People do most of their traveling within a couple-hour's drive from where they live. If you live in a place like Northern California, there are myriad interesting destinations all around you. Yet, travel sites tend to focus on the far-away, the exotic, the plane-ride. 71miles is a new travel site designed to help you discover what's in your own backyard. As they put it:
We cover weekend destinations within driving distance of major metropolitan areas—Northern California today, Washington DC Metro in March, and a complete national network in the coming months.
Along with the editorial, they mix in slide shows, structured event data (when are the festivals?), and links to hotel deals (the business model). It's an interesting format.
71miles was launched yesterday. And the lead guy, Adam Rugel, I'm proud to say, works out of Obvious HQ. (Not only that, he used to work for Odeo.) Also, I'm an investor/adviser to the company.