Wikivoyage Travel guide by Wikimedia

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ikimedia Foundation, the host of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, is launching next week a global online travel guide called Wikivoyage.

Described on the beta website as a free travel guide that can be edited by a world-wide community of contributors called Wikivoyagers, the new site is scheduled for an official opening on Jan 15.

Using a wiki model, Wikivoyage is built through collaboration of Wikivoyagers from around the globe. Articles can cover different levels of geographic specificity, from continents to districts of a city. These are logically connected in a hierarchy, by specifying that the location covered in one article "is within" the larger location described by another. The project also includes articles on travel-related topics, phrasebooks for travelers, and suggested itineraries.

The Wikivoyage site currently in beta will be made official on Jan 15
Wikivoyage is a multilingual project available in seven languages, with each language-specific project developed independently. The English version leads in terms of number of articles, with more than 26,500 in December 2012. While now a Wikimedia project, it was begun independently. Wikivoyage content is broadly categorised as: destinations, itineraries, phrasebooks, and travel topics.

Destinations
Geographical units within the geographical hierarchy may be described in articles, based on the criterion, "can you sleep there?"
The hierarchy includes:

• Continents
• Continental sections (like Southeast Asia)
• Countries
• Regions within countries (provinces, counties, states, groups of states etc.)
• Cities of any size, including fairly small villages if they are tourist destinations
• Districts within large cities
• National parks provided they have accommodation for the traveller

Attractions such as hotels, restaurants, bars, stores, nightclubs, tour operators, museums, statues or other works of art, city parks, town squares or streets, festivals or events, transport systems or stations, bodies of water, and uninhabited islands are listed in the article for the place within which they are located.

Itineraries
An itinerary describes a group of destinations according to a temporal division rather than a spatial one and will list destinations and attractions to visit during a given amount of time, with recommended durations of stay and routes to follow.

Itineraries may cross geographical regions, but usually have a well-defined path.