Massive migration

Posted by David Gunnarsson in Travel | 1 comment

For the past month it’s been pretty quiet here at the Dohop office. The main reason is that everyone (except us marketing guys maybe) has been hunched over their computers, more heavily than usual, working on a server migration. Our hardware was getting old, we needed some new hamsters and our neutron-wrangler was starting to rust.

So, long story short, we are no longer running on RackSpace servers, and we’ve moved over to UKfast. We’ve been with RackSpace since the beginning so we are bit sad to leave, but our newfound friends at UKfast welcomed us with open arms and brand new stuff. We are of course very grateful to RackSpace for the help over the years.

Moving the entire Dohop website to new servers is no small feat. We’ve been preparing this for a while, and due to mostly new and better ways of doing things, the entire move took just about four weeks. For the average Dohop user, the new servers mean faster response times, better load handling and easier deployment. That in turn means faster and more frequent updates of the website.

Finally, for those less inclined to read long and boring text, this post basically says:

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Five Great Photos of Spain

Posted by Johann Thorsson in Photography, Travel | 0 comments

Spain is a beautiful country, with many reasons to visit. There is the sunshine, the food, the beaches the culture…. we could go on and on. Spain is also easy to photograph well, as should be clear to all after taking a look at the following photographs. Which one is your favorite, and which of these cities have you visited?

Madrid

Photo by felipe_gabaldon

Barcelona

Photo by oseillo

San Sebastian

Photo by Nacho Vegas. Originally saw this photo in a blog post on tapas in San Sebastian, a blog post that I would rank as one of the best travel blog posts out there, since it immediately made me want to visit the city.

Valencia

Corunna

Photo by jl.cernadas

Should you, after taking a look at these photos, have a sudden urge to visit, you know where to find flights to Spain.

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Top Ten Things To Do In Iceland

Posted by Johann Thorsson in Travel | 3 comments

Iceland has been selected by a number of travel publications as one of the places to see in 2012. In honor of that, we threw together a list of things to do, should you decide to visit but find yourself without things to do. Dohop presents:

The Top Ten Things to do in Iceland

 

1. Go Whale Watching.

One of the not-to-miss things to do in Iceland. It has become a little touristy in the last years, but this is a) not a bad thing and b) understandable as it really is something every visitor to Iceland should do. We recommend Elding Whale Watching.

 

This is a video of Elding’s first whale-watching tour of the year.

Whale photo by *christopher*

2. Hitch-hike around the country.

Buses are expensive. Hitch hike and, if you are lucky, get the names of places, mountains and villages along with some history directly from the locals. Despite what you might be thinking, this is a safe way to get around the island, but might take a while as not everyone is really eager to pick hitchhikers up.

3. Bathe in warm rivers and natural hot springs.

Experience the nature and relax in warm water. Even at winter time, this is a great way to get involved with nature. Just grab a six pack to stick in the snow next to the hot spring.

4. Take a hike!

Iceland is one of the most beautiful places to go hiking. It is one of only a few places where, only a short trip away from the capital, you can visit places that are still relatively untouched by man. Iceland is one of those places.

Photo by clesenne

5. Rent a cabin in the woods.

One of the best ways of experiencing Iceland is to do it like a local. During the summer months and, to a lesser extent, during the winter Icelandic people flock to little houses out in the country to soak in the sun and in hot tubs (hot water just comes out of the ground in Iceland, literally). We suggest trying Bungalo should you decide to follow our advice and rent one for a week, or just a weekend. And when we speak of woods, we mean the low shrubbery that grows in Iceland. There really aren’t any trees to speak of.

6. Visit one of the country’s swimming pools

What is better than to unwind and relax in 40°C hot water after a long day of walking around? Iceland is blessed with an abundance of hot water, so the country is dotted with swimming pools that are warm year-round. Just remember that Iceland is a Scandinavian country, so all dressing rooms are rather public (not unisex though).

7. See Puffins.

Yes, they are cute, but they are also delicious. That’s right. Puffin are common around the coastline of Iceland, and should you go whale watching while visiting, you will very likely see a lot of them. They also taste very nice, though they may not be everyone’s cup of tea, so to speak.

Photo by nagillum

8. Surprise your palate

Iceland has a surprising number of really good restaurants. Downtown Reykjavik is spoiled for choice when it comes to eating out, with everything from fine dining to a quick hot dog. And, with the collapse of the Icelandic banking system in 2008, the currency is now at a low so that food prices will not break your budget.

9. Swim in the ocean at the geothermal beach in Reykjavík.

There is a spot in Reykjavik where the warm water used to heat the buildings is let into the ocean. This is clean water that has run through the pipes used to warm the houses (no waste water) and is, at the end, routed to an artificial beach at Nauthólsvík. The water is warm-ish, and the braver of you can swim further out and get to know just how cold ocean water really gets.

In the most preferable circumstances the seawater in the lagoon is around 15°-19°C and the hot tubs are around 30°-39°C hot.  The lagoon and the hot tubs are heated up with the same kind of water as was in the hot stream, Heiti lækurinn, before.  The water comes from the hot water tanks, that are underneath the dome Perlan, and has been used previously to heat up people‘s houses in Reykjavík.

10. Have your breath taken away.

Iceland is a beautiful country. There are a number of places where the view is surreal, almost fantasy-like and is apt to take your breath away.

Iceland photos by Stuck in Customs. You should check out the Stuck in Customs site as well.

And how do you get to Iceland, and where do you stay? You should already know the answer to that!

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Thanks for 2011, Have a Great 2012

Posted by Johann Thorsson in Travel | 0 comments

Yes, 2011 is coming to a close. And as we head into 2012 we would like to thank all of you for using our flight search, hotel finder and car rental locatamatron 5000.

On that note, here are some really beautiful time-lapse videos for you to end the year with.

Mindrelic – Manhattan in motion from Mindrelic on Vimeo.

Timelapse Montage from Mike Flores on Vimeo.

Timescapes Timelapse: Mountain Light from Tom Lowe on Vimeo.

Have a great 2012!

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The World’s Top Destinations for 2012

Posted by Johann Thorsson in Fun, General, Insider Tips, Travel | 0 comments

2011 is coming to an end, whether you like it or not. It’s been a great year for travel (and an especially good one for us). But enough about that. Let’s take a look at what people are searching for when it comes to travel in 2012.

Remember: this is a collected list, using hundreds of thousands of searches made by you, Dohop users from all over the world. In compiling this list, we simply asked our database (by whispering sweet, sweet SQL into its ports) to show us searches made for flights to cities. These are ordered by popularity, with aggregated airport codes so that, for example, searches made explicitly to London Heathrow are counted together with searches made explicitly to Gatwick.

So, without further boring text, here are:

 

Dohop User’s Top 10 Cities for 2012

10. Rome

For all searches mad in 2011, Rome is in ninth place. It is thus dropping one spot in demand for 2012.

Photo by Jakob Montrasio

 

9. San Francisco

For 2011 San Francisco is in seventh place, dropping a total of two places in popularity for 2012.

Photo by BG³Photo

 

8. Tenerife

Tenerife was number 31 overall for 2011, so this leap to number eight clearly means that people are already starting to search for flights to the summer sun for 2012.

Photo by Philippe Guillaume

 

7. Miami

2011′s 20th most popular city jumps up the list for 2012, again indicating that people have started to look for flights to sunny locations.

Photo by [le]doo (francis)

 

6. Paris

Paris was the World’s fourth most popular city in 2011. The cities in places 6 – 4  trade places internally, so there is little change in Paris’s popularity.

Photo by Walter Watzpatzkowski

 

5. Las Vegas

Las Vegas is in familiar territory, being #6 overall for 2011. This is probably due to it being completely “unseasonal”.

Photo by stevendepolo

 

4. Orlando

For 2011, Orlando was the worlds fifth most searched-for city on Dohop.

Photo by l.bailey_beverley

There is no change in any of our top three cities, all very much ahead of the pack in popularity. The most popular city has been number one for a long time and is by far the most popular city on the list, with nearly twice as many searches made as for flights to the city in third place.

3. Bangkok

Photo by Jo@net

 

2. New York

Photo by Jakob Montrasio

 

1. London

London has been our most-searched-for city for a long time, for users from a number of countries. This is the destination most American users of Dohop look for flights to, and one of only two non-domestic cities that ever make the US list of most popular cities.

Photo by l.bailey_beverley

 

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Monday Photopost: Vending Machines of Tokyo

Posted by Johann Thorsson in Fun, Travel | 1 comment

Tokyo is a city of many lights. It is also a city of many people, 13 million to be precise, and all these people need to eat. The people also need their daily fix of colorful fizzy drinks. Hence…. vending machines. And today we bring four fancy vending machines, photos by kevin dooley.

The Michelin Guide has awarded Tokyo by far the most Michelin stars of any city in the world, though we doubt that Tokyo has a Michelin-star vending machine.

Personally, I want the rainbow pipe-smoker drink in vending machine of #2. That just HAS to be good.

#1

#2

#3

#4

Which drink would you want? (All answers of Coke or Pepsi will be punished with the green butt-drink from vending machine #1).

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A little word on Dohop’s 2011

Posted by Johann Thorsson in Travel | 0 comments

Dohop is a growing company. And as we near the end of 2011 it’s time to take a look at our growth in 2011.

Overall: Growth for Dohop overall, from Jan 1st to Dec 14th is 35%. That is, 35% more people have visited Dohop.com this year than did for the same time period last year.

Here are some examples of Dohop growth, and our thoughts.

United Kingdom: 27%. We are very happy with this growth as it is mostly organic; that is, we are not buying any ad space. This is almost purely word-of-mouth.

Sweden: 29% This is a combination of SEO and some sneaky PR work.

Norway: 71% We bought some ads on Verdens Gang, Norway’s biggest newspaper, and Bergens Avisen. We also bought some advertising on Facebook and collected fans with a phone giveaway. The phone was successfully given away.

Iceland: 65% Home court advantage.

US: 25% We blame the Americans who are telling each other about us, and Pauline Frommer.

Growth winner: Latvia, with 505% growth. We have no idea. Perhaps being small in Latvia in 2010 is the deciding factor.

We think this is well done and are currently patting ourselves on the back. With a cake.

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