent more content with half the staff. But that’s another story (from the past) for another blog.

As for TravelMuse’s weekly production schedule, it’s too soon yet to tell how many new gray hairs I’ll start to see. Publishing online is vastly different from the print process; there are many more details and steps that you have to take into consideration, in comparison. But it’ll be worth it if the additional content makes a positive impact for our users. And the only way we’ll know that is if you tell us. So drop us a line—either here on the blog, by using the feedback button on the site or to our editorial inbox, editorial@travelmuse.com.

We look forward to hearing from you and hope you enjoy the issue!

Thanks for all the great feedback that we received during our Alpha user test phase. The comments and suggestions have been mostly positive, especially about the look and feel of the site. Special thanks go to our super Alpha tester, Jen Marquardt, who provided several pages of detailed feedback!

Some of your suggestions have been incorporated in the latest release, including some changes to the homepage, enhanced product messaging, improving the hotel search function, and building a company blog and photo blog. Many other suggestions have been added to our product roadmap and will be addressed over time. 

Please keep the feedback coming so we can build a better site for you. In closing, I leave you with a few quotes about TravelMuse:

“I really like most of the website and the navigation. It's beautiful and interesting!” —TravelMuse member

“I love the concept and I think it fills a definite void in the travel research space.”—A finance manager at eBay

“This looks awesome—I am ALWAYS searching online for great family destinations and come up with the same boring lists—then occasionally there will be a great magazine article and I will find a new place that way so this site is a great resource.”—A new mom in New York

As the co-founders of the company, we’re elated to welcome you to the “almost beta” version of TravelMuse! This has been a labor of love from day one. How many people get to combine a passion for both travel and new products and call it work? We founded TravelMuse in April 2007 in response to a growing frustration with the sameness of travel content we found on the Web and the time and effort it took to plan a trip online.

Once we realized it wasn’t just us, but rather lots of people who were getting chaffed by having to visit dozens of sites before booking a trip and were growing weary of being served the same regurgitated content, we quit our comfy corporate gigs and started TravelMuse. Over the last 12 months, we’ve been fortunate to assemble a terrific team of 11 people that shares our passion for building great products—and who of course love to travel. Beyond that common DNA, we’re a diverse bunch—with media, travel, software and publishing backgrounds, and we hail from six different countries:

• Canada,
• Ivory Coast,
• France,
• Scotland,
• China and the
• United States.

This rich mosaic of experiences is something we cherish and, we think, will help us to stay on the cutting edge. In January of this year, we rolled out the first version of the site showcasing vibrant photography, rich destination guides and original travel articles written by more than 50 seasoned journalists and local experts.  We were humbled to get positive and a lot of constructive feedback from our alpha users.  Today we released the TravelMuse Planner to a select group of about 200 alpha users. The Planner allows you to quickly organize and securely share a trip plan with friends and family. The Planner will be open to everyone beginning this summer.

To wrap up this opening post, our ultimate goal is to provide an online travel planning experience that is fun, relevant and a significant improvement over what you find on the Web today. Input and feedback are essential to make this happen. Our sincerest thanks to our alpha users for their insights over the last few months.

To new visitors: please share your thoughts—praise and pans are extremely welcome.

Thanks!

Kevin & Eric