Free
Simply copy a single line of code (below) and paste into your site.
Parameter options including width and colours. (see sidebar examples below)
We are relocating our site from inblighty.com to this more memorable name of TravelChimps.com.
Travel sites and bloggers:
- provide your visitors with up-to-date travel advice for over 200 countries;
- quality information from an impeccable source;
- opens in new window/tab (default configuration) so your page remains open;
- transparent background - to enable widget to blend in with your site;
- configurable - including width, and button text and colours;
We would be grateful for any feedback on our widgets, you can post your comments on either our:
Blogger Vacation Blog, or our Wordpress Travel Blog.
The travel advice widget have been showcased by www.data.gov.uk; and tweeted by the UK Gov Foreign and Commonwealth Office!!!
Quality travel information.
About this Travel Widget:
The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has provided a data interface to developers, such as ourselves, to trial and add value.
As a result we have produced these Travel Information by Country widgets which accesses an FCO country index. It is not just a simple mash of feeds - it will remain up-to-date,
automatically incorporating any additions (or deletions and country renames) made by the FCO.
We believe Travel Advice provided by the FCO is the most accurate and up-to-date available online. We cache country information on first use and then retrieve again if the cache is over 24
hours old. It is a great resource for all your visitors, a small amount of information such as visa requirements is specific to UK nationals.
Wordpress
Suitable for Wordpress 2.8 on; tested against numerous themes up to Wordpress release 3.1.
Demo: can be viewed on this travel blog; it includes both "standard" and "customised" versions of the widget.
Installation: The widget is included in Wordpress.org's directory so you can
-
install it direct from your Wordpress Admin page in the normal manner: Click "Plugins" then "add new". Enter "Travel" in the search box, and click
"Search Plugins"; find "Travel Advice by Country Widget" in the listing and click "install now". (Last time we checked it was the first travel widget to be listed).
Then add it to your sidebar in the usual way for your version of WP.
or alternatively
Customising: The widget inherits the style of your WP theme. It uses WP's standard interface for configuring widgets. For example under Wordpress 3.1: Admin
Dashboard --> Appearance --> Widgets: then click on the travel widget to open its configuration form. You can configure most things including width, colors, heading and button text and alignment, you can
even alter padding at the top and bottom of the widget for those awkward themes.
Updates:Your Wordpress Admin dashboard will advise you when new versions of the widget are available; and updates are easy involving just a few clicks from the Dashboard.
Blogger.com and Blogspot.com
Live demonstrations of the widget can be found on this
travel blog.
Installation: Unfortunately, Google are not currently adding widgets to their Blogger Gadget Directory (see this Blogger Developer forum post).
Until Google add the Country Travel Information widget to their directory, you can either:
Sign on to your blog and then
click here to install gadget.
or:
you can add the widget to your blog in exactly the same way as any other gadget by clicking "Add a gadget" in "Page Layout" and entering the URL detailed below.
http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/100257443189777594535/widgetc-4-blogger.xml
Customisation:The customisation form will be displayed during install. Note: the custom width refers to the width of the drop down box, NOT the width of the whole widget which is controlled by the width of your Blogger Sidebar.
More information on installing the gadget can be found in this travel gadget post.
iGoogle
The travel advice gadget now appears in the official iGoogle directory.
As per their advice we use Google's new APIs - but their own directory has not been updated to process these, and is unable to display the widget!
Installation: Click the Google button to install on your iGoogle dashboard.
It is the same gadget from the same source as the Blogger gadget above - so if you wish you can edit it on your iGoogle Dashboard to change width, height and colour.
Ugly Example 1:
Custom PHP
PHP HTML/Iframe versions
Existing PHP/Iframe users: If you wish to change the look of your widget, but no longer have customisation documention then please contact us for configuration information and advice.
New users: These versions are now only available on request to high quality, high volume websites. For such users we can customise
to your requirements, and even add additional trip planning tools.
Reason for "on request only": To ensure your drop down country list allways remains up to date (e.g. renamed or new breakaway countries) it is dynamically served from our site. This
increases our bandwidth usage. Three new sites are installing our widget each day, and we serve some of our existing PHP users 1GB of drop down form data a month - so this will eventually impact on our
costs. It is not a problem on Blogger which automatically caches the form data, and if necessary we can incorporate hourly caching in our Wordpress widget. However, as caching is set up at
the users' websites we are unable to incorporate it in our Iframe and PHP "widget", so each visitor on each page visited results in our site repeatedly serving the same form data each time.
FAQ / Issues
I've installed the widget but the drop down box is empty:
Affects old Wordpress widget versions only.
Cause: It has only been reported once, but will affect you if your website host has disabled "allow_url_fopen" functionality
for (valid) security reasons. Sorry, it is something I should have considered from the outset.
Solution: install the latest widget.
I'd like to thank Margery Wilson for raising this issue. Margery is an experienced writer, editor and traveler. Check out her travel blog.
Terms of use:
For the Wordpress version see this License information.
Other Versions:
1. Other than the configuration and parameter options identified above the user shall not alter or modify the widget and code provided in any way.
2. We provide no guarantee or warranty that the widget will function properly on either the user's site or on their visitors' browsers. Neither do we warrant the accuracy of the information displayed as a result of using the widget.
The user accepts the Travel Widget as is, and that we shall not be liable to user or any third party for any damage or loss incurred, directly or indirectly, as a result of its use.
The user's sole remedy is to remove the code from their website or device.
3. We retain all rights and ownership of the widget and its code and may terminate the User's use of of it without notice and at any time.
4. The laws of England and Wales govern these terms and conditions.