Announcing the beta release of HipTraveler; a new approach to online travel that inspires travelers by simplifying the process of researching, planning, and booking travel.

(TRAVPR.COM) USA - April 29th, 2014 - San Diego, CA. USA, 

HipTraveler is a visually engaging travel portal that includes millions of destination images and travel resources.  It includes an itinerary builder that allows the user to simply drag and drop whatever inspires them into a working itinerary. Travelers aren’t limited by HipTraveler content either – they can import images from Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, and/or their desktop. Once they’ve collected their inspirations and built an itinerary, they can book, print, and share their trip. Booking is handled on the site by the top booking sites (Expedia, Priceline, etc.) or the traveler can have HipTraveler match them with a professional travel agent that can handle all the details.

Travelers today visit a multitude of sites before booking travel and spend more time planning than traveling. They visit photography sites, blogs, review sites, tourism boards, transportation, and lodging sites before finally putting together a trip. The best of these travelers often pull together itineraries by bookmarking, cut & paste, and handwritten notes. Most would agree that the process is in need of an overhaul and that’s exactly what HipTraveler has done.

In addition, travelers can earn the right to become a HipTraveler Ambassador.  HipTraveler Ambassadors earn rewards and eventually compensation when others book from their itineraries. “We drew a straight line between what the traveler needs to expedite the process of travel planning and what savvy travelers are best at providing”, says John Baumgartner CEO & Founder. “An Itinerary is actually the purest form of recommendation - the key was to make it dead simple to build itineraries both for consumers and Ambassadors and then to make the results searchable for all”.

“Online travel planning is a $200 billion industry globally, with healthy growth rates projected,” said John Baumgartner CEO & Founder of HipTraveler. “Recently, there has been a great deal of interest in personalized trip plans, as travelers are seeking more authentic and meaningful experiences centered on their interests. HipTraveler caters to this segment of travelers and simplifies the entire planning and booking process for them.”

About HipTraveler

HipTraveler (www.hiptraveler.com) is an online travel company that has built a powerful, visually inspiring, and socially engaging discovery and planning tool that makes it easy and fun for travelers to find and book trips. Travelers simply drag and drop images that inspire them into a working itinerary that is bookable, printable, and shareable. HipTraveler crowd-sources destination images, itineraries, and booking resources; including the web’s top booking sites, and over 600 offline Travel Agents to expedite the process of researching, planning and booking travel. Top members of the site compete to be admitted into the HipTraveler Ambassador Program, which allows them to earn rewards every time a traveler books using one of their itineraries.   

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