Looking for authentic insider travel advice for your next trip? Leading ethical holiday company, responsibletravel.com this week launches a new local travel community, www.iknowagreatplace.com including tips from Michael Palin and Kate Humble. Fully integrated within the responsibletravel.com site, the new community will offer unique local travel advice on great places from the real experts: the locals that live there or travellers who have been there before. Find out the best place to find cream teas in England, the low down on where to go horse riding in Morocco or an insider tip on safaris in Zambia. Whether you’re looking to discover the exotic closer to home or take a responsible holiday further afield, the site aims to become the best resource for local travel ideas in the world. Celebrity tips Still in its beta stage, the site already has over 1200 members, including seasoned traveller Michael Palin and TV presenter Kate Humble. Writer, actor and presenter, Michael Palin explains why Peru is his ‘great place’: “I find it very difficult to choose a favourite country as any traveller with a sense of curiosity will keep discovering new delights all the time. However, I have always felt that Peru offers a combination of attractions which in my experience, are some of the best in the world. The city of Cuzco with its rich and wonderful collection of Inca and Spanish colonial architecture, the glories of Machu Picchu and the less well known, but fascinating Urubamba river area are just three reasons to keep returning to this incredibly diverse country. And that doesn’t include the richest variety of bird-life on the continent.” TV presenter and avid adventurer, Kate Humble shares how a five week trip across the desert with locals on a salt caravan to Timbuktu, changed her life: “I learnt an incredible patience and resilience. At one point we were caught in a sandstorm for 48 hours. We had not tents; we just had to hunker down. You had to totally shut your brain down. You can’t go anywhere; you can’t even open your eyes. When we travelled we’d get up at 2am. It’d be freezing cold and we’d walk in the dark for four hours, then ride for another ten. Those people became pivotal to our lives. I’ve never seen them since, but every journey I take I feel they’re with me.”Changing trends in travel... Justin Francis, the site’s founder, and managing director of responsibletravel.com hopes the new site will be more than just another community site.“For the last eight years at responsibletravel.com we’ve been on a quest to find holidays that are better for local people and destinations, and to build awareness of a new way to travel – responsible travel.“With iknowagreatplace.com we hope to go one step further and help democratise travel. By this I mean that I want to see travellers and locals become more empowered to speak on behalf of diverse and interesting places. "Such diversification will mean some of tourism’s negative impacts such as overcrowding will be reduced and the benefits will be spread more widely to local people. Travellers too will find themselves enjoying more authentic and memorable travel experiences.”Members Travellers from over 55 countries have joined up and the site features over 5000 photos. So far, England is leading the way with local tips. As well as Michael Palin and Kate Humble, other inspiring new members include:
