(Not) Smarter than the Average...

Varenna

I wrote a while ago about how my favourite travel site, Virtual Tourist was being closed by its owners, Trip Advisor.  The email to members of that site notifying us of the closure, stated that "you’ll still be able to find all the great destination information we’ve amassed over the years plus much, much more atwww.SmarterTravel.com."

 Smarter Travel is a site which includes articles (a lot of which are fairly banal lists) from named writers and other content which is attributed to "Virtual Tourist."  The latter are accompanied by an editor's note which states that "the information contained on this page was compiled using real traveler reviews about London." It looks as though the compilation was done by a computer or an intern with no travel experience and little sense, as the said reviews have been severely mangled in the process.

Information on Things to To in London contains this gem:"Buckingham Palace is a grand place to visit with over 700 womens, 19 of which are open to the public." 

Others are so generic as to be useless, such as this "advice" on car parking in Varenna, Italy: "When you go to park in Varenna, it is imperative that you be aware of the parking that you will come across. While some parking areas are very inexpensive to park at, there are some that are fairly costly. You will want to check around with the locals to determine the cheapest places to park." Er, that could apply almost anywhere.

OK, so not all advice on Virtual Tourist was  up to date or great quality, but it was pretty easy to look up a destination and find good pages.  Smarter Travel has reduced that to a lowest common denominator of meaningless drivel. Sad!