Coming from Pennsylvania’s beautiful countryside to New York City’s concrete jungle, I found it a little more challenging to find an ample amount of outdoor activities to quench my adventurist thirst.

So when I heard of a tiny orange fish who could give me the low down on everything from whitewater kayaking to cheap Indie concerts in downtown Manhattan, I took to the opportunity immediately.

Goby.com – pronounced “Go-be” - allows its users to search events, whether long-term vacations or simply weekend event ideas, within three categories: What, where, and an optional third -- when -- you would like the event to be taking place.

Using what the founders call “deep Web” technology – something beyond my feeble elaboration skills – a search will retrieve information from prequalified sites carefully selected by Goby’s database.

Searching An Ocean of Information

Now here’s where the juicy stuff comes in.

Once your search – let’s say, German restaurants in New York City for the weekend, for example – appears on the next screen, you’ll have the option to organize by relevance, distance and alphabetically by name.

To the right of the search results, Goby provides a Google map in which an easy-to-use marker can be dropped on to any area of the map, resorting your listings to anything in and around that specified area.

Below each listing, you can find out more info about the place (In this case, Blaue Gans Restaurant), view photos taken from Google and Flickr sites (Quark Strudel with vanilla sauce!), and even see what’s nearby. (I assure you, the German-American Steuben Parade on Fifth Avenue was absolutely geszeichnet.)

So what if you don’t know exactly what you want, yet still want to find some fun things to do in your spare time? No big deal. On each of the three search generators, a pull-down list of ideas will help home in on your interests and desired location and date.

Sounds Swell – What’s the Catch?

Because Goby relies on a limited number of data sources for information, you may not get the smaller, less-well-known sites for that cozy Bed & Breakfast you’re looking for. The upside is that you won’t be inundated with any and every result the keywords in your search happened upon in the searching process. In other words, less clutter, more refined results.

Another minor nuisance of the system is that sometimes searches will yield repeated results. For instance, your listings may return with three or four results for “X...” in a row, all from the same website. While this is nearly as common as any other search engine, Goby may experience this at a slightly higher rate due to their ridiculously refined database. Therefore, it’s actually a good thing when similar and popular results appear: the more, the merrier.

Lastly, Goby only searches within the United States. Until they expand -- once their website becomes as popular as vampire novels -- you’ll have to put your European travels on hold.

Gone Fishing...

After countless, maddening attempts to thwart this system, I have yet to derail Goby’s impressive search yields for any activity – unless you count Underwater Basket Weaving in Puget Sound.

If you do happen to run into a snag while using Goby, the creators, with the gift of foresight, provide several options for feedback, whether it be a corrupt link, something you found unpleasant in your search results or even some praise you’d like to dole out for their hard work and genius.

To try out the new wave of travel searching, visit their website and dive into a sea of new opportunities. And as of April 2010, iPhone and iPod Touch users can now take Goby anywhere in America to find nearby activities, make weekend plans or explore a new location with just three taps.