New Zealand is a gorgeous country. North and South islands are very different from each other. Late in January I'm headed off to the Dominican Republic--2 weeks volunteering, 1 week exploring on my own.

Greetings, Betty, and welcome to Tripatini! It's great to have you with us -- and we think you'll find our site productive as well as interesting and enjoyable.

To get the most out of Tripatini, you may want to take a moment to join several of our many groups which you may find of particular interest, such as Minnesota, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Eating/Drinking the World, our Spanish Language/Hispanic Cultures Club, and plenty of others covering many other topics and most destinations across the globe.

FYI, on your profile you'll see a green bar marked "Text Box," which you can turn into a box containing not just text but also photos and even videos about yourself, your travels, and more.

Finally, if you would, please be so kind as to spread the word among your travel-interested friends, family, colleagues, and associates. It's fast and easy to use our "INVITE" function above left on the navigation bar to enter e-mails (even your whole list at once!).

Thanks much for joining us, Betty; we wish you an outstanding rest of 2009 and look forward to seeing you online.

Cheers!