Congratulations to Jose, Coral Gables, Fl.,  who is the lucky winner of our “Create a Trip on TravelMuse, Win your perfect moment in Hawaii” sweepstakes!  We had a great response to the contest with thousands of entries and know that Jose is excited to plan his luxury trip to the tropical island of Oahu.

Surfing in Wakiki. Photo: Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau

Thanks to our partners in Hawaii for providing this amazing trip to paradise!

- Roundtrip air travel and ground transportation, courtesy of the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau.

- 5-night stay at the exquisite Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach resort & Spa, Waikiki, Complete with a Waikiki Starlight Luau.

- Dolphin Swim Adventure Program at Sea Life Park Hawaii,
Sea Life Park offers a variety of marine-life shows, exhibits and educational programs for all ages and is open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  Among its most popular features are the swim-with-dolphin programs.  The Park is a member of the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums.  Sea Life Park is owned and operated by Parques Reunidos Group.  For more information, visit the Park’s Web site at www.sealifeparkhawaii.com.

- Atlantis Submarines sub tour off Waikiki,
Atlantis Submarines has nine locations worldwide including Hawaii, the Caribbean, Mexico and Guam. In Hawaii, Atlantis operates five submarines in Kona, Lahaina, and Waikiki. The company also owns Honolulu-based Atlantis Navatek Cruises, offering sunset dinner cruises aboard the high-tech revolutionary Navatek I, along with seasonal luncheon whale watch cruises from December to April. For more information, visit www.atlantissubmarines.com.

- Premium Battle Station Tour at the Battleship Missouri Memorial, Pearl Harbor.
Located a mere ship’s length from the USS Arizona Memorial, the Battleship Missouri Memorial completes a historical visitor experience that begins with the “day of infamy” that saw the sinking of the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor and ends with Imperial Japan’s unconditional surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Walk the decks of America’s last battleship as knowledgeable guides share stories from the Mighty Mo’s astounding career spanning five decades and three wars — from World War II to the Korean conflict to the Liberation of Kuwait — and her transformation into a floating historic attraction and memorial, standing perpetual watch over Pearl Harbor. Call toll-free 1-877-MIGHTYMO (1-877-644-4896) or visit www.ussmissouri.org.

- Polynesian Cultural Center, “Ha:Breath of Life“ evening show and buffet dinner.
Immerse yourself in the diverse cultures and customs of Polynesia at the Polynesian Cultural Center. Join in an array of interactive activities and shows in eight island villages and exhibits. Watch the Rainbows of Paradise canoe pageant on the lush lagoon winding through the grounds. Enjoy Hawaii’s best Lu‘au experience at its award-winning Ali‘i Lu‘au dinner and show. Experience the spectacular “Ha: Breath of Life,” Hawaii’s newest Polynesian night show featuring a cast of more than 100 performers. Call toll-free 1-800-367-7060 or visit www.polynesia.com.

If you’d like to plan a similar trip you can check out this itinerary to Hawaii on TravelMuse.

We’re giving away a weekly prize to the best Trip created on TravelMuse in “Trip of the Week” for the next 10 weeks, in conjunction with our amazing Create a Trip on TravelMuse, Win Your Perfect Moment in Hawaii contest!

Create Trips for destinations you plan to visit or share your experiences and recommendations on places you’ve already been.

What you Win:

Winners will receive a copy of their choice, of one of the latest Frommer’s Day by Day Guide books to Hawaii, Ireland or Italy each week (value ~$30)!

Win Frommer's new Day by Day Guide books to Hawaii, Italy or Ireland

See our recent review of Frommer’s Day by Day Guides.

How to Enter:

• Create a Trip with at least five (5) saved items to qualify. If you’ve entered our Hawaii contest you’re already eligible for Trip of the Week.

• Tell us more about your Trip–we’d love to hear from you. Send any interesting details you care to share  (why you’re taking this trip, who you’re going with, what you’re most excited about seeing/doing) to marketing@travelmuse.com and include your public Trip url (e.g. http://www.travelmuse.com/plan/trip.htm?tripId=19680) .

Tip: To create a quality Trip remember to include a description and add more items (don’t forget to try the TravelMuse Bookmarker).

Results:

We’ll publish our Trip of the Week pick every Tuesday, and will announce our first winner next week on Tuesday, May 25.

Good luck and happy Trip planning!

Rules:

The contest runs from May 6, 2010 until July 20, 2010. Qualifying Trips must contain at least five (5) items. The winner will be selected by a judging panel comprised of TravelMuse staff and other employees. Winners must claim their prize within three (3) business days after the date of notification of such prize. A winner’s failure to respond to the prize notification within the specified three (3) business days will be considered such winner’s forfeiture of the prize and an alternate winner may be selected from the pool of eligible entries. If an entrant is found to be ineligible, an alternate winner may also be selected from the pool of eligible entries. To enter, you must be a U.S. resident, age 18 or older. Employees, partners and vendors of TravelMuse and their immediate family members are not eligible to enter. When applicable, the winner may be required to execute and return within five business days an Affidavit of Eligibility and a Liability and Publicity Release to be eligible for the prize or an alternate winner will be selected. All prizes will be awarded. No substitutions including for cash are permitted, except that TravelMuse reserves the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater monetary value for any prize. Winners shall be responsible and liable for all federal, state and local taxes on the value of their prize.

Also, don’t miss your chance to WIN a FREE, Once-in-a-Lifetime Luxury Trip for 2 to WAIKIKI!

We’re excited to announce today a next generation Travel Planner and a chance to escape to a tropical paradise!

We know that planning a trip can be an overwhelming experience and although the internet is the go-to place for all your information these days, it can be a real challenge to collect and organize your research. The new TravelMuse Planner makes the chaos of travel planning easy and fun by providing a central place to save, organize and share all your research for any destination.

So what have we changed?

•    New TravelMuse Bookmarker
•    New TravelMuse Planner
•    New Destination Guide section
•    New Ask Friends on Facebook integration
•    New TravelMuse Trip Widget
•    New Contest to Win a Trip to a Tropical Paradise!

You might ask what haven’t we changed!

1.    New TravelMuse Bookmarker
We believe that the Web is the platform for planning your trip, and although we have great content on TravelMuse, we know from industry research that people search about 22 different sites to gather research. We also know that with the existing Bookmarker, TravelMuse members have already saved over 5,000 different websites to their Trips!

The new Bookmarker now allows you to save pages, photos and text from any website into your personal Trip folder. If you include the address, we’ll plot it on an interactive map. Learn more and watch the demo video.

2.    New TravelMuse Planner
You can now view your research on an interactive map, create a schedule and find other popular items based on the research you have saved. This will make planning your trip on TravelMuse more intuitive and rewarding.

Map View
You asked for it, we built it. Being able to use maps to plan your trip came out as a top request, so we’ve built out some cool interactive maps to help plan your trips.

•    Saved items are plotted on a map.
•    The Most popular drop-down menu shows attractions, hotels, restaurants and shopping items saved by other TravelMuse members.
•    The More… drop-down menu shows photos, videos and Wikipedia entries from Google.
•    The Google search box at the bottom of the map also lets you search for items from Google Local and save these directly to your Trip.

Item View
On the “Items” view the research cards are now easier to read and expand to show more detail. We also added:
•    Sort by Most Recent, Added By, Category, Location and Schedule
•    Click on the icons on the right of the card to edit, schedule or delete.
•    Ask Friends on Facebook from an Item view (see below for details on this).
•    Click on the destinations to explore destination guides on TravelMuse or the items to see more detail.

Schedule View
Not everyone wants to plan every day of vacation, but some trips call for more organization than others, so we changed the scheduling view to be more calendar based.
•    Now on the calendar view you can open items in the right hand Trip list and select the day or date they want to add the item to.
•    On the calendar itself you can drag and drop items between days.

3.    New Collaborate and Share
You can still invite friends to join you on TravelMuse to help plan your trip. We’ve also further integrated with Facebook to develop the “Ask Friends” feature. Now for every item you can ask for specific advice. Requests are posted to your wall and then the respective comments are incorporated back into your trip.

4.   New Destinations
We reorganized the key destination landing pages which you can navigate to from the Destinations header or to a particular destination highlighted in your trip.

It’s now easier to navigate between guides, hotels, attractions, restaurants, shops and Trips. You can explore items on the map and scroll down the page to see popular Trips, Most popular attractions, themes and activities and articles.

5.    New TravelMuse Trip Widget
We  introduced the TravelMuse Trip Widget so you can share and showcase Trips on your website, blog and across your social networking sites, based on your Member ID or Trip ID.  Learn how to create your Trip Widget.

6.    New Win a Trip to a Tropical Paradise!
We’re really excited to have partnered with the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau to give away a fantastic luxury trip for two to the tropical island of Oahu!. Join TravelMuse and create a Trip to any destination for a chance to win this amazing prize. Enter now!

Lastly, stay tuned for details on our “Trip of the Week” giveaway with Frommers.

We hope you enjoy taking the new site for a spin and please give us any feedback—be sure to use the new feedback tab on the right side of the page!

Phew, right time for a beer or two, I think…

Traveling to a new country or state can be intimidating, especially if you’re going by yourself or with a group of people as unfamiliar with the territory as you. Trying to create the perfect itinerary can be overwhelming—how can you be sure that you’re seeing the best sights versus getting sucked into touristy gimmicks? Frommer’s to the rescue!

Italy Day by Day. By Sylvie Hogg. Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2010. Photo courtesy of Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Everyone’s favorite travel guide Frommer’s has recently followed up their successful Day by Day travel guide series with the release of three full-sized Day by Day guides for Italy, Ireland and Hawaii.

Travelers take heed—these are much heavier than the Day by Day guides you’re used to. So if you’re planning to backpack around Ireland or be carting your children’s stuff around Hawaii, these might not be the most practical guides. That being said, what they lack in portability and convenience, they make up for with incredible photography, detailed maps (including a pull-out map in the back of each book), in-depth information and easy-to-follow itineraries. These Day by Day guides are a blast to look through, in particular thanks to the color photos on every page.

Ireland Day by Day. By By Christi Daugherty. Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2010. Photo courtesy of Wiley Publishing, Inc.

From business travelers who want to pack in some sightseeing in their downtime to families who want to ensure their travels are enjoyable for the kids, and everyone in between, Frommer’s new Day by Day guides to Italy, Ireland and Hawaii will help you plan an amazing vacation that allows you to see the best of each location. Each guide has customized itineraries based on how long you plan to be in a certain region, what activities you want to partake in and what cities you want to visit. Only have a day to spend in Rome? No worries—Italy Day by Day has an itinerary to maximize your experience. Going to spend two weeks in Ireland and what to see as much as the country as possible? Check out one of the “The Best of Ireland in Two Weeks” in Ireland Day by Day.

While these guides are a little on the expensive side (approximately $30 each), they’re definitely worth it. Just don’t shove them haphazardly in your backpack or suitcase.

Read our book review on Frommer’s Hawaii Day by Day.

Plan your trip on TravelMuse.

The destination features this week on TravelMuse are Honolulu and Oahu. Two of our writers—[Jennifer Hwang|http://www.travelmuse.com/authors/jennifer-hwang] and Dana Young—share below some language tips that may come in handy on your next Hawaiian vacation.

Confused? Don’t be. Just know that during a vacation to Hawaii, you might end up hearing locals using a language that sounds like English but is more difficult to understand.

Photo: Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA)/Tor Johnson

Here are some key words and phrases that will help you translate local-speak, aka Pidgin English. But keep in mind—there’s nothing that bothers Kama’aina (locals) more than when tourists mispronounce or misuse the local lingo. There are a few words everyone can embrace, and visitors can easily add them to their lexicon. As for the rest, they’re really more for the locals—and in one case, use at your own risk. (For more phrases, check out Peppo’s Pidgin to da Max (Bess Press, 1981) by Douglas Simonson.)

Safe for Visitors to Say

Aloha — Hello, goodbye. It also captures the Hawaiian spirit.

Mahalo — Thank you.

Howzit — Slang for aloha (hello).

Howzit Brah — How are you, friend?

Brah, Bruddah, Sista or Cuz — What you call a peer. For elders, use Aunty or Uncle.

Ono — Good.

Laters — See you later.

More for the Locals

Grinds — Food as in “Brah, you like get some ono grinds.”

Choke — Awesome, as in “Cuz, da waves stay choke!” Also means a large amount.

Brok’ da mout — Broke the mouth. Really tasty (food specific).

Brah, you like beef? — Do you want to fight?

Chicken skin — Goosebumps.

Talk story — Relax and chitchat.

Holoholo — Go out, as in “you like go holoholo tonight?”

Any Hawaiian words and phrases you care to share? Leave them in the comment section below!