I’ve completed the sign-up process and added my first entries into my two travel journal websites Yahoo Trip Planner and MyTripJournal.com.
The sign-up process with Yahoo was dead simple. I already had an account so it was just a matter of naming my trip and the dates of travel. The tool is free as Yahoo puts advertising on the page and encourages the user to use the tool for pre-planning as well, something I didn’t do because there was almost nothing available for Ireland.
The sign-up with MyTripJournal took a bit longer because I had to create an account first, but it was very fairly standard as well. I get a few pictures and entries for free but I’ll have to start paying for the service soon.
Adding entries is very slick in Yahoo. It’s very web 2.0 and integrated with Flickr, so you use your Flickr account to manage photos. You can drag and drop your entries into the text entry field. It works very nice. A spell check is missing. MyTripJournal’s entry isn’t as fancy as Yahoo but it gets the job done. You can’t embed your pictures within the entry itself but you upload them as part of your entry. The feature that makes MyTripJournal cool is the way you can show your location. You choose from a variety of maps and you can highlight your location and showing your journey.
From an output perspective, Yahoo looks nicer. The design in contemporary and the integrated pictures make it look very pleasing. MyTripJournal looks a bit outdated. None of the two offers an RSS feed, a no-brainer in my opinion. I expected more from Yahoo. I thought that the “map view” would offer similar functionality as in MyTripJournal, for example. Maybe that’s still coming. I also expected that the journal part and the schedule part would be integrated, encouraging users to review attractions as part of their journal. Now everything I say about attractions is lost in my journal. It would be an easy way to add more content about Ireland.
So as of the moment, I like both sites, for different reasons. If MyTripJournal would integrate the pictures like Yahoo does, they would be the clear choice. If Yahoo would make a similar mapping tool, it would be my prefered choice because it’s free.