ViaMichelin: web 2.0 travel courtesy of motoring experts Michelin : Tech Digest

If you missed the cheap bank holiday flights or you're just furious with Ryan Air and their stealth charges, how about a good old fashioned road trip with a web 2.0 twist?

Good food and good tyre company Michelin are launching their new travel website ViaMichelin which combines all their motoring knowledge with the best places to stay and eat on the way, but for that extra touch of community fun, they've created a social networking angle called My ViaMichelin.

Much like a Facebook page, you create your own profile based on your trips and each trip can include maps, restaurants, hotels, tourist attractions and very soon you'll be able to add videos and images of your journey for other ViaMichelin users to look at when planning holidays of their own.

You can join networks and form group holidays, with all of your traveling companions able to drag and drop different ideas of where to go and what to do and see into your communal plans.

ViaMichelin isn't going to change the world and they're not trying to. There are already similar and more advanced travel social networking sites like Dopplr but what ViaMichelin brings to the party is quality.

They have a wealth of motoring and tourism knowledge that you just can't get anywhere else and every page of their maps and guides have been poured into this venture for you to access for free. That's 21 million kilometres of road across 61 countries, 62,000 hotel and restaurants listings and 19,000 tourist site recommendations. Definitely worth a look before you next hit the highway.

ViaMichelin launches on 13th May.