STA travelbuzz’s Best Travel Tools: STA Travel widgets
Online travel tools fall into two camps: the hardcore/practical and the novelty/entertaining. Having spent the morning playing around with them, I think STA’s own travel-themed widgets serve a genuine purpose beyond being just pretty blog jewellery.
For the true Web 2.0 virgins amongst us, widgets are portable little applications you can add to your own web pages by simply cutting and pasting some HTML code. They usually come in the form of an interactive graphic and can often be personalised to your own needs.
STA’s free widgets come in versions for your own website (including blogs), your Facebook page, and your PC or Mac dashboard. The most gimmicky one, the trip countdown, is a little stopwatch that you can add to your sidebar to show the time left until you set off (our STA Explorers Meg and Mojo have one in action on their blog here). The travel to-do list is a neat little clipboard that you can load up with your tasks (there are also pre-loaded lists so you don’t forget anything) and tick off as you near departure day.
These are great if you want to populate your page with cool things before you’re blogging about your actual experiences. However, I particularly like the widgets that are also useful while you’re out there. The weather comparison graphic dsiplays the weather in your home town or current destination next to one of weather in your next destination - perfect for packing or emergency brolly-buying, not to mention smug gloating about how much sunnier it is for you than for the folks back home.
And my personal favourite is the special travel offers badge, which you can tailor to show the latest deals departing from the US, UK and Australia. Useful before, during and after your trip, and relevant to all your readers rather than just your own journey.
So go here if you want to pimp your blog, social network or dashboard - and let us know if you think STA have produced gimmicky graphics or useful tools.
