What kind of research do you do before you travel?

[Syates]

My friend is Mr. Google but sometimes for smaller locations there is not a lot of information available on the net. What do you look up before you travel? SY

[lilcrazyfuzzy]

I tend to look on flickr if there are any particular locations that i want to shoot

[Syates]

Wow, that is a great idea! SY

[Forgiss]

google: Country name + expat

They (the expats)) tend to run forums that give you the low down on cheap food, what to avoid, times to go and see/visit specific locations, etc

Next stop: Expedia for hotel deals (generally about half cheaper than normal rates + buy three nights, get 1 free)

and then off to the stock sites to see who shot what, (doesn't help to cover all the same stuff) but, I generally ignore that info by the time we get there. It's sometimes just nice to find something that is hidden (it inspires you to go and look a bit more off the beaten track)

[Lvnel]

I check when my passport expires

What will happen to us when Google crushes? I also do all my reasearch on Google.

I also check when is their tourist season - don't want to have too many people in my shots.

Any nice events: like carnavals, religious parades.

Cost of food per person per day, for us its quite an expense - and in Germany we could eat much cheaper than in France.

Before leaving for the country I run Google news for a while - don't want to end up in the middle of a political event or a metro strike, like London on New Years eve in 2005.

And shooting permissions: like in Europe we were told not to point cameras at kids, in Turkey we read we had to get special persmissions to shoot in certain places, and in Muslim-African countries you need to ask the person if you can shoot them as part of a background shot.

In South AFrica you just don't take out your camera when you are alone