Here is a cool Travel & Vacation widget that lets you quickly and easily create an embeddable representation of your impending getaway. Simply input your destination, the dates you will be travelling, pick a color (there are only two?) and copy and paste the resulting code to your website or blog.
excerpt from: gillscruise.com
Proudly display to your visitors where and when you are going on your next holiday, business trip or vacation. This highly advanced web widget, which you can embed on your blog or website will geo locate any place on earth and pull some of the best pictures from Google Maps and Panoramio. All sleekly animated in a slide show style.
The remaining days to you holiday are neatly displayed. When your holiday starts widget will display that you are currently on holiday, and when you return it will display that you have visited this place.
This way you can let your visitors know that you are not going to post on your blog for example during this time, and will be notified when you are back. This gives you are chance to recommend your favourite destination, and can build a social following for your favourite place on earth. We hope you enjoy what we have built, and let us know in comments on our blog if you have any suggestions for improvements.
Observations:
1. I would like to see the widget be able to search more databases for a wider variety of images. I tried Sydney and Berlin with no image results. London works, obviously Tokyo works and New York is displayed on the widget creation page.
2. Only having two available colors for the widget border will be a deal killer for some. I realize “Carbon” (light gray/white) will work with most any color scheme. But most people are used to being able to pick their exact color for a widget.
3. JavaScript has pros and cons. It is an excellent widget building platform but is still viewed as unacceptable by some (Wordpress.com, MySpace etc.) Perhaps a Flash version as well? Maybe consider porting this widget to Widgetbox, Clearspring etc.
4. There are no registration requirements and the widget is extremely simple to set up. These two factors alone are very important. Excellent job!
Get your Holiday Countdown Widget from gillscruise.com/widget
