Tripwolf, the Frankenstein of travel sites

Social travel site Tripwolf went into public beta Tuesday--and what a beast it is.

The massive international site, which has local versions in German- and English-speaking countries, is a travel guide, reviews site, social network, blogging platform, photo- and video-sharing site, wiki, and (soon, I'm told) travel booking site all rolled into one. It sounds overwhelming, and it is: every city page shows a map with points of interest, a brief overview of the city, a list of friends' recommendations in that location, several sections for user-submitted comments (e.g., best time to go) and content about that city pulled from elsewhere on the Web (e.g., YouTube). On the flip side, the Tripwolf city page does give you a quick overview of information about your destination, along with starting points for further research.

Wonder how Mozilla feels about that logo

To Tripwolf's credit, the page layout helps ease the burden of slogging through so much content, and information is presented in a useful hierarchy. Destination pages start with professional content (Tripwolf is backed by MairDumont, Europe's largest publisher of travel guides), then show friends' recommendations for that city. User-added comments and content pulled from outside sources are left to the bottom of the page. It makes sense: when I'm planning a vacation, I want an expert source to provide background, and I want to know if my friends have any specific recommendations about the place I'm visiting. Only after I've taken those factors into account will I turn to reviews written by random strangers on the Internet.

As you choose locations to visit, you can drag and drop their listing information into your Scrapbook (located on the left navigation bar) for future reference. Unfortunately, the Scrapbook's location is static, so adding items from the bottom of the page requires a lot of scrolling back and forth. Once you've finalized your itinerary you can e-mail your Scrapbook to friends or have Tripwolf create a customized PDF city guide. The latter is better in concept than in execution--my "customized city guides" featured each listing on a separate page, which is a terrible waste of paper. It'd be better to download Tripwolf's pre-existing PDF city guide, which is essentially a digest of the information that's available at the site, plus a map and specific recommendations from a local expert, dubbed a Trip Guru.

Aside from the travel guides, Tripwolf incorporates some pretty standard social-networking features: you can add friends, send messages to other members, post your status/location, and mark your favorite places to visit. There's also a Journal section that is essentially a blog platform that also incorporates a map of places you've visited and would be especially nice for extended travels. Surprisingly, the site launched without the Trips section, which is still in development. (Then again, it is a beta.) This section will eventually provide flight- and hotel-booking services.

Overall, Tripwolf incorporates plenty of elements that other sites do better. But as one of the only sites shooting to become a one-stop shop for travel planning and travel-related social networking, it may yet find a passionate audience.