• So what the heck is Viscape... you ask?

  Viscape is social marketplace for travelers, owners, and real estate professionals to come together to network, exchange ideas, conduct business, meet and organize trips around vacation properties and second homes.

• Searching for a house or condo in a vacation destination?

  Viscape - or "visual escape" is building state of the art technology that will enable you to find your perfect vacation property within minutes.

• Have you ever wanted to plan a beach house or ski house, but it became a second job??

  Well... with Viscape, you will be able to plan your next beach house, ski house, wedding, reunion, or just a simple weekend getaway with friends... quickly and effortlessly! And have a lot of fun doing it!

• Did you say that trip planning will be fun?

  Oh yeah... you heard that right! :)

  Plus, Viscape will enable travelers with similar passions and interests to meet, collaborate to plan trips, and share travel experiences.

• Join the Viscape Community so you can "visualize your escape"; discover new places and new friends online and on vacation!

  OK my fellow Viscapers... we're talking this is radical stuff that you absolutely without a doubt will not want to miss out on! And we want you to be the first to get to experience Viscape!

  You - the chosen ones - will be our "Virgin Viscapers!"

  So... March 2008! Look out for the heads up! Can't wait!!!!

Finally, a site with a mission I like... that is... to make people happy!

How, you ask? Read on...

Five things that make people happy:*

Self-Expression - Pursue the things that give us the "high" in life - skiing, snowboarding, mountain climbing, sky diving, writing poetry.... Many of us put this off, but its the fuel we need most to be happy creatures! We want to help you pursue your hobbies in cool places and meet cool friends. We're hoping you can make this happen on our site!

Groups - Join groups wherever you can! Whether through us or in your community. This is where you can meet people with like-minded interests!

Volunteer - Help others! You can help others by sharing your experiences on our site. We all connect through our communication. You never know who you'll meet just by sharing an amazing trip you were on. Our platform will help you meet and share your experiences that can lead to lifelong friendships.

Higher calling - Listen to your environment and discover your higher calling! Many of us know that when we are in a new environment, we feel more alive! The volume on our senses is turned up. We are suddenly in tune with our new environment and ideas and inspirations come our way. This happens around meeting new people or reading a good book. Keep your mind open and your higher calling will come to you! Perhaps a retreat planned through Viscape will help you discover your higher calling!

Friendship - That's right! You can use Viscape to meet new friends with common interests, and we want you to! The more you share, the more you will get out of the Viscape experience! The more people you will meet, the more fun you will have.

Repeat!

Yes - our goal is to make people really really happy! So happy, you're giddy! So be giddy!

*From the wisdom of Ted Leonsis, Vice Chairman Emeritus, America Online

• Caroline Allison, President

  

  It all started with the not-so-simple task of planning a trip for a dozen high school friends. Now how do you do that when everyone has a different idea of where to stay? And so, the idea of Viscape was born. Not willing to dodge the glares of her friends in case anything went wrong, Caroline came up with an idea for a site that would let a group of friends plan a vacation effortlessly and enjoyably around vacation homes.

  When thinking up Viscape, it helped that Caroline has an extensive background in real estate and business strategy, and the vision to marry the two. A side effect of her years as a real estate investor, Caroline looks at real estate wherever she goes. Ask her about the real estate market in Panama, and she'll have something insightful to tell you. Caroline also spent several years in finance, working in New York and Hong Kong, and in Washington DC, helping technology start-ups get off the ground.

  An Aquarian, Caroline is creative and social, both offline and online. She loves bringing people together and making introductions. She travels like she's never going back! She wants to explore every last inch of our beautiful, wonderful planet—preferably while skiing, boating, or horseback riding.

  Caroline loves animals. She has played with baby pandas in China, fed pisotes in Costa Rica, and swam with giant turtles, penguins, and sea lions in the Galapagos. Not to play favorites and upset the turtles, but the pandas have a special place in her heart! :)

• Dr. Dan Engfer, CEO

  

  Determined to set foot on all seven continents before he dies, Dan's travels have taken him to stops stretching from Saint Martin to Siberia. Although he loves to travel, Dan used to leave the trip planning to others. That is until he and Caroline thought up Viscape, and Dan could plan trips with relatively little effort. Ah, got to love technology.

  A techie at heart (we believe his actual title is "rocket scientist"—no kidding), Dan worked on the Hubble Space Telescope Program for Lockheed Martin and on different classified projects at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, before founding a highly successful residential real estate investment company. Dan brings to Viscape an ingrained knowledge of technology and real estate, a keen business sense, and a zany sense of humor.

  When he's not traipsing the real world, Dan likes to disappear in to the virtual world of MMORPG games (that's Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game, for the uninitiated ones). There, he is just as at home socializing and meeting people as he is in the material world.

  A habitual stargazer, Dan dreams of taking a trip into space and he knows the name of every constellation in the sky. He spotted Halley's Comet in '86 and plans to stick around to see it again in 2063.

• Tore Steen, Chief Financial Officer

  

  After a career as CEO of both private and public companies, Tore now serves as a director on a number of corporate boards and as an advisor to several chief executives and start-up ventures.

  Born and raised in Norway, Tore came to the United States on a college scholarship. He started his career in the banking and finance industry, first with Citibank and then with what is now Chase Manhattan Bank. With the latter, he founded and built a half-a-billion dollar global finance organization. He also built several other companies and ran a large NYSE company.

  Always ready to tackle any problem head-on in business, Tore takes the same approach during off-hours, whether it's waves, winds—as in his latest pursuit, kite-surfing—or mountain slopes. Tore used to race at downhill ski competitions in Europe and the United States, and you can still see him dart cross country on his skis outside of Park City, Utah, where he lives with his wife Mona. Tore also enjoys sailing, tennis, hiking, mountain biking and a range of other outdoors activities that make the rest of us look like slackers.

  Asked to pick just one favorite spot in the roughly 100 countries he's been to, Tore chose Bali in Indonesia, where he has been going for 25 years. Tore also really enjoys the serenity of Bhutan, where life runs at a decidedly slower pace. Among Tore's friends in Bhutan is a reincarnated Lama, 7th in line to succeed the current Dalai Lama.

• Karin Palmquist, Editor

  

  Every summer when she was a kid, Karin's parents packed the up the Volvo and the camper with kids and gear. They then set out on a long journey of sing-alongs from the family home in the north of Sweden, stopping at every culturally significant place along the way. Yep, every single one. And there, in that backseat, a human shock absorber between her two brothers, Karin's love for travel was born. She learned to appreciate history through stops at prehistoric settlements, Viking graves and medieval forts. Or maybe she just appreciated getting away from her brothers for a bit.

  Karin left Sweden for an oh-so-glamorous life as a roaming reporter for a Washington newspaper. It was all the travel she had ever dreamed of, and on an expense account on top of that. Through her work, she had a chance to meet ten heads of state, including the world's first woman president in Iceland.

  Her pursuit of stories has taken her down the back roads of Russia and on camel-back through the Sahara. She spent two summers in Greece covering the bumpy buildup to the Olympics. Or at least that was her official reason for going there. In reality she was there for the beaches.

  Karin is a contributing editor to five Fodor's guidebooks on Sweden and Scandinavia and several travel anthologies. She brings to Viscape a tell-it-as-it-is writing style and lots of handy travel tips learned the hard way.