Cool Hunting

71Miles is a new travel site with a blog twist (or is it a blog with a travel site twist?), designed to met the needs of urban-dwellers looking for a weekend getaway. Launched in Beta in Northern California, they plan to go national within the coming months covering destinations within driving distances of major metropolitan cities. Supplemented with interactive maps, slideshows and videos, 71Miles content includes info on activities, sights, hotels and restaurants, written by local authorities with editorial cred to back them up. A quick perusal of the Occidental travelogue (my hometown), found the site to be well-written and pretty accurate down to the "acid-addled, aged hippie."

Driven by real-time pricing from Kayak's discount hotel booking service and sponsored links from hotels, the "Travel 2.0" site combines word-of-mouth-style info with internet-enabled features to make planning a quick trip way easier than calling a travel agent or hounding friends.