High Life, the 35-year-old in-flight magazine of British Airways, is headed from airspace to cyberspace. The famous rag launched its online incarnation on October 9th. BA hopes that the success of the print version will translate to the online world and raise the airline's profile amongst travelers. The publisher of High Life's print version, Ceder, teamed with web development company Reactive on the project. They are aiming to attract advertisers eager to have their name and product associated with High Life. Perhaps they are also hoping that well-heeled cannabis aficionados will happen across the site after Googling "high life" and decide, on the spur of the moment, to book a flight to one of the site's featured destinations.

The first online issue has a food theme and is guest edited by celeb chef Heston Blumenthal. It seems mainly aimed at gourmets and those with an taste for the upscale aspects of travel. There is a bit of hipness, with contributions by the likes of Hot Fuzz's Simon Pegg. Still, the site maintains the glossy feel of its printed kin.

Gas prices are rising. The economy is tanking (no pun intended). You want to share a ride somewhere to split costs. You could try Craigslist but that seems like a crap-shoot. I mean, you want to find someone to share gas and toll expenses, not a casual encounter. Well, now there's a more reliable resource for drivers looking for hop-ons or travelers in need of a ride: Zimride.

Zimride combines the technology of Google Maps, the growing power of social networking sites like Facebook and their own matchmaking algorithm to match drivers. The site offers rideshares for one-way trips, roundtrips and even daily commutes. And the social networking aspect of the service encourages people to learn about their potential travel companions before they buckle up and hurl themselves down the asphalt together.

In fact, upon registering, Zimride immediately asks you if you have a Facebook account. If you do, it will ask you for permission to access your Facebook profile. It populates your Zimride profile with information from your Facebook account. You then have the option to edit that information and add details about your vehicle, your preferred driving speed and even your favorite travel music.

Not sure I'd go cross-country using Zimride (though the founder, John Zimmer, did just that when traveling from New York to Palo Alto, CA to prove the site's usefulness), but it might be a better alternative to taking the bus or train for short trips. And who knows? You may also find a casual encounter out of it.

Have you shared rides? Used Zimride? Have better ideas for finding travel companions? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Reaching the upper tiers of any travel related rewards program almost always takes money, time, effort, money and money -- the rewards reaped should only be for the profitable consumer, right?

Occasionally, however, programs release shortcuts -- ways that guaranteed high-dollar users can skip up a tier and enjoy the benefits -- so that they can lock in a particular demographic or company. And when those shortcuts get published? That's when people like you and I can sneak in from the back door.

Apparently, Canadian Aeroplan members were offered just this for the Hilton Honors program. From what I hear, by going to this link at the HHonors website, they could plug in code "CTHC", sign up for an account and be catapulted all of the way up to Gold status. What a great shortcut. Not that I've tried it. But I hear it works great.

In case you're wondering what the benefits of Gold status are at the Hilton family of hotels, membership gets a few nice small perks at checkin. Among the goodies are two of my favorites: access to the concierge level (where available), its free snacks and drinks, or free wireless internet among the network of hotels. Those alone are worth trying to get Gold status.

"What are you doing?"

We at Gadling want to know about the little things that happen in your life, particularly those little things surrounding travel. We want to know if you're packing for a four-wheeling trip to Utah, relaxing on the beach in Cancun, or stranded at the airport in New York. We're curious to hear if your road trip to Colorado is going well, if you're waiting for a train to Midway, or whether you just scored an awesome wooden carving from a vendor in Lusaka.

How can we do this? Follow Gadling on Twitter. Once you follow us, we'll help you connect with other travelers, and with other people who love to think and talk about travel. We'll also keep you up-to-date on breaking news, fill in the gaps on some of the travel news that can't fit on our blog, and share all sorts of (short) travel tips there.
If you don't know what Twitter is, watch this short tutorial, which explains it very clearly. If you do know what Twitter is, then what are you waiting for? Follow us!

Back when I was originally getting started in my travels, I used to do a lot of research and scouring through Frommers.com. As one of the oldest guidebook publishers, I found their website had a lot of user content that was useful for self planning and execution.

Maturing as a traveler, I moved onto sites that specialized in my needs -- VRBO for apartments, Kayak for bookings, Flyertalk for deals. Frommers, alone, couldn't satiate my appetite as an engaged traveler. Needless to say, I always wandered back now and then to the forums to get the lowdown on a particular community niche. I still remember spending weeks discussing Egyptian cotton with a local in Cairo and how I couldn't fathom why it was better in The States.

And that has always been one of the strengths of Frommers -- a dedicated, honest user base in which you can embed yourself and learn about local communities.

This week, Frommers.com started pushing out some changes to their site, starting with their community hub. Part of their updates include the addition of user photos and blogs to help integrate users better into the network, and I'm told that the blog will soon be strengthened and expanded as well -- you can already see some small changes in effect. Wandering over into the forums, you can see that the structure has been redesigned completely.

All in all, the changes should help foster a better community -- and therefore offer a better research base for readers. Stop by and take a look.

Hopefully you're an avid Gadling reader. With popular features like The Cockpit Chronicles and Galley Gossip and helpful tips on new travel gadgets and which destinations to avoid, how could you not be?

Ok, enough with the shameless self-promotion; we're obviously not the only travel website out there. The Times Online just published an article on the 10 travel websites to watch for October. The list is a good combination of sites that give you everything from dirty pilot rumors to tips on staying slim while on the road. Keep in mind that since it's from the Times Online, the list has an English twist - many of the sites are Britain related.

Check them out yourself:

1. Professional Pilots' Rumour Network - check out the topic "nicest celebs" for the inside scoop
2. Seatplans.com - aircraft seating plans and flight reviews
3. Thetrainline.com - find cheap tickets in the UK and on Eurostar
4. Hotels.com Visualiser - custom select your ideal hotel and the site finds on that matches
5. Mr. & Mrs. Smith route planner - plan your itinerary with the site's tips on local pubs, etc.
6. Virgin Holidays + Hip Hotels - uber stylish hotels for the glitterati
7. Slimtree - fitness workouts you can download and use on the road
8. Trivago a new travel search engine
9. RogerandRandy.com - business travel experts give their two cents
10. Great Hotels of the World -the name says it all
    

I recently had the opportunity of meeting the co-founder of a new language-learning website called "Busuu". Busuu is a language on the verge of extinction; apparently today it's spoken by only 8 people in Cameroon. Other than that cool snippet of information, I didn't pay much attention to the website until I got an email saying that it will teach you how to do the whistle "Gomero", i.e. the Silbo Gomero.

The Silbo Gomero is a whistle that is (was?) used to communicate in Gomero, in the Canary Islands. People who know this language can communicate full sentences through this whistle, and since it can be heard up to a distance of 8 kilometers, it used to be an extremely useful way of communicating across the deep alleys and mountains of the island.(Voice can only travel 200 meters). It used to be a recognised language, but now since there are few people who can whistle this way and it's not an easy whistle to learn, this "language" faces the threat of extinction.

Busuu aims to help preserve such languages that are under threat of disappearing, and their proactiveness towards trying to help users understand and learn this whistle is commendable. The fact that you are far from learning the whistle after looking at their material is a different point, but if they are planning to expand on such efforts, this is a great start. Here you can check out a great video they did that explores the hows and whats of this Silbo Gomero.

In an aim to give back to the countries in the world that offer us so much travel pleasure, and to add to the cause of making the world a better place, Trip Advisor will be donating $1,000,000 on November 12. This goodly sum will be divided up among five charitable causes:

• Conservation International
• Doctors Without Borders
• National Geographic Society
• The Nature Conservancy
• Save the Children

(You can click on each link to see what each organization does.)

Trip Adviser wants the travelers of the world to help decide how to spend the money. If you go on the Trip Advisor Web site, you can vote for one of the five. Look to the top of the page for the link. You do need to sign up for Trip Advisor to participate.

All the charities will receive some money, but the aim is to find out how to best divvy up the dough. Each of the causes, in my opinion, are worthy of receiving money so you can't really make a bad choice.

What a neat way to be involved in giving. Once you click on your choice, you can see how the distributions stack up so far.

Google can do just about anything: create maps, find pictures, bring you the news, and help you shop. But can it tell you which countries suck the most? I recently conducted an experiment to find out...

Research materials

Laptop, internet connection, way too much free time

Research method

1. Open Google.

2. Type in "[name of country] sucks"

3. Record the number of hits.

4. Repeat until boredom sets in.

Findings

Of the countries I tested, America sucks the most by far, with over 120,000 hits. (We're number one!! USA! USA! USA!) That's more than twice as much as Canada sucks, and-- surprise-- four times more than France. In South America, Brazil barely edges out Argentina for suckiest country, while Suriname sucks the least, with only 7 hits.

Although North Korea is frequently criticized for, well, everything, surprisingly few people, about 700, think it sucks. Thailand sucks twice as much as North Korea, and China and India set the pace for Asian suckiness, with about 15,000 hits each.

Sweden sucks five times more than Norway, while Spain (4,150 hits) is a paradise when compared with Germany (14,500).

I also tested several US states, and the results brought few surprises. Texas sucks the most by a lot-- about 35,700 hits-- and I say that as someone who likes Texas. New York and California also suck quite a bit, with over 20,000 hits. Hawaii hardly sucks at all, and neither does Alaska.

Want to check out how much your hometown sucks? Head over to Google and find out.

Perhaps you've come across this story of Michael Lee White, the American teacher at a business college in China who has been accused of being a spy involved with the CIA and having a role in the recent small scale war in Georgia. Those teachers. Just kidding. White doesn't seem much like spy material from the description in the AP article.

He wears T-shirts that say "Save The Whale," for example. And if he is a spy, I certainly hope he would have better digs somewhere else. He's cramped up in a small apartment without a lot of furniture. Where's the glamor? This doesn't sound very James Bond like.

The reason White is under scrutiny is that his passport was found in the basement of a house in Georgia along with other items belonging to soldiers who high-tailed it out of there.

According to Michael Lee White, he lost his passport on a flight from Russia to the U.S. October 2005. And, he has never been in Georgia. Besides that, when the war was happening, he was back in the U.S. taking care of his sick father. The CIA also says that White is not in the CIA.

It seems to me that White will be cleared, and this will be chocked up to a weird travel story snafu, but it does hammer home the point, guard that passport carefully.

I know people who have lost their passports and it has always caused a problem. The good thing is that with a lost passport, you can create a paper trail to back up claims about your whereabouts.

Here are the four situations people I know have lost their passports. White's is similar to number 1. The others were the result of robbery.