I took a European hike then a bike ride through a scenic part of Canada and wrapped up my travels sipping a chilled rose during a shopping tour in Provence. What a trip!
And the best part was I completed it before I finished my morning coffee in Kirkland. I’d armchair-traveled through the “blogosphere”.
We had no idea of the travel adventures to be found in that techno-world until we began publishing TravelnWrite three years ago this month.
We began TravelnWrite to keep a handful of family and friends updated on our travels. . .well, that was the idea anyway. Back then we didn’t really understand what a blog was – some sort of a bulk email thing or such. (I just learned that one in six people in the world write blogs of some sort. Statistics show most fall by the wayside in the first couple of years . . . but here we are: still traveling ‘n’ writing.)
What a trip!
And now, three years and 450 posts later, our blog readership has far surpassed our wildest expectations. Okay, so in truth, we didn’t have ‘blog growth projections’ when we started it.
ClustrMaps (that map on the right column of our home page) shows that we’ve had more than 13,700 visits from more than 120 countries. And our page views have topped 63,000 meaning someone out there – other than that original handful of family and friends - is reading TravelnWrite.
So a toast of thanks to you all! We are glad you’ve stopped by and hope our tips and tales will keep you coming back often.
What a trip! As we’ve learned the last few years, ‘the blog’ -- once considered a hobbyist activity -- has evolved to be a valid on line tool not just an electronic diary; the source of sound advice and information on an infinite number of topics, including our favorite, travel.
We’ve discovered other travel enthusiasts in the blogosphere, people who are specialists in particular travel techniques and/or destinations. That trip I described above was taken by reading the blogs listed below. These are some of our favorites and I’ve included links to them.
Go ahead. Click a link. Expand your blogosphere armchair travels. . . there’s a whole new world out there waiting to be explored!
* Hike Bike Travel for outdoor and adventure travel inspiration written by avid traveler, Leigh McAdams, in Canada.
* Inside Journeys for an insiders guide to Jamaica (and other places as well) written by Marcia Mayne , who lives there.
* Paris Movie Walks and Easy Hiker Michael Schuermann He and his wife, Marlys, discovered hiking in their 40’s and are sharing some of their favorite European finds with readers in the Easy Hiker blog and Paris Movie Walks, as the name implies points out sites in Paris that you've seen in movies filmed there (he has a guide book of the same title which you can find on our Amazon carousel.)
* Lost in Arles by Heather Robinson an American who lives in Arles, France will take you on magical journeys through Provence.
* Budget Travelers Sandbox is the creator of Travel Photo Thursday – a blogosphere event we wouldn’t miss each week. It’s written by Nancie McKinnon, a Canadian who teaches in Daejon, Korea and travels the world five months a year.
How about you? Have any travel blogs you'd like to recommend? If so, please send an email or leave a comment below.
Hope you’ll come back later this week when we’ll have some money-saving travel tips on Travel Tip Tuesday, a new Washington State destination on Wednesday and a photo essay on Travel Photo Thursday.
