Facebook Brand Personality Post

HipMunk is the cutest little travel agent we could find.  He’s also super smart.  And when you’re looking to book flights or hotels, HipMunk doesn’t just find the least expensive deal, but the best all around deal.  HipMunk takes the agony out of travel by giving you all of your search results on one page.  And you can easily make reasonable requests of HipMunk like no 6 hour layovers and no hotels that don’t have wifi.  Seriously, it happens.  HipMunk lives to take the agony out of your travel arrangements – and he goes nuts when he makes another user a HipMunk user for life.

Facebook Post “Culturally Relevant Events”

Hipmunk is a huge San Francisco Giants Fan, and he hopes you are too.  Tickets are already on sale for opening day which means that if you don’t live in The City by the Bay, you need to start making travel arrangements.  Good thing Hipmunk has been gearing up to find you flights without the agony of useless search results, no matter what team you’re rooting for.  He can also find you a place to sleep, whether a hotel or a bed and breakfast.  He can do all of this and still shove his cheeks full of delicious garlic fries.

Are you a baseball fan?  Where would you travel to for the team you love?

Facebook Post “Relevant to Hipmunk”

The other day while I was listening to “Roam” by the B-52’s on Spotify, it occurred to me that I should share all of my favorite travel tunes with my Facebook friends.   How about wrapped up into a neat little folder?  I think I’ll call that folder “Hipmunk”.

Now I can share all of my favorite tunes that I rock out to while searching for flights on Hipmunk and while cruising at 25,000 feet.  How about you?  Do you have a favorite playlist for travel?

Facebook Post “Travel at Large”

What could be more exhilarating than grabbing your passport, kissing your mom goodbye and heading out into the world with one mission in view: Visit 192 countries, read 1,001 books and watch the top 100 movies.  And you’ve got 50 years to do it.

That’s just what T.B.M of the blog “50 Year Project” has set out to do.  And he’s taking you on his journey.

As of today, he’s traveled to Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Canada, Spain, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, Dominican Republic, United States and England.  Phew!   He’s also already read 33 novels. I suppose with all that time spent in airports and on planes he has the time…

He takes lots of photos and updates his blog religiously, so if you’d like to travel the world vicariously, check out the blog.

Facebook Product Attribute

Introducing Hotel search on Hipmunk.  It’s fast, it’s smart and of course, it makes things easy on you. With our new hotel search function you have the option of searching for hotels by proximity to things that are important to you.  Hotels are color coded so you’ll know if it fits your price range instantly. Hotels are also ranked by “ecstasy” – a combination of Yelp reviews, price and amenities.  To learn more, check out our blog with all the Hipmunk news and updates.

The Extreme Sport of Dealing with Timesharers

It was our first wedding anniversary and we were dead broke. But thanks to an insanely cheap Groupon for five nights in Cabo we were getting on a southbound plane and we were going to celebrate. We’d just need to be really strict with the pesos once we got there.

We knew that sitting through a timeshare presentation was one way of getting free tours and booze cruise excursions, so we inquired about it when checking in to our hotel. We made an appointment for the next morning, being assured by the nice lady that there would be plenty of free mimosas and it would only take about 45 minutes.

What happened the next day could probably be prosecuted as kidnapping in the United States.

It started off harmless.  “The conference room is right over there”, the man said as he pointed at a building about 100 feet away.  “Plus, you’ll get to see the properties that we’re selling along the way.”  We rolled our eyes and snickered quietly. Eyes on the prize…

To make a very long story short, we were forcefully marched up a dusty hill and through mazes of empty hotel rooms, almost straight uphill, in 110-degree heat.  I promise you it was a mountain because when we finally made it to the top, I could clearly see Venezuela.  But we made it.  And we were promised free stuff if we sat through the presentation.  And we patiently listened to why we should buy a timeshare in lovely Cabo San Lucas, how affordable it is and how stupid you would have to be not to buy one.

Here’s where it will start to get ugly so you must keep focus on the prize – free stuff.

Suddenly, timeshare guy grabbed the mimosa straight out of my hand when I laughed and told him “We’re broke! Now where are those vouchers”? He proceeded to kick us out of the building, leaving us to fend for ourselves and find our way through the mountain of mazes of white pathways without any idea of how we were going to find our way back to the hotel.

But then we saw it. It was our only hope in making it down the mountain before heatstroke started to take its effects on our alcohol-deprived bodies. It was a golf cart. And it was empty.  Before you could say “Adios! Me voy a casa!” we were off.  The sun was setting, which meant happy hour by the pool, so we had to move quickly.

We drove that golf cart right through the hotel lobby and straight out to the pool.  We had a few/10 cocktails and talked excitedly about the free adventures that awaited us.

And yes, we finally did get our vouchers. And we will return to Mexico as we do every year.  And we will go to another timeshare presentation so we can enjoy ourselves like any regular tourist.  And you should too.  Just be warned that getting free stuff is an exhausting and sometimes dangerous task.  But hey, I did get to swim with dolphins. For free.  (And that golf cart ride was pretty fun too…)