Here is our submission for the My 7 Links Project by Tripbase. Thanks for the nominations- Sabrina from Country Skipper and Norbert from GloboTreks!
When we started this blog, I had no idea how much of a labor of love it would become. It has pushed us to not only be better travelers, but better observers of life. We have joined a community of travelers, many of which I would call great friends, and expanded our own ideas of why travel motivates and inspires us everyday. We now look at our own home-base city differently, finding any excuse to explore and discover new things, try different restaurants and drive a little bit further to find a great escape.
Here are the 7 categories and our choices:
MOST BEAUTIFUL
The Coldest Boat Ride Ever– I thought about putting a picture post from Cinque Terre for this one, but these pictures evoke so much beauty to me.
MOST POPULAR
Animals we met on our RTW Trip– We love animals… and apparently so does everyone else. This post was put together on a total whim because we discovered we had taken so many pictures of animals from our trip. We have now started taking pictures of animals local to everywhere we travel.
MOST HELPFUL POST
How to do the Great Wall of China by BUS– Getting to the Great Wall of China can be expensive. So Bob was on a mission to find public transportation to the Great Wall and succeed. It was well worth the sweat, tears and language gap to provide this, as it continues to bring in a lot of google search traffic and from the comments, has helped a lot of people save money too.
MOST CONTROVERSIAL POST
Don’t Panic: How to Survive Cape Tribulation– While I was trying to put a funny spin on surviving life in paradise- one reader took offense and thought I was being over dramatic and creating a bad picture to tourist who might want to visit. It was clear that the reader didn’t read the entire post because he would have noticed how much I love and encourage every single person I meet to travel to Australia. I think this post reminded me that travel bloggers have a responsibility to their readers to provide honest and accurate information… but that also, you can only do so much. If people don’t get your humor, what can you do?
MOST SURPRISING SUCCESS
The Power of Postcards– A look at my first time to Paris through the postcards that Bob sent me. This post made me realize that the more personal I get about our experiences, the more people like them and feel a connection. It’s a hard to know if you’re sharing too little of yourself or too much, but I’m trying to find that balance.
DESERVED MORE ATTENTION
Our RTW Travel Videos– I couldn’t pick just one video, so here is the whole series. Personally, I’m shocked at how slow travel videos are to catch on. I guess people just want to read and go, but one of the main reasons we started the site was to allow people to travel with us- not just read our experience, but watch and follow along. With these videos you can hear the sounds of the nunnery in Hong Kong vs. the quiet coos of a kangaroo vs. the loud and explosive city of Tokyo’s busiest intersection. For me, that is super exciting.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkwJUtK2gm8
MOST PROUD OF
25 Things I learned from my RTW Trip– I love this post. Our RTW trip was quick- we didn’t see every continent- but we managed to make it around to a lot of our “bucket list” places on this 6.5 week trip. The planning was done over a 3 month period and we had no idea about travel blogging when we started. I always knew I had the travel bug, but after our trip I realized I had the travel gene and it wasn’t going away.
Our blog has morphed from its original RTW travel and soon, it will change once again. We are adding a new writer, Bob’s sister, to talk about her one year experience in Micronesia with World Teach. We are also starting a new project to begin next week, hopefully with a new design and layout.
Thanks for following along on our journey and stick around for Vagabond3 2.0!
And, I’d love to pass on the 7 links project to these lovely ladies!
Rebecca from Travels at 88mph
Megan from On My Way RTW
Leslie from CGTravels Blog
