This newsletter will update you with any recent USA travel information I have come across and uk-2-usa.com web site changes that have occurred in the last month. This is a still a fairly new venture and all feedback is gratefully received about style or content. Many thanks for the comments received from the last newsletter. This newsletter will be available via e-mail, on the web site or via the associated online uk-2-usa travel discussion group
This newsletter has become unexpectedly (by me) popular, and it is stretching my e-mail system to the limit due to the number of people on the circulation list. To solve this problem I have started a Yahoo Group called uk-2-usa-newsletter. This gives me the facility to send the newsletter easily to larger numbers of subscribers. In approximately two weeks I will transfer my circulation list to this group and you will each receive an e-mail informing you that you have joined this new group. There only implication of your membership of this group is that I will have the ability to send the newsletter to you however big the circulation list becomes. The price to pay for this free service from Yahoo is that each newsletter will start off with an advertisement of Yahoos choice.
Hopefully, you want to carry on getting the newsletter (which I sincerely hope all of you do), so just sit back and wait and the next one will come in early April. However, if you do not want to join this group, follow the unsubscribe link at the foot of this newsletter within the next two weeks and I will not transfer your e-mail across. There will also be an unsubscribe link in the welcoming e-mail you get from the group should you not respond in time.
Current deals / USA travel news
I'm considering Wisconsin for this years holiday. Therefore, I am finding new sources of information all the time. Here are a few for you to try if any of you fancy getting off the beaten track a bit.
The Wisconsin Maritime Museum has been rebuilt and has a grand opening on April 26th this year. Wisconsin is in the middle of America why does it have a Maritime Museum ? (answer at the very end of the newsletter)
The newest attraction in the Wisconsin Dells this year is Wiley's Woods in the Great Wolf Lodge where families become part of the video game. The four-story, 20,000-square-foot facility combines computerized technology with physical play, storytelling, strategy and family interaction.
Thats it for Wisconsin, here are some other random ideas.
Another off the beaten track destimation to consider is Idaho where there is a surprising amount to do.
Continental Airlines are offering 40% off certain Disney Hotels in Florida if booked before April 25th
Have any of you heard of Adventures on wheels ? I came across their web site and they seem to offer what several of my web site visitors have been looking for. Namely you buy a car from them and sell it back to them at the end of your stay. You can drop it off at the other side of the country with no drop off fee ! Sounds too good to be true, please let me know if you have experience with this company.
Here is a really unusual holiday idea. Why not go on an authentic Wagon train in Colorado ?.
More about the middle east (Iraq) and its effect on the travel industry.
I found an interesting article in the International Herald Tribune where the comments are that airlines are focussing on holding market share rather than growing the market. The effect this has is that the airlines undercut eack other leaving bargains for us the travelling public. This is a situation that cant last too long but it does mean there can be bargains to be had now and in the short term future.
This article in the Sunday Telegraph highlights what a bargain year this could be for the traveller to the USA. The USA travel industry is suffering from a lack of internal and international customers and is responding by dropping prices.
Web site news
An entry has been added to the Oregon page for Oregon Caves National Monument
A site visitor comment has been added to Medicine Bow on the Wyoming page.
An new entry has been made on the English/American dictionary page
I mentioned in the last newsletter that in conjunction with North America Travel Service uk-2-usa.com is offering a quote facility. This was arranged because regularly site visitors were requesting quotations even though the site clearly did not offer this service. In its first month over 150 people have requested quotes via this page and bookings have already been made. Illustrating that there indeed was a substantial demand.
This 'quote' facility is being provided to satisfy the demand for the service from you the site visitor, and I am keen to receive feedback (good or bad) so that I can provide what my site visitors want. To encourage such information from you, I am offering all people who respond to this newsletter a place in a draw to receive a guidebook to the National Parks of the American West. Simply follow the e-mail link below and let me know what you think of the service being offered, and what if anything you would like to see changed or added so that it better meets your needs. I will randomly select the winner from everybody who replies - you dont have to say something nice to enter the draw, just something meaningful ! I will contact the winner via e-mail to arrange delivery of the book.
Last time I described how the site got listed in Google and visitor numbers started to take off.
Through the summer of 2002 I began to get messages on busy days from Yahoo Geocities that my web site was being 'turned off' for periods. This was because there were so many visitors in a short time that the bandwidth allocated to a free site was being exceeded. By August, the web site was being turned off at least once a week for this reason. I decided something had to be done.
On return from last summers holiday I looked into the costs of registering a domain name and of buying extra bandwidth. I decided on a package and registered www.uk-2-usa.com as my very own domain name. All of the pages were transferred across and I expectantly waited to see visitor numbers climb even further. Alas the opposite happened, visitor numbers actually fell sharply before picking up again. This turned out to be because as the various search engines refreshed their indexes my site was listed under two domain names for a period, and was consequently well down the search lists for both names. Visitor numbers eventually stabilised just under their summer peak numbers. Suddenly just after Christmas, they took off and reached double the previous peak levels seen in August last year. This has now dropped back a little as the post xmas rush to book a holiday has faded.
The impending war with Iraq now seems to having a big effect on visitor numbers. On days when something major happens about Iraq and it fills the news, site visitor numbers drop, to climb back again a few days later.
And that brings us bang up to date and concludes a brief history of the uk-2-usa.com web site.
Future Newsletters
Please give me your feedback about what you would like to see in future editions of this newsletter. I will develop the format based on feedback from readers. Click here to send me suggestions for improvements, additions or even things to avoid in future newsletters.
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Well, thats it for the edition number 4. I look forwards to receiving more comments to help me to develop based on your feedback.
Happy USA travelling
UK
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Answer to earlier questionWisconsin has a Maritime Museum because it sits at the edge of Lake Michigan one of the Great Lakes - more of an inland sea than a lake !