travel

Air France will once again be offering Lifters a CHF 50 reduction on any flight (to any of their destinations, not just Geneva) for a limited period.

Have a look here for more details, and the discount code. Please note that the code only works on the Air France Switzerland site, available in English, French and German.

To give you an idea of the current rates and savings, here are some example fares for the conference dates:
- From London (direct): CHF 210, discounted to CHF 160
- From New York (via Paris): CHF 800, discounted to CHF 750

KLM has an amazing offer, flights to Seoul during Lift Asia 09 at less than 700chf! Book your flight now if you are traveling from Europe, the offer works until July 6th!

I checked with Zurich and Geneva and for once the prices announced are the prices you get :)

We have a Facebook group, we have a Flick, a Google account for our videos, and now our collection will grow with the beautiful Dopplr (created by Lift's friend and past speaker Matt Jones) where we now have a group thanks to another former speaker, Greensboro-based futurist Scott Smith!

Join us on Dopplr!

Noel Hidalgo talks about "the luck of seven", a tour of the world he started On 7-7-7 which took him through the 7 continents, visiting the 7 wonders of the world in 7 months.

Thanks for the great conference everyone, it was great to meet so much cool new people.

Also, next time you're wondering what to do in a new city or want to share your experiences about a city or a place in that city, be sure to check our site Vailoma. ;-)

Cheers all!

If you aren't already a Dopplr user, I recommend getting set up with this social application for travel (see below). By logging your upcoming trips on Dopplr, you can see which of your friends or contacts may be in the same city, but also see their upcoming travel plans. Members of the top 100 non-profits, business schools or luxury brands have special invites. http://www.dopplr.com. It's a good way to see LIFTers also travelling.

Equally as interesting is an app developed a while back by nodesnoop called Offsetr, which analyzes the travel patterns for you and your friend network to calculate your future travel-related carbon footprint. Make of the data what you will, but it is an interesting exercise in transparency. http://www.nodesnoop.com/offsetr/

PS: Noneck, did you cover all that carbon with an offset? ;-)

It occurred to me at the end of last week that I really ought to sort out my travel arrangements to LIFT08 and, possibly, a hotel as well. I sat down on Sunday with good intentions, but after forty minutes of careering between the LIFT maps and the online hotel booking service (never mind a flight), I was hopelessly lost and frustrated.

Never mind, I thought, I'll go to the Co-op Midlands Travel shop in my local town shopping centre (Oadby, in Leicestershire). You do have to have a certain mind set when approaching a travel agent, I find. It's a bit like estate agents and shopping for clothes at T K Maxx. It's not a five minute job that you can fit in between buying some milk and posting a birthday card.

You have to put aside the afternoon and accept that you may not do anything else with that half-day. Once you've entered that zen-like state, the whole thing becomes easier to bear, and you can pass the time gazing idly out the window or pretending to plan your dream cruise around the Mediterranean, while really eavesdropping on other people's conversations.

It was just as well that I had mentally prepared myself, as the people in the travel agents had had a bad day of it. Not only had they been so busy that they hadn't had time for a cup of tea (never mind lunch), they had had unfortunate news about next year's sales targets. I had thought 4.00pm on a Monday afternoon was a good time to pick, "they can't be busy then", but no.

Finally, I was the last person in the shop, and cup of tea in hand (we all had one, I thought it was really nice of them to make me one), we discussed my requirements. It took a little while, but eventually I had the hotel I wanted (near the conference centre, internet connection and free travel pass), the flights at the times I wanted from the airports I wanted and all for the best price!