It seems as if the dust has barely settled on our Thailand shindig, yet we’re in the midst of putting together our next meet-up which will be based around Australia’s Queensland and Gold Coast region. This is also STA Travel masterclass number #1! We don’t want to give too much away right now, but needless to say it’ll be an opportunity to develop some useful skills for travel, and buff up knowledge on specific destinations.

The Queensland meet-up is taking place in the STA Travel Victoria store on the 8th April, which is a Thursday. The evening is going to be built around wine-tasting, all Australian of course, and led by connoisseur @ThirstForWine, or Robert outside the Twitter world.

Beside the wine tasting there will be plenty of discussion on the Gold Coast area from our STA Explorers passing on their travelling experiences and members of the STA Travel team who will be on hand to answer any questions.

If you’re planning a trip to Australia and are thinking of visiting the Gold Coast then come along, it’ll be a great opportunity to learn a load about your destination and meet some guys who’ve been there and done it. We’re also looking to continue adding to our Experience the Gold Coast wiki, so if you’ve been come along and share your tales.

Just email or tweet to let us know you’re coming and we’ll add you to the guest list. So, who’s already in?

A minor diversion for Travel Tuesday this week as we’ve decided to feature a few individuals, each of whom will be contributing some valuable information on the Gold Coast which will find its way on to the Experience the Gold Coast wiki.

The Dining Quarter
Kassie has an ‘intense passion for food’ and is particularly well travelled as a delve into her about page reveals. We’re looking to her to hook us up with the best places for fine dining to grabbing a taco (I’m unsure if this is even possible?!) in the Gold Coast region.

DiverseSurf
You can follow the guy behind DiverseSurf Dave Verrall on Twitter, keeping up to date with what he’s up to. There’s going to be a few photographic updates from Dave who plies his trade straight out of his shop on the Gold Coast Highway. If they’re anything like this, everything is going to be cool.

BeauMitchell
Beau is going to be accompanying a few of his superb landscape and travel photographs with details on how to get to the spots and why you should visit them. I imagine however, merely looking at his images will give you more than enough of a reason to go and see them in the flesh.

Chris Hoopmann
Chris is also a photographer who’ll be contributing some of his Gold Coast imagery to the cause. Hopefully he’ll also be adding a bit of background in the form of tales about where he reckons the best places to shoot are.

You guys rock!

If you’ve got content that you think would slip nicely into the wiki then leave us a comment below, or if you just want to get involved and update away then go to the site, sign up and follow the directions on the help page. Any troubles just email Cam or Fran.

The Experience the Gold Coast wiki is up and running!

We’ve been working with STA Travel UK and Gold Coast Tourism to create a guide to anything and everything that can be done in the region. Except we want the wiki to be full of YOUR experiences of Australia’s Gold Coast – that’s why it’s a wiki.

It is in its fledgling stages at the moment, but we’re gradually building and populating it with help from across the web. So, if you’ve got Gold Coast knowledge of any sort get in touch, and if it’s already online let us know. Although we’re aiming to get people contributing directly to the wiki, to help kick start things we’re looking to link back to relevant content – whether thats blog posts, photos, video, and podcasts, so if that’s you give us a shout.

If you’d liek to be involved you can leave us a comment below, email Cam and Fran or tweet @statravelbuzz and we’ll get back to you. That said, it is after all a wiki, so if you just want to sign up, jump in and start contributing you can, there’s a help page here on how to get started. Be sure to let us know how you find it.

Eventually, we’re hoping the wiki will become a fluid reference for information on Australia’s Gold Coast from those who’ve experienced it.

And, just in case you were wondering, we’ve also got a hashtag #ExperienceGC.