T. I. A.

T.I.A

This Is Alaska.

It's a common phrase said by those who visit Alaska. It's a slang way of expressing the intense beauty of this state, whether you're a seasoned sourdough or a newbie cheechacko.

Last summer, I had a TIA moment myself while flying over the majestic state on the way to Bangkok, Thailand. As my good friend and travel mate Jamil and I agreed, Alaska would be next on the list. We were not dissapointed.

Our trip was organized by Alaska Outdoors, a top rate outfitting service recommended by one of my other Kellogg buddies. While the website is somewhat satisfactory, the quality of the guides is excellent. Eric D, the skinny homie from CT, was our tour guide. He was the type of guy you knew was prepared for anything just by the calm manner he conveys.

Jamil and I, with the addition of good pals Denny and Chris, selected the Classic Alaska tour, which offered us a taste of the Kenai Penninsula's mountain, glacier, and ocean environs, as well as the vast wilderness of Denali National Park.

Enjoy my pics below, as well as on my Facebook profile.

T.I.A.

Forecast for Farecast: Buy Now - UPDATE

UPDATE: According to Roger from Microsoft, Farecast now has a new URL, which is http://farecast.live.com, and they've been forwarding visitors since May 21. Roger also had a great point about Compete's data, which does not show sub-level statistics and can thus show some skewed numbers. Thanks for the comment Roger. I'll keep an eye on your progress. -

---------------------------------------------------------------

This past April, Microsoft purchased one of my favorite travel sites, Farecast.com. Farecast no longer looks like itself, and has MSFT logos tattooed all over its homepage. I wondered to myself, does the Farecast user care about this management change, or do they prefer to obtain travel information from an independent and trusted source.



Though this data is not scientific, it looks like Farecast users have started to drop. There are certainly other reasons why this could have happened (e.g travel seasonality), so stay tuned to this integration.