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You are here: Backpacker Resources > Interviews > Interview with Melvin Böcher

Interview with Melvin Böcher

This month Rob Savage has a chat with Melvin Böcher, the force of nature behind the massive online travel resource that is ‐ traveldudes.org. They cover slapping George W with a fish and some fun travel stuff too!

Would you rather live in a world without coffee or Twitter?

Wow! That is a tough first question! Do I really have to choose? Let’s split the answer. In the morning, until 10am, I would choose a world with coffee or at least one strong cup. After that I would decide to choose a world with Twitter. But I must say that the first time I used Twitter, I couldn’t understand the fascinating hype about it. My advice when you start with Twitter is to follow … let’s say about 200 interesting guys and gals. If you then check their tweets, you’ll get into it quick and probably like it too.

What, without exception, pisses you off on the road?

I remember my first trip as a backpacker through Thailand. A very good friend and I travelled with the night train from Bangkok to the south. We’ve met some other travellers on the train and had a nice chat, up to the point a guy started showing off. He thought that he was the real travel deal and we were just some greenhorns with no idea when it came to backpacking. It was the first time for us in Asia and the typical scams happened in Bangkok but I think it’s not about showing off, it’s about helping each other. If I meet people who haven’t travelled like that before, I encourage them to do it and tell them how much they will enjoy it. I also give them a few tips and hope that they’ll love this kind of journey just as much I do. That’s what it should be all about.

Is Travel‐dudes just for dudes?

Of course NOT! Everyone is welcome to join and share their experiences! The name comes from a time when a good friend and I travelled through Indochina. We used it as an online diary for friends and family and needed a name for that page. We really liked the name and kept it afterwards. All the Travel‐dudettes are of course welcome too. Actually, there are already quite a few travel‐dudettes who share their experiences.

What’s the premise behind the project?

It helps if you can type with 10 fingers :) Otherwise you need internet, a good provider and a great system for content management. Then it comes down to structure. For me it was important that the site is clearly arranged so that travellers find what they are looking for. It sounds simple but technically it was very hard to achieve.

Do you reckon Murdoch will ever get his way with paid for, online content?

I guess not. Perhaps he will, but it won’t get huge. A website doesn’t have the costs of a newspaper – it’s the printing machines that cost millions so it really shouldn’t be a problem to offer free content on websites. There are so many great free projects which users can use for free like Mozilla, Wikipedia, Couchsurfing, OpenOffice and many other great sites. This is how it should work and there’ll always be companies who will go that way. On the other side of things ‐ sure, you have to make a living but not with content paid for by users.

Would you ever charge folks for what you’re doing?

Yes, but not the travellers themselves. The most important part is to get travellers on the site without annoying them or charging them a fee. With the attention there you can draw in the accommodation advertisers and so on with a fair deal, which is a tough task, but possible beacuse everyone profits.

What are your favourite books?

The first book I read was Tuareg and with that book my passion for reading didn’t stop. I really like most books by Ken Follet, Rebecca Gabel and Colin Forbes.

Do you think tripadvisor.com is really all that impartial?

No it’s not ‐ if you mean objective, but it’s ok. We have a similar site in Germany which is huge! When I was a travel agent and customers asked me for a hotel I didn’t know, I recommended that site. The users on these sites have to remember that some people always find something bad. The other thing is that sites like trip advisor are used by many different kind of travellers.

Who would you most like to slap with a frozen fish and why?

Must it be frozen? I would prefer a stinky old fish! There isn’t really anyone I’ve met in person who I would like to slap but as this is an interview and I don’t want to leave an open answer, I’ll give you a hint. There was once a president with a surname which began with the letter W. He was worse than all who acme before him and I would say a slap with a stinking fish would be more fitting than a flying shoe.

‐ Rob Savage