Good afternoon, Melanie, 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 Media Only, Travel Marketers/Publicists, United Kingdom, Thailand, Ireland, Family Travel, Spain, Greece, France, Biking/Mountain Biking, Eating/Drinking the World, Luxury Travel, Resorts Corner, Eco/Sustainable Tourism, Adventure Travel, 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, your PR company, your writing/outlets, and more (providing your company name and clients in your profile will benefit both you and our other members, particularly media).

Finally, if you would, please be so kind as to spread the word among your travel-interested friends, family, colleagues, associates, clients, and audience. 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!). If you have the opportunity to cover Tripatini in any of your outlets, that would of course be great, and if you might be interested in occasionally blogging for us, guidelines/rates are available upon request.

Thanks much for joining us; we wish you an outstanding start to 2010, and of course we look forward to seeing you online.

Cheers!