A change of perspective and major updates

Dear friends, after a few months since we’ve launched TrippyDoo we have learned from the way you use our website several things:

  • as much as you like to share you experiences, you just don’t have that much time to actually cover in detail your trip through posts (which means writing a lot);
  • even if you do have time to write, you may forget to cover the things others need to make a decision of visiting a place or not.

So in order to make TrippyDoo more useful for you we’ve changed the perspective – from just covering your travel experiences, to recommending a destination you’ve visited to your friends and other travelers like you.

This change of perspective had significant implications in the way we’ve built TrippyDoo as far as structure and possibilities we’ve given you to participate in the community we want to get together. To be more clear, we have updated TrippyDoo with the following:

  • Create/edit a trip – you can now edit every field inline, in the same page, without having to open that editor we had for the posts;
  • Second – there are no more posts (yay!:D), but a simple inline trip format with the following components: name of the trip, location, recommendations (i.e. adventure, beach, sightseeing), things you liked/things you didn’t like, budget (how much you spent there), photo & video gallery (import from Facebook/Picasa), Places to eat and Places to stay (just add the name of the rest/hotel, we’ll find you a relevant photo, and you simply type a short review), and Notes – free field where you can add the trip’s story we so much want to read about.
  • We’ve also removed the Groups for now because we felt the need to rethink them and make them better and more useful for you.

All in all, this is how a new trip is looking right now: Naples, Italy trip. Please go log in and check out your trips and your friends’ trips as well, as we had to restructure them in their new format.

Again, these changes are meant to make TrippyDoo more useful for you when you plan a trip to say Naples, and not just to add your travel stories. Please send us you thoughts, complaints, bugs and the like directly to hello [at] trippydoo.com to solve them asap.

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Off the beaten track – Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

This is the first from a series of guest posts from travelers we know and love from around the world. Today Dia is telling us about Veliko Tarnovo, an off the beaten track city in Bulgaria. Follow Dia’s travel adventures and wanders on her blog (Romanian).

Veliko Tarnovo is a breath of fresh air. Is easy to get there from Bucharest or even from Sofia. From Bucharest it’s something like a 3 hour drive with at least a short break included. And From Sofia.. I think it’s like a 4 hour drive. And from Sofia you can also take the bus from “Centralna avtogara”.

veliko tarnovo

Veliko Tarnovo

For Romanians is like a second Sighisoara closer to home. Veliko Tarnovo or the city of the tsars as it’s sometimes called is a medieval city, dating back since the first Bulgarian Empire. But I won’t go all historical on you, there are books for that.

Let’s start with a few recommendations.

Where to Stay

This has never been a problem in V.T. It’s easy to find a nice deal in a small hotel or in a B&B, or even an apartment (most of the times they are the best deal, especially if your booking for a 4+ group). I can recommend with all my heart the hotel Stambolov.

Where to Eat:

Best place in town is Shtastlivetsa. It’s the classiest restaurant with an awesome view of the city and of Gurko Street. They serve the best pizza ever! But be careful! The big pizza is really quite big, for at least 2 people.

And there are also the Ego restaurants. They also have very good food and I am happy to say that also fast service. You will surely not regret entering there. There are 3-4 restaurants around town.

And also don’t forget to try the Ice cream from Raffy. You will mostly find them on the street. But they are the best you can find in Bulgaria. I know that normally you can find this near the Post Office, near to Square “Maika Balgaria”.

Veliko Tarnovo

Veliko Tarnovo

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