Web Sites Let You Pick Your Traveling Companions
It can be a nightmare — stuck on a train or plane for hours next to a frazzled mother with an infant addicted to peekaboo.
But French train passengers needn’t face that scenario. The Internet booking site for certain high-speed trains linking Paris with 11 other major cities, idtgvandco.com, lets customers check out profiles of their fellow passengers and arrange to sit beside someone who shares their interests.
One drawback: The site is in French, so customers need to have some familiarity with that language, even if it’s just enough to find an English-speaking traveling companion.
Officials of SNCF, the state-run railway that created the site, stress that the scheme isn’t a dating service and that the railroad has no desire to become a matchmaker.
Other Web sites are designed to help bring travelers together. Among them:
• London: myfriendinlondon.com offers companions to business travelers who are in London and would like some company to help them explore the city.
• Flights: airintroductions.com lets air travelers post profiles and itineraries and browse those of fellow travelers for free. But it costs $5 to contact another flier.
• Dining: dinnerpoint.com arranges dinners for groups of like-minded business travelers.
Photo by txmx .2.
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