Let Family & Friends Know Where You Are When Traveling

One search and rescue team says a new travel-planning website could save lives - especially for solo travelers in far away places. The site, www.sendansos.com, (operated by Netrix) enables travelers to enter travel plans and then sign off when they return. If they don't sign off before their scheduled return date, sendansos automatically sends text messages to friends and relatives, detailing when and where the people were supposed to be.

The service is linked to cellphone service providers worldwide so friends and relatives can be contacted wherever they are.

Rescue Coordination Center spokeswoman Heidi Brook said the technology is a great tool for all travelers. "It's really important people tell people when and where they are going ... there have been a lot of cases of people dying because they haven't."

Netrix manager and creator of the site Trevor Knopp said the idea came from an accident he had this year. "I was on a biking trip on a Central Otago rail trail and I canned off my bike - I tried to call someone but I wasn't in cellphone range."

Knopp managed to return home, and heard news about the people missing after the Boxing Day Asian tsunami. "I realized that people didn't know where their loved ones were in the Tsunami zone - or where they had planned to be."

Interest had been high since the site's recent launch.

"This is for when cellphones can't be used," Knopp said.

Sergeant Peter Summerfield, police search and rescue co-ordinator, said any new technology to assist in the search for missing people was welcome.

"The earliest notification you can get will always make things easier," Summerfield said.

Police in Canterbury, New Zealand deal with 80 to 90 full-scale searches each year. Nationally, police receive about 12,000 reports of missing people each year. Summerfield hoped this would help save lives and prevent people from worrying about their loved ones. Knopp said the sendansos.com service should be useful for trampers, divers, people away for just a day, and even those heading overseas for months.

(Source: SendAnSOS)