I use booking.com and Agoda for my accommodation needs.

Booking was my preferred choice as I find the reviews are more genuine but I am going to use Agoda more often now.

Contacting Booking.com customer service is a nightmare.
Each email you send will be replied by some dumbwit who does not even bother to read the email contents and just sends a standard reply. And when you reply to the email from booking they will start all over again.
So frustrating!

I stopped using Tripadvisor quite a while back. After some very bad experiences travelling in Scotland where the Tripadvisor information was just plain wrong. I learned subsequently just how important their advertising revenue is to them. There's far too many fake reviews on it and paid advertisments masquerading as independent reviews.

In addition I know first hand that Tripadvisor just don't react to complaints about their content. I had a freind who ran a restaurant and he got some awful accusations of food poisoning against his place on Tripadvisor. We tracked down the new user who posted it and it was identified as a local competitor. Tripadvisor were given all the information but did nothing and wouldn't remove the lies posted by the other person. All I'd say is there are much better options out there than Tripadvisor IMHO.

"Sorry, the Community listings are currently closed
We have jast moved the entire website to a new server, and the mailing list system is completely different. So, we have a very significant rebuild of the old system to the new system, and while we expected it could take a couple or three weeks, it's taking much longer. With any luck the Community lists will be back soon.

In an emergency, write me, Grant, directly, and I can write to the Community members directly for you. Be sure to tell me which Community you want to contact - basically, roughly where / what area.

Thanks for your patience while we work through the massive task of moving and adjusting / editing 250,000 files, plus massive databases!

Grant and Susan"

How are things progressing?



PS.

Re Booking.com reviews

Try this one for size: 11 x on the same day by the same illiterate user at 10/10... Someone else left a recent review :) and complained about the place. Nothing was done...

https://www.booking.com/Share-WP7QPk

https://www.booking.com/Share-WP7QPk

well if you want free accomodation find gas station that has a yard that simple

After the initial email I've never received anything from the HU system ... and we'd be happy to put people up and/or show them some of the cool places to ride near us

Slowly. :(
I need a volunteer with nothing to do to manually create 700+ communities in the new system, about 6-8 minutes each. Yes that's around 90 hours, which is why it's not yet done.
Again, write me direct to contact a Community and I'll forward.

I'd be happy to do 2-3 hours a week to help out, I have form for this sort of thing. Can it definitely not be automated?

Likewise, I don't mind helping out if I can be of assistance.

I will be wrapping up my Sumatra tour next week and flying back home.

:scooter:

Thanks guys! I need to look closely at that idea, but I think it might be possible - there are privacy and security considerations here. :) I'll get back asap in PM and here.

Fair enough, my official security clearance is about 10 years out of date so the best I could do these days is sign an NDA and photograph it with my passport or something.

After a bunch of fruitless exercises, I have come round to the conclusion that this is going to be me. It can't be done without full admin access to the server, and obviously that's a bad idea to give to anyone, especially over a long period of time. There is no way to admin the lists only, which is enormously stupid and frustrating.:(
Thanks for the offers of help, it's greatly appreciated. I'll keep your offers in mind for future!

Accomondation in South America
 

For me it often works better to talk to people, than using apps.

Google maps shows if there are villages or not.
If there is a village, I ride to the plaza that all villages has in the middle of the town. Park the bike and walk a loop around the plaza: Often there are accomondation there. Else I talk to people and ask. And I very often get help.
There are so much more than what is in apps.

In Europe I camp. Ues google maps and looking for signs.

Also the GPS has both hotels and camping sites that I can search for.

@grant johnson,

No worries!

:scooter:

Grant - That's a pity, the offer stands should you ever find a way around it! Still, these days it's better to make an effort to keep people's details secured wherever possible and I'm glad you're taking that seriously :)

Seems like a huge pita to migrate data from server to server.

What about starting again from scratch? Like on the Advrider tentspace thread connected to a Google (my?)maps page.

Invite, via email, previous hosts to complete their up to date details again regarding what they're "offering" (accommodation, coffee, road side assistance etc). The map will grow embrionicly. And has a fighting chance of being up to date. Case in point the Ho Chi Minh City HUBB person I contacted last winter who had moved to a different Vietnamese town more than 10 years previously!



Hence nothing to do with your server and HU hosts do the "work". A trusted volunteer/s could "man"/"woman" it with few security issues.

Humourous annecdote?: My advrider tentspace pin disappeared off the map around the time, during covid, that I edited my contribution that I insisted that anyone I helped had to show me their vaccine certificate before I would help them (because of health concerns for myself). :clap: