YowTrip.com - Find Travel Buddies

If you're looking to take a trip somewhere on your own, you may want to hit up some other travelers who have already been there for advice. Maybe you could even meet up with them once you get there and have them show you the ropes. Even better, they might even become your travel buddy to your next destination. This is exactly the type of connection you can make at YowTRIP, a new traveling social network devoted to bringing travelers togethers in a borderless fashion. It works very similarly to CouchSurfing; you can create your profile complete with photos of you and a log of the trips you've taken or plan to take, and tell the YowTRIP community a little about yourself. Then, you'll want to start making some connections. Use YowTRIP's search feature to find friends by city, country, email, travel dates, or age. Buddies on YowTRIP can do anything from meeting up with you for a drink to giving you a place to crash while you're leading your nomadic lifestyle. You can interact with your buddies via the YowTRIP messaging service or directly by email (keep in mind you'll have to register for an account to see most travelers' info).

"YowTRIP's goal is to promote cultural exchange by connecting world travelers and enabling them to share their travel experiences on this online community".

Sites like YowTRIP are completely necessary for the solo traveler; trust me, I've been there. YowTRIP lets you make invaluable connections with real people who live in the places you're going, or at the very least, have been there themselves. This is the best – and for me, the only – way to learn about your next destination, discover all the greatest sites and events, and learn about a new culture.

YowTRIP doesn't yet have the means to compete with CouchSurfing; profiles are pretty basic and don't offer a lot of security info that CouchSurfing does (the latter gives verification to trusted members). A lot of the destination pages have yet to be completed; for example, both "Boston" and "Bogota" were blank; when and how does YowTRIP plan to expand its content?