A friend told me about GoWaza.com, a new travel planning mash-up site with sort of a “meetup” twist. By importing your contacts, you can visually see where those contacts are in relationship to your trip destination while planning your trip using GoWaza.
What immediately struck me is that I could use GoWaza’s mapping feature to ensure that my hotel is closer to friends I may want to see in conjunction with a business trip. Here is how that might look for a business trip to San Francisco:
GoWaza SF Map
My business destination is downtown (where most of the red pins are bunched up), but my friend Bob lives out in “The Ave’s” north of Golden Gate Park (the blue pin). I’ll select the Stanyan Park Hotel (red pin #2), which is just a short (and beautiful) drive through the park to Bob’s place. GoWaza’s trip search results adds nearby attractions and events, so I when I click the “Events” tab, I notice Wicked is playing at the Orpheum the afternoon I arrive. (That’s the yellow #1 pin.)
The map also shows nearby golf courses, and although I am delighted they are all close to my selected hotel, I do not share that with my corporate travel folks. I do, however, add a round at the Presidio course (purple pin #1) to my trip folder. Very kewl, eh?
In fact, GoWaza’s trip folders can be shared with friends (or even the coporate travel police). Here’s mine for this trip: http://bit.ly/90hwiQ
GoWaza is still in beta, so it has a glitch or two, and integration of airline flights was not yet working when I took my tour. However, it really promises to be a great tool for trip planning, and I’ll be anxiously awaiting the official launch.