Every time when I am heading to somewhere I wonder who I’m going to meet there, how people dress, look like, what do they work, how is the nightlife. The answer to my questions comes almost in time with the growing popularity of the online video sharing.

All the videos are short, but informative, and will give you a glimpse at the really interesting things. Sure, not all videos are 10 of 10 when speaking about content or storyline, but to me they are better than National Geographic or the Lonely Planet, because they are honest, real and most of all: in 5 minutes they can give you better impression than the polished professional travel materials.

Here are two of my most favorite:

Travelistic (www.travelistic.com)
?A website for quality travel video has been around for some time. It is called Travelistic and everyone is welcome to upload a video story related to a journey experience or destination.

Travelistic claims that they offer better quality than any other video sharing sites (just like the ones for music, jokes and home made videos). The site reached relatively high volumes in content and quality and keeps growing. Registration is free, uploads are welcome in .avi, .dv, .mov/qt, .mpeg, .mp4, .3gp, .asf, .wmv which means that you can even send a travel movie shot with your telephone.

Travelistic recently launched a channel on Joost.

GeoBeats (www.geobeats.com)
Is another travel video oriented website. As their slogan says “See the Destination… Before you See It!”. The site is after well researched travel videos and they succeed in this. For example see, their guide on how to behave in Italy (http://www.geobeats.com/gblog/?p=35).

In addition each video comes with short embedded description (travel info) and most of all, a map, which is really cool.

As far as I know, their videos are made by professionals or at least not everyone can upload her/his video. However, people are welcome to join their tema of hosts and productions teams, so if you are passionate, contact them.