Good afternoon, Michael, 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, we recommend you take a moment to join several of our many groups which you may find of particular use, such as Media Only; Travel Marketers/Publicists; Eco/Sustainable Tourism; Hotels/Motels; Budget Travel; Luxury Travel; Adventure Travel; Eating/Drinking the World; Sailing/Boating; Surfers' Board; Diving/Snorkeling; our Spanish and Catalan language/culture clubs; 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 writing/outlets and other activities, and more.

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!). Finally, please join our Facebook fan page and follow us on Twitter (see front page info box); we'll be happy to reciprocate!

Thanks much for joining us; we wish you an outstanding rest of 2010, and it goes without saying that we look forward to seeing you online.

Cheers!