TravelShark today unveiled 25 new winners for second quarter 2012 of the Sharky Awards, a hyper-local awards program designed to recognize the freshest, most inspiring travel experiences across the globe.

TravelShark singled out Chicago's famed late-night haven for hot dogs and cheese fries, the Wiener's Circle, for top honors as the sharkiest discovery in the second quarter of 2012. The Wiener's Circle tantalizes the most discriminating hot dog connoisseur with its delicious Chicago-style Char dogs, but it's the customer service and healthy serving of attitude that keep Chicagoans coming back for more.

Other new awardees include:

Launched in 2011, the Sharky Awards now comprise a total of 55 People, Places, and Things that stand out as being rare, extraordinary, and worth adding to any travel itinerary.

"It's once again our pleasure to release this quarter's fabulous Sharky Award recipients," said Sue Heilbronner, CEO of TravelShark. "We love letting travelers know about our top finds that surprise and delight, whether it's a cupcake-dispensing ATM, a museum of hair art, or a scuba hotel on an oil rig."

TravelShark announces a new Sharky Award winner each week, with a larger group of winners announced once each quarter. Sharky Award nominations are open to the public and as well as members of the travel industry. Each Sharky Award winner is featured on TravelShark.com and on the company's location-based TravelShark sites in the form of an eye-catching badge.

To see all the winners or nominate your own Sharky Awards candidate, visit http://www.travelshark.com/sharkyawards.

About TravelShark | TravelShark offers travelers hyper-local, curated content about the world's best destinations along with cutting-edge tools to make travel planning every bit as fun as it should be. TravelShark's newest addition, SharkDive, is the world's most sophisticated recommendation engine, helping travelers discover their unique travel preferences and matching them to personalized vacations. TravelShark will soon launch TravelTypes, an insightful travel typing system to help travelers get a real feel for how they, their friends, and their family travel. TravelShark features hundreds of online city guides, Sharky recommendations for unique and unexpected travel "finds," a home for amazing travel photos on SharkPix, a tool for building shareable itineraries of your last trip, and thousands of content-rich, destination websites. TravelShark is headquartered in Singapore, with a U.S. office in Boulder, Colorado. Make your next trip the perfect expression of you with TravelShark. To learn more, visit www.travelshark.com, or call +1-720-239-1280 or +65 6734 8515.

Samantha Lee
TravelShark
+1 (720) 239-1286