BuildingMyBento

Have you tried wikivoyage?

I only use it for airport transportation recommendations and to learn names of major roads (for when I'm in a taxi).

MaxBuck

OK, Blanche DuBois, I guess it's a good thing for you there are plenty of people like me who do post our reviews there.

Doc Savage

I've had several honest reviews removed from Yelp; I stopped posting there, and discount their retained reviews for this reason.

Yelp also is glacially slow and crashes my iPad browser. Doesn't help make it user friendly when looking for their #1 rated restaurant, which turns out to be In-N-Out Burger.

linke3

I usually use Yelp to look up restaurant reviews in the US. For international travels, I turn to TA (for hotels, some dining, some entertainment), and I'll use Yelp if it's available in that country. I'll usually post my reviews on Yelp, and TA if it's international.

Kagehitokiri

TA removes too, both (and similar) business models are problematic

so FT only for me, no such business model here

MAN Pax

Similar to me. I check TA and Yelp in the USA, mainly TA elsewhere. I cross reference and sanity check all the reviews.

I do post to TA for everywhere.

SanDiego1K

Color me a big skeptic on TripAdvisor restaurant reviews. I'm genuinely curious. You use them and find them of value?

I turn into a major foodie when I am traveling somewhere known for superb restaurants (France, Italy, Basque area of Spain). There I use Michelin ratings.

deniah

back in the days, chowhound was where the true foodies congregated. its morphed into an unfamiliar beast so i dont use it anymore.

yelp is good as a directory, but not as a guide. pervasive dirty business on the back end really turns me off it. that their feedback system are categorized as "useful" "cool" or "funny" just speaks to what kind of reviews they encourage. they strongly push the community aspect of their site, and id much rather have a blind Up/Down voting system that puts quality of review at forefront than one that young people use as a social platform.

which leaves Tripadvisor. it rightly prioritizes reviews, rather than reviewers. but its not void of clueless contribution. rather, they just come from 40 year old kansas joe rather than 25 year old tiffany. merely a demographics thing. one advantage is that it has better global coverage than yelp.

neither are great. both can be useful , if cross-referenced against each other or to other sources. specifically for food ill also use Michelin, Gault Millau, sometimes Zagat, and Andy Hayler for high-end dining.

as far as posting reviews, i only add to Tripadvisor because it has hotels and thus more travel-centric...and as mentioned i really detest the Yelp userbase

MaxBuck

IME, TripAdvisor restaurant ratings are equally useful as Michelin star ratings for fine restaurants. Obviously for less grand spots TA is much more useful. My demands of a restaurant are pretty high.

As I've said, my experience with TA restaurant reviews has been excellent. Obviously, I don't just pick the #1 place blindly; one must read the reviews in order to get a good perspective. And everyone has different tastes and priorities in restaurants. The photos of ambiance and food presentation posted by members are really valuable to me.

Clint Bint

I use Tripadvisor from both sides of the fence.
As someone who runs Holiday Rentals as a bit of a sideline TA reviews are really important as along with Homeaway it's the biggest source for our bookings.
But as an avid TA reviewer with 250+ reviews posted so far I find it a great way of keeping track of where I've been and eaten as well as punishing/rewarding service.

exoticfusion

I have and thought it was the same as wikitravel, then did a quick google to find out that it's much better. I'll keep that in mind, thanks a lot. I have CityMaps2Go on my phone, it's great for maps of the city when you don't have data (and when you do have data). I got it when they offered the app for free one day. If you're walking around an unfamiliar city, it's a nice way to figure out which streets you're on.

Kagehitokiri

lots of problematic reviews of top luxury hotels on TA
i would find it hard to believe not same for restaurants

Oformula

Mid 20s here. In the US, I use Yelp. Abroad, where I usually find few to no yelp reviews, I use TripAdvisor.

PsiFighter37

As a 6-year Yelp Elite, my allegiances are pretty clear...I feel like most of the reviews on TA tend to lack the kind of detail and thought that I would find in Yelp reviews, particularly when it comes to restaurants.

That said, I do use TA when looking at hotels as a primary reference, but for domestic hotels, I do cross-reference against Yelp. Internationally, it's a bit of a crapshoot, but I use TA to help guide me a bit there.

zippy the pinhead

I had written more than a few reviews for Yelp over the years, but after hearing from a couple of small business owners how Yelp was calling fairly frequently, basically offering to keep positive reviews of their businesses at the top of the default ordering for a monthly amount of money, I deleted my Yelp account and all my reviews. I felt like I was being a party to a form of extortion. I suppose it is possible TA goes after revenue in a similar fashion, but it has never come up on my radar, so to speak, and I've only written a handful of reviews for them (I no longer write any more).

One of these conversations regarding Yelp was with the owner of a small retail shop that I patronize occasionally, and he told me (and I believe him) that his business was struggling to the point where he hadn't taken a salary for 8 months. From what he described, Yelp was asking him for about $300 monthly, he told them he could not afford to pay. They responded by "filtering" positive reviews, including one of my own, and floating the negative reviews to the top of the default ordering. Basically they made the folks at this shop look like a bunch of @ssh***s, which probably helped the business to struggle even more.

While I will occasionally use Yelp to help someone find a place, with respect to the reviews, I take a little and leave a little.