• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, September 14, 2015

There are travelers who plan, and there are travelers who don’t. I would bet that both types aren’t so fond of each other, but I’d put myself in the first camp. I tend to scope out what’s happening. I usually don’t arrive somewhere with an agenda, but usually with information that lays out the options.

So I’m interested in a new, very beta service, called VidPal Travel.com. When it really gets rolling, and I suppose it will, VidPal will let visitors request a specific video, for a small fee mostly paid to the shooter.

Of course, this could be the video you can already get in a billion places, of, say, the Empire State Building. 

But for example, if I knew I would be visiting someone who lives around 9th Avenue and 58th Street in Manhattan, in theory, I’d be able to request somebody out there shoot a short video to show me what that area looks like, (As it turns out, video of that corner already exists at VidPal.)

John Ortega founded VidPal with a former co-worker Jaime Gonzalez. For Ortega, the moment of conception occurred when he was in Thailand on business, and didn’t realize he was locating himself smack dab in the middle of a section of a city where residents were staging a rent strike that got ugly.

It’s hard to say how VidPal could have helped him, had it existed, but it got him to realizing there’s information about cities and other places you won’t find on TripAdvisor or other online travel helpers. VidPal offers video information that can be as personal, and granular as you want.

Ortega knows the biggest competitor to VidPal is Periscope or Meerkat, Facebook or YouTube. “But is it customized for you?” asks Ortega.

What VidPal offers, that those places don’t, is a chance to ask for specific video, and pay a specific amount. The videos can be short or long, of professional quality or something less polished. Requesters get a short sample of the work before they pay.

Shooters’ fees can be flexible--as little as $5, Ortega says. Right now most of the available videos are of New York, where VidPal is headquartered, with random videos from other places too. A map of New York on the site it dotted with spots that have already been shot but there's room for more too.

Its next target is Boston, and from there, the world-- if it gets through another round of funding. Ortega and his partner Jaime Gonzalez are working on a shoestring now.

As it sometimes turns out, in New York, VidPal has already morphed into something else: Realtors and rental agents have been using it to showcase apartments for sale or rent. The Corcoran real estate firm showed off a walk up on West 11th. N.Y. Habitat has video of a furnished apartment in Flatbush. In that case, I’d say the video is a godsend to would-be renters, but not to the landlord.

Ortega would like to keep VidPal as a travel-specific site, but he knows the real estate uses might be overwhelming, in cities like New York where apartment hunting can be a blood sport. Just a week or so ago, he VidPal made a deal with a real estate firm, so that might be a way the business will take off.

I watched a video of kayakers trekking to the Statue of Liberty that had a good tip about how to avoid angering the U.S. Coast Guard by wandering into a restricted area. That’s the kind of video Ortega imagined.

“Eventually I’d like it to be that you could be looking for what it’s like in a jungle in Peru and go to VidPal to find out, “ he says. “That’s my vision.”