It’s been eagerly anticipated by cruisers, ever since it was announced that the QE2 would retire to Dubai to become a luxury hotel. Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth sets a whole new standard for the cruise line, with it being the second largest ship they’ve built.

Easily accommodating 2,092 passengers and weighing in a 92,000 tons, the ship will start sailing in October 2010 and you can book Cunard Queen Elizabeth cruises right now!

Inside, the ship is looking as luxurious as you’d expect, with glorious décor and classical charm. With Cunard’s trademark White Star Service, the ship is set for fine and quality dining.

The estimated total cost of the ship is €500m, which highlights the extent Cunard have gone towards to making the Queen Elizabeth as special as possible. The maiden voyage has already sold out, so it’s first come first served to get on the other available sailings!

This post was made at Cunard Queen Elizabeth Now On Sale

Following the landing of 500mm in the Hemel Hempstead Snow Centre, conditions on the slopes expected to keep the powder in shape pretty much forever!

Boasting a 160 metre slope, along with a nursery training slope of almost 100 metres, it will be similar to other indoor skiing uk snow centres, but a much closer outlet for skiers in the South East.

There’s no better way to get ready for ski holidays on the slopes than to take the professional ski lessons offered at places just like the Hemel Hempstead Snow Centre.

They’ll also be their own version of Après-ski, with bars located close-by that give the perfect panoramic view of the action.

Sure, snow centres like this aren’t close to the real thing, but if you haven’t skied before, it’s a really good opportunity to get some practice in. Say you go to the Alps for a week and are a beginner, you’ll spend most of the holiday just picking up the ropes and just as you get the hang of it – you’ll be on your way home! Indoor skiing is great for getting that initial difficulty out of the way, so that you can fully enjoy the proper thing.

This post was made at Hemel Hempstead Snow Centre Opening

Mothership Eve flew at over 18,000 ft altitude and in subsequent testing, the White Knight 2 will soar to 50,000 ft of the next few months.

There were a further seven successful operations during this test period, which saw engine restarts during the flight and thrust asymmetry checks. It’s the largest all carbon composite aircraft in the world and many of the parts used to build the ship have been built using composite materials for the first time.

Speaking of the craft, Peter Siebold – pilot of all three tests for the ship, said:

“This is a truly remarkable aviation vehicle and, although it might look unique from the ground it is not strange to fly in any way and is in fact a great piloting experience.

Meanwhile, Sir Richard Branson confirmed his excitement for the project and hinted at when we might see it publicly launched:

I am looking forward to flying myself in Eve in the next few weeks before we attach SpaceShipTwo later in the year and begin test flights to space shortly afterwards! Virgin Galactic is central to our ambition at Virgin to become the world’s leading group in the operation of energy and environmentally efficient transportation, in the air, on the ground and in space.

Mothership Eve is the carrier and launch platform for Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, which is the successor to SpaceShipOne – the first spaceplane to complete a privately funded human spaceflight.

Public space flights, here we come!

This post was made at Virgin Galactic Mothership Eve Completes Third Successful Test

I figured it makes sense to have a simple table with lift pass prices broken down. That way, there’s an at-a-glance way of helping add up your ski holiday costs before booking. Please note, that resorts change their lift pass prices regularly and also taking into account that the exchange rate fluctuates, it’s very difficult to have accurate prices. As such the below are all approximations, based on 6 days in peak season. Last updated: 02 March 2009.

Ski Lift Passes by Cost

I manually upkeep this list and add to it when I can, so I’ve tried to include the most popular resorts, but if there’s a specific resort you’d like to know the lift pass prices of (that isn’t already listed), feel free to make a request in the comments. I will be including the cost of Canadian and US lift passes next.

This post was made at Ski Lift Passes Price Directory

It’s filmed with the camera that everyone wants – the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and I’ve never seen the pistes captured so awesomely. Just check out some of the footage after two and a half minutes. It’s pure, deep powder at its best.

It was shot at Powder Mountain in Utah. Ski holidays have never looked so good.

This post was made at Powder Mountain Ski Holidays Video

Editor’s note: guest post from Lockie Brown.

For a very different kind of ski holiday, the Whistler Weasel Workers have congregated, every few years, on the slopes of Whistler Mountain and at other ski racing venues to work together to create a world-class race courses for World Cup, Noram, National Championship and Olympic Alpine ski races.

The Whistler Weasel Workers is a volunteer society whose members share an interest in Alpine ski racing and a joy in the camaradrie and sense of accomplishment in putting on a major ski race. The Whistler Weasels have been active since the 1970’s and have build the track for every World Cup, national championship and Noram race every held in Whistler BC, Western Canada’s premier ski area.

In years when there is no senior ski race scheduled for Whistler, Weasel Workers can often be found helping at other ski racing venues, including the Calgary and Salt Lake Winter Olympics, the World Championships at Sierra Nevada and at Bormio, Italy and at World Cup races at Lake Louise, Alberta and at Beaver Creek, Colorado.

In 2008, the Weasels were active in putting on the Canadian National Championships and four Whistler World Cup ski races. In 2009, the Weasels will assist with the Canadian Junior Championships and with an International Paralympic World Cup to be held on Whistler Mountain. As well, Weasel Workers have assisted with the 2008 Winterstart World Cup races in Lake Louise and with the Birds of Prey races in Beaver Creek. Weasel Workers are also planning to assist with the 2009 FIS World Championships in Val d’Isere, France.

In 2010, the Whistler Weasel Workers will be heavily involved with the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games and have been assisting with the planning of these events since 2007.

Membership in the Whistler Weasel Workers is open to any skier who volunteers to work with us for four or five days on a Weasel-sponsored race. There is no membership criterea besides a willingness to work hard, to make many new friends and to become a part of the camaradrie that sustains the organization. There is work enough for volunteers of all ages and for non-skiers as well as all levels of intermediate and expert skiers. Core membership consists of a few hundred “locals” who reside in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia (Vancouver and surroundings). In addition, many members reside throughout Canada and the USA, as well as in Europe, New Zealand and Australia. These “offshore” members travel to Whistler to work on our races, to hone their skills and knowledge, to re-kindle friendships and to enjoy a unique ski holiday.

Visit the Weasel Workers Web site for photos and videos of the Weasel Workers in action and to learn more about our activities and support of Alpine ski racing.

This post was made at The Whistler Weasel Workers

CouchSurfing is a cheap way to travel but it’s also about meeting people and learning cultures from a different angle. There are currently more than 600,000 members [on the site] in over 230 different countries.

Members create profiles where they have the opportunity to write about themselves: their interest, hobbies, philosophies and their couch. After each stay, you can leave a reference, either negative or positive – these are crucial for upcoming CouchSurfing experiences.

‘How safe is CouchSurfing?’ I hear people ask. There is of course a risk involved, but that risk will be reflected whenever you travel. Precautions can easily be made and this is done via testimonials, friend link-strength indicators, vouching and the verification system. You see, not just anyone is a vouched member. Members can only be vouched for by an already CouchSurfing-vouched member. It’s an entire circle of trust, with the setup being very similar to eBay.

When you travel using Couchsurfing and don’t feel comfortable in somebody’s home, you’re under no obligation to stay, provided you let your host know you will be leaving. You should always have a back-up plan, even if it’s just a list of hostels in the area. And if you’re hosting somebody, don’t be afraid to ask them to leave, or ask them to leave their passports behind as an added security measure.

I currently have hosted 15 different ’surfers mainly from America, Canada and Italy. They can stay from anywhere between one and five nights. We always have a laugh together in the evenings and often take turns cooking dinner and doing the dishes. Two Italian boys stayed for five days and cooked dinner every time. Although we ended up eating pasta every single night – we always had a good bottle of wine to go with it! One guy from Cyprus became very good friends with my housemate and she ended up flying to Cyprus to meet up with him and reverse the CouchSurfing experience.

I personally became good friends with an American girl, who I ended up inviting out to a work function – we had a blast and she got along well with all [of] my colleagues. This is something you couldn’t do by yourself, but is a great example of what CouchSurfing is all about. Saying this, not everyone who you host is friendly or talkative. One girl spent the whole day in the living room and never said a word. We only found out on the last day that she had constant streak of bad luck since arriving, first she was hit by a car, then her bag was stolen and the following night came home in a hospital gown after having her drink spiked!

Most guests entertain themselves during the day with plenty to explore in London and come home once we are home from work. Sometimes they don’t come home until 3am after going clubbing all night. We have no responsibility over them, so they are free to do as they please, as long as they respect few house rules (like locking doors, reduce water usage, etc).

I haven’t actually been CouchSurfing myself yet and reversed the roles, but I think it is a great way to meet new people and to have a closer encounter with other people’s cultures. I will be starting a three month adventure on the Trans-Siberian next week and I will be taking part in the CouchSurfing experience, mixed in with a few hostel stays. By combing the two, it will allow me to meet a greater range of people and to combine two different travelling experiences.

It definitely seems to be the case that since like-minded travellers use the system, and with the added protection of the site’s vouching, I am always meeting good people and getting a good experience by allowing them to stay. It might not sound like the safest idea, but in practice Couchsurfing turns out to be one of the best travel social network ideas out there.

This post was made at Couchsurfing – A New Way to Travel: but is it Safe?

After first getting into using RSS feeds and readers, I quickly began to realise that there were still many ways I could save time and keep everything more organised. For example, by making my browser default to handling RSS feeds in relation to my feed reader, it meant that every time I clicked a feed it automatically added it. Also, once I began using a feed reader as my homepage, I needed better ways of viewing static bookmarks or, better yet, creating RSS feeds for sites which don’t already have them. Below, I’ll talk through some of the ways in which you can make RSS work more naturally.

1. Defaulting Firefox to Send RSS to Your Feed Reader

First things first. Once your realise the benefits of replacing bookmarks with RSS, you’ll need a quicker way of adding them. Right clicking feed icons, copying and pasting the address, and then opening your feed reader to add them is far too arduous a task. Modern browsers like Firefox understand RSS, so let’s make them do the work for you.

How to Choose your Default RSS Application in Firefox:

If you use Internet Explorer, then you’ll be saddened to hear that it is still yet to catch up with the likes of Firefox. However, if you’re using Google Reader to organise your RSS feeds, then the latest version of Google Toolbar will let you join in the fun.

2. Finding Categorised Feeds

Some people make the mistake of just adding the first feed they come to on a site, without realising they can often get a breakdown of just the items they want. For example, most sites will have a main feed that encompasses everything they post. Sometimes though, you don’t want the whole feed and you only read a site for a particular section.

Let’s take this site as an example. On the homepage I could quite easily grab the main feed, but this would give you every single post made on the blog. What if you were only interesting in skiing? If you head to the feeds page, you’ll find a breakdown of RSS feeds for each category allowing you to subscribe solely to the content you want.

3. Following Blog Comments

Akin to grabbing category-only feeds, you can also get RSS for comments on blogs. If you want to follow a particularly interesting conversation on a post, or perhaps you’ve commented on something yourself and want to keep checking for updates, then a blog’s comments feed is just what you need.

There are usually two kinds of comment feeds on a blog, the main one which captures all comments made across the site (above, 1) and then individual ones for comments only on specific posts (above, 2).

You can go a step further with blog comments by using co.mments to track them all. Each time you comment somewhere, you can click a button which you add to your browser and it gets stored and tracked all automatically. The best bit is that there’s an RSS feed containing all the posts you’re tracking, which you can pop into your feed reader for future viewing.

4. How to Filter an RSS feed

Occasionally you’ll find yourself with a feed that still contains items you don’t want to see or use. That’s where Feedrinse comes in handy. You can tell Feedrinse to look at a particular RSS feed and then based on filters you specify, it will create a brand new feed customised to your requests.

As a really basic example, let’s say I want to block any posts from a travel feed that contain “UK”. Maybe you only want to get information that’s from places abroad as you’re sick of the UK’s summer rain. With Feedrinse you add the feed in question and use the drop-down boxes to set up a series of conditions that change the outcome of the feed. Then once you’ve saved it, you get a brand new feed which filters your conditions from then on. Hurray!

5. How to Combine Several RSS Feeds

If I have a lot of related feeds that are updated infrequently, I generally to bring them together into one RSS feed. This doesn’t just save you space in your feed reader but also gives a little extra bandwidth and saves your reader from having to continually check them all separately. RSSMix does just this. Simply enter a list of the feeds you want merging and it spits out a shiny new one with them all cumulated.

This is a really great way to cram a load of data together and is a pretty powerful feature. I often use RSSMix to create feeds I can read on my mobile phone. With the extreme costs of using the Internet on most mobiles, using RSS can get pretty expensive, so by merging my most important feeds I can save a lot of time and money by reading just one singular feed with everything inside.

6. Customised RSS Feeds

It’s actually possible to go one step further with filtering and merging. What if you wanted to compare different feeds and then run the result of those alongside another? There are all kinds of possible customisations available with Yahoo Pipes.

You can take loads of feeds and filter, merge and mix them about to output something that’s much more interesting or useful to you. Maybe you want to compare lots of different travel deals from a range of sites, but filter them all to only show you offers under a certain price. The sky’s the limit with Yahoo Pipes.

In fact, beyond creating you’re own, it’s always great to search what other people have made. Have a browse for “New York” and you’ll come across this New York Times meets Flickr feed (above). It takes all New York Times articles and runs each one through a content analysis to pick out the most relevant keywords. Then it runs these keywords through photo-sharing site Flickr and spits out photos that match. Stuff like this is genuinely brilliant. I can’t get enough of it.

7. Get Feeds of Pages Without RSS

It’s really frustrating when you come across a great new site that would work perfectly with an RSS feed and it turns out there isn’t one. There isn’t a complete solution for certain pages, however Feedity and Dapper do an excellent job of creating feeds for sites without any.

How do they work? Let’s take eBay as an example, eBay is terrible for RSS feeds. In fact the whole site is terrible, but that’s for another post. Say I’m going camping and need a new rucksack. I might want to keep tabs on all new rucksack related items. But where’s my RSS feed, eBay? It’s coldly absent, but fortunately I can enter the URL into Feedity and it creates one for me. Now each time there’s a new rucksack posted I get an update! The possibilities are almost limitless.

8. RSS to Email Converters

So we’ve learnt all the different ways to get, craft and join RSS feeds, so let’s move on to their visibility. You might not always be in a position to keep checking for updates to your feeds. If you’re spent for time, the last thing you want is to be wasting time checking your feed reader when there’s nothing coming in.

Sometimes I switch to sending certain feeds via email, if I’m wanting to be notified the moment there’s something new. Send Me RSS lets you send feed updates to your inbox. It’s really handy for when I’m at work and want to get updates on travel news without having to keep checking my feed reader.

9. Static Bookmarks Modules in Feed Readers

Whilst yes, you can now get RSS feeds for virtually any page, sometimes a page just isn’t suitable for having one. What if it’s not a page that updates, or it’s a business tool like Google AdSense, or something with security like online banking? If you’re intending to use a feed reader such as Netvibes as a central hub for all the sites you read, what’s the best way to view static bookmarks?

There’s a great bookmark module which most feed readers will have and it’s perfect for throwing in sites that you’ll still access a lot but don’t need to (or can’t) be RSS feeds. You’re probably thinking, why bother using that when you can just add bookmarks in your browser? Well, if you keep your bookmarks within your feed reader, not only will you be keeping all your sites and feeds in one place, but you’ll also be able to access them from anywhere in the world.

That’s the beauty of a service like Netvibes, as long as you have access to the Internet you can view all your sites. So yes, you could keep bookmarking things in your browser, but next time you’re on that business trip with a flashy new laptop, you’ll be deeply regretting that you didn’t remember to transfer across your bookmarks from your computer.

10. Publishing your Set-up and Sharing Feeds

Finally, once you’ve spent all the time getting your feed reader set up just perfectly, you’ll want to start sharing all the great feeds you’ve found with your friends. A lot of feed readers these days come bundled with plenty of social networking aspects to make this a cinch. The important thing is to make sure all your friends are using the same feed reader as you are.

So, if you’re using Netvibes you may notice that you have a “personal universe”. This is kind of like a second Netvibes account that lets you publicly show any feeds. This is always interesting as you often find the best and most useful feeds from friends or just other users in general. It also gives you a chance to place feeds you want others to see or follow.

Beyond this, Netvibes also allows you to share your own feeds really easily by clicking the envelope on a feed module and selecting where you want to send it. Likewise, if you come across a great feed in one of your friend’s Netvibes pages, you can send it back to your own page just as easily.

Phew, that’s the final part done. Hopefully there’s been something useful for you in this series. In the future I’ll look at some of the best travel feed mash-ups with users have come with on Yahoo Pipes.

This post was made at 10 Essential Tips for Streamlining RSS Feeds (Part 3 of 3)

I used to spend a lot of time trying to keep on top of anything travel related and it’s a mountain of a task at its easiest. The advent of RSS feed readers has cut down this time significantly. Below are 50 travel sites that I read regularly and use their RSS feeds to keep on top of. There’s everything from travel blogs to gadget reviews, but ultimately (and hopefully) they’ll be something of use to you, even if it’s just one or two sites you hadn’t seen before.

If you’re anything like me, you’re not about to manually add 50 feeds to your reader from some blog you’ve never heard of, so I’ve made them available as an OPML file. All you need to do is download this and upload it via whichever feed reader you use to automatically add them all. Or, if you’re even lazier than that, I’ve made all the feeds available on my public Netvibes Universe, which you could just bookmark and view whenever.

This list isn’t meant to be a definitive resource, please feel free to make suggestions of glaring omissions or simply feeds you use which I (and others) may not have come across before.

Newspaper Travel Sections

The Times – Travel news and features for the UK and worldwide.
The Guardian – Latest news & reviews on UK and world holidays.
New York Times – Expert travel advice for destinations around the world.
The Telegraph – Travel news and holiday advice.
The Independent – Latest travel news from the Independent online travel team.

General Travel Websites

Vagabondish – Offbeat backpacking and travel news.
Brave New Traveler – Travel magazine dedicated to exploring travel in the 21st century.
Eye for Travel – Travel distribution news, events and analysis.
National Geographic Adventure – The best in adventure travel and eco-tourism.
Lonely Planet – Travel guides and guidebooks.

Travel Blogs

Gridskipper – A worldwide travel blog.
Gadling – Travel news and links.
Travel Weekly Blog – Travel industry analysis.
Travel Rants – Travel consumer issues and advice to travel safely.
Alex Bainbridge – Travel e-commerce focussing on tour operators & travel companies.
Upgrade: Travel Better – The mechanics of travel, seen from a consumer’s point of view.
Blog on Travel – Hospitality, Travel and Tourism online.
Travel Blog – Open sign-up, multi-authored travel blog network.
Travel Technology – Latest travel industry technology and business trends.
Travel Remark! – Remarks on the travel e-commerce and technology industry.

Travel Gear and Gadgets

Geeky Traveller – Reviews, news and deals on travel gear.
Travel Gear Blog – Latest travel equipment reviewed.
Travel Gear Review – Gadgets, tools and tips for geeks who love to travel.
The Coolhunter Gadgets – Cutting edge and niche gadgets for travellers.
Travelizmo – Gadget and gear reviews.

Travel Industry News

Travel Trade Gazette – The latest news, views, pictures and jobs from the travel industry.
Travel Weekly News – Breaking news on both travel industry and services in the UK.
Travelmole – Community for travel and tourism.
Travolution – Commentary and analysis on the online travel industry.
T4 Blog – The mechanics of travel, seen from a consumer’s point of view.

Travel Social Networks

Socruise – Cruise community network.
Driftr – Travel community with personal trip reviews.
Here or There – Trip reviews and advice.
Wiki Travel – Open, user-driven Wiki on all things travel.
I Go U Go – Recommended holidays from fellow travellers.

Travel Forums

Thorn Tree – Lonely Planet’s user forum.
Destination 360 – Worldwide travel discussion.
Aardvark Travel – Large userbase of travellers.
Boots ‘n All – Knowledgeable travel community offering reviews and advice.
Travelpodium – Large forum discussing all areas of travel.

Travel Podcasts

Indie Travel Podcast – Travel ideas and advice for independent travellers.
Lonely Planet Podcast – Travel stories and adventures.
Amateur Traveler Podcast – A travel podcast for people who love to travel.
Tips for Travellers – Travel blog and podcast based on first-hand travel experiences.
Geography for Travelers – News, geography, and social science insights on travel world.

Specialist and Advice

Foreign and Commonwealth Office – Regular travel advice and alerts.
Metcheck Weather – Custom feed of the weather in an area of your choice.
Cruise Critic – Latest cruise news.
ABTN – Business travel news and advice.
The Coolhunter – Destination recommendations that are too cool for school.

In part three, I look at 10 Essential Tips for Streamlining RSS Feeds.

This post was made at 50 Must-Have RSS Feeds for Travellers (Part 2/3)

I know so few people that use RSS feeds, that it’s unreal. It’s amazing because using them isn’t much effort, they make it easy to keep on top of all the topics you’re interested in and you can access them from any computer no matter where you are. This especially applies to the travel industry because there are so many different areas to keep an eye on and they’re constantly updating, meaning if you’re not paying attention, it’s easy to miss something new. I thought I’d run through the steps you can take to setting up an RSS Reader for displaying travel feeds. It’s ridiculously easy and the change is well worth it.

I think most people are comfortable with just bookmarking and checking sites at their own leisure. But there will come a point when you either have too many bookmarks to keep on top of, or you’ll miss an important site update which you really needed to know. Take festival tickets as a prime example – if you’re checking the festival site manually via a bookmark every day, you might come late to the ticket sale. Whereas with an RSS feed, you’ll get updated the instant the news goes live.

In this post, I’ll take you through:

• 1. The basics – what is RSS and how do you use it?
• 2. Feed Readers – what they are and how they display your feeds.
• 3. Adding your feeds – migrating feeds to a Feed Reader.
• 4. Feed organisation – arranging feeds for easy reading.
• 5. Replacing your homepage – using Feed Readers as a central hub.

Let’s start with the basics, such as what exactly RSS is and how you use feeds.

1. What are RSS feeds?

It a nut-shell, they’re like self-updating bookmarks. They’re most commonly displayed on websites as this orange beacon which is also a link: . They contain all the latest information from a site and update automatically as new stuff gets posted. This means when you add an RSS feed to your bookmarks, you’ll get an extended menu offering you each of the latest posts.

Try it and see how easy it is. Click the above orange symbol and see what happens. The actions you take next might differ slightly depending on what browser you’re using, but the end result is the same.

Adding RSS feeds in Internet Explorer:

Adding RSS feeds in Firefox:

What if you’re using a browser that’s a bit outdated and can’t access feeds like this? Don’t worry! This is just an example of RSS usage. You can still move onto the next step and start using a standalone Feed Reader.

Now that you know what RSS feeds are and how to get them, you can easily view updates to the sites you read. So, what’s the best way to use them?

2. Choosing a Feed Reader

Just like with normal bookmarks, feeds can get messy and organising them can be difficult. I used to spend hours creating all neatly laid out folders for all mine. That’s where RSS Feed Readers come into it. Instead of storing all your RSS feeds in a toolbar or bookmark manager in your browser as just shown above, you can give them their very own web page. It’s all free and again, it’s very easy. It also takes your feeds from being a few links, to being able to read all your sites without externally visiting them.

Firstly, you’ll need to choose your weapon. I personally use Netvibes; another popular one is Google Reader, but there are hundreds of different kinds out there. I’m going to stick with Netvibes for the purpose of a tutorial, but as they all work very similarly, there won’t be any big differences if you decide to use something different.

3. Adding RSS to your Feed Reader

Start by opening http://www.netvibes.com/ and signing up. Once you’ve done that you’ll be faced with a page that looks much like a browser with several tabs that each already have a few feeds. In the screencast below, I’ll scrap all the default feeds and start adding my own. It’s as easy as pie.

In just a few short minutes, we’ve moved from static bookmarks to having your own personal hub, featuring all the content you want to read. Now let’s look at organising all this information.

4. Organising all of your travel feeds

In the above screencast, I showed how easy it is to grab a feed from a site you want to read and add it to your feed reader. However, if you’re like me, you’ll read a lot of sites and Netvibes is quickly going to get very messy. So we need to start organising things a bit better, otherwise each time you open Netvibes, you’ll be overwhelmed with information.

The best way to begin is to sort out tabs for each topic, just in the way you would separate your files into folders. For example, since I follow a lot of newspaper feeds, I’m going to make a tab just for newspapers, and so on. Then within each of these tabs, I’m going to organise columns, reduce feeds to only display a couple of lines and colour co-ordinate any that need to be distinguished. I made another screencast to show how easy this is:

So that’s all your feeds nicely presented. Now you need to start thinking about how best to visit Netvibes.

5. Replacing your homepage

From now on, each time you visit netvibes.com and sign in, all your information will be there. So you can be on holiday in Iceland and log onto the hotel lobby computers and still find all your travel feeds. You can even visit on your mobile phone. But what about when you’re just at home? I made my feed reader my homepage. That means that when I first open my browser in the morning, every site that I read instantly appears.

You don’t have to use it as a homepage though, you could just bookmark Netvibes and visit it whenever you want to check up on any news. The best part is that it significantly reduces your bookmark folder, as any sites that offer RSS feeds can all be migrated into your Feed Reader and removed from the toolbar.

I wanted to finish on taking Netvibes an extra step further though and not just using it as a personalised homepage, but almost as a browser itself. In the final screencast below, I’ll show how Netvibes enables you to read all of the information in your feeds and how you control and follow what’s new and what you’ve already read.

And that’s that. You know what RSS is, how to best organise feeds and how to read them without clicking outside of the one page! Any questions or something isn’t clear? Just ask in the comments!

Part two: 50 must-have RSS feeds for travellers to help keep on top of all the news.

This post was made at Part One: Harness RSS to Sustain Your Travel Fix