Six Reasons I Broke Up With Your Travelblog

by Pam Mandel on

Every now and then I go through the little graveyard that is my RSS reader. It makes me sad when a travel blog I loved just… stops. I understand; you stopped traveling. Maybe you ended up totally off the grid; that’s cool for you but it’s weird that you just disappeared. Perhaps it turned out that blogging wasn’t your thing and you wanted to live in the trip instead of at the keyboard. It happens.

When I’m engaged with your blog, I get surprisingly attached to you and your adventures. I love hearing your stories about that time on the train or that time with the guy with the hair or that time in Siem Reap when all the laundry came back the most delicate shade of pale pink. (Wait, that was my story.)

So when your blog goes dark – last post, February, 2010 – I wonder what became of you. After a few months, I sigh and unsubscribe. I hope that you are well and happy and, oh, by the way, I’ve moved on to other blogs but I promise, it won’t be weird between us when you show up on my Twitter feed. We’re cool.

But sometimes, it’s not you, it’s me. It’s awkward and there are hurt feelings and I’m totally the bad guy. You’re blogging away about your travels, perfectly content. But my reader’s eye is roaming, over there, to that nice couple in camper van in New Zealand or that 20 something RTW guy who managed to keep his shirt on in his profile picture. Maybe there’s a woman in her 60s who has incredible stories of traveling solo in Thailand on the beaten path, or a journalism student in Seoul who has a wicked eye with the camera. It comes down to that same stupid conversation we all hate having. “It’s just not working out; I think we should read other people.” Then, early one morning, when I’m up because I can’t sleep, I hit unsubscribe. It’s over and you never know why.

It’s time for closure, that elusive feeling we hope for when a relationship ends. Here’s the truth. It was you. It’s time to clear the air, to go with the tough love. See, I didn’t want to break up with your blog, it’s just, well, you were driving me crazy. Here’s why.

  1. You junked up your site. I didn’t mind when you started selling text links, I really didn’t. Your call. But when you cluttered up your site with ad links in the content, or added those horrible pop-ups on the posts, it became clear you were more concerned with the ad buyers than our time together. We both know you weren’t doing me a service by adding links to cheap airport parking into a post about backpacking in the Rockies.
  2. You cheated on me. I know, we had a deal, you could write whatever you wanted and I’d read it. But our time together was supposed to be special. When I clicked on your blog and found stories that could have been lifted directly from a sales or promotional brochure, I felt like you’d let me down. The PR or visitor’s bureau hosts were first and I got the writing equivalent of plastic sushi.
  3. You took advantage of me. Instead of giving me beautiful stories or useful information, you pestered me. To buy your eBook. To follow you on Twitter. To be your Facebook friend. I was a number, a statistic, no longer a loving reader. “Does this make my assets look big?” you’d ask, as though that was all that mattered. I didn’t read you because of your size, you know.
  4. We grew apart. It’s sad when this happens, and really, there’s nothing to be done about it. You decided that travel wasn’t really your thing and turned to the burgeoning universe of artisanal meats. I’m a vegetarian. While I respect your choice, there were one too many late nights when you’d show up stinking of bacon. I couldn’t continue to support your new, uh, hobby.
  5. You shut me out. I wanted to read your post. But you blocked me with a newsletter sign up or some ridiculous navigation scheme or add-ons that take forever to load. Your tiny white text on a black background completely obscured anything you were trying to tell me by making your story physically unreadable. I wept with frustration, why would you draw me in like that and then, make it so difficult for me to read you? Why?
  6. You stopped caring. Maybe you never cared and I was initially attracted to your fly in the face of grammar rules bad boy ways. Your random use of commas was cute at first, but I hoped you’d grow out of it. Your mysterious word order and rambling sentences held my attention because I couldn’t wait to see what you were going to do next. But then, I overheard you say these fatal words, “I don’t care about writing, I’m just trying to get the blog updated five times a week.” Your disregard of all that was dear to me was intentional. That noise you heard, it was my heart breaking.

It was over.

I’m not saying we should get back together. You probably don’t want to anyways, after I’ve turned out to be so unforgiving. “Hey, that thing with the hotel property, it was just that one time, I don’t get why a little experimentation had to ruin everything between us.” I know, I know, but I’m a promiscuous reader and there are so many travel blogs, so many. We were never exclusive. There are only 24 hours in a day and I can’t read all the time.

Right now, you’re probably blocking my Google+ posts and photoshopping Xeni Jardin over me in your Flickr feed. I don’t blame you; Xeni is freaky smart. I just thought that maybe, if you are open minded about what I’m saying, your next reader won’t have to go through the same kind of guilt and disappointment I felt when it came to that final unsubscribe moment.

Okay, maybe you’re happy with the readers you have now, and they’re not so critical, and really, who cares what I think anyways, we’re SO not together any more. I get it. I know. It’s not you, it’s me.

[flickr image via Nina Matthews Photography]

Nomadic Matt is giving away free airline tickets to readers

by Libby Zay on

Travel blogger Nomadic Matt is celebrating five years of globetrotting by gifting his readers with free airplane tickets – including one for an around-the-world trip. The transient sightseer accumulated 350,000 miles on American Airlines over the past year, and decided he’s going to give away the tickets because he wants to make other people’s dream a reality.

One lucky winner will get a ‘Oneworld Explorer‘ round-the-world ticket, which has a stipulation that the traveler must touch down on at least three continents. Not bad! A second place winner will get a roundtrip business class ticket to anywhere in the world, while a third place winner will receive two economy class tickets to the destination of their choice (again, anywhere in the world).

The best part is that contest entrants don’t need to make a fancy video, write a blog, or go through a time consuming voting process. All you have to do is become a fan of Nomadic Matt on Facebook, which will allow you to see a contest form. Fill out the form and choose where you want to go, and if you win (a winner will be chosen at random), Nomadic Matt will send you there! It’s that easy.

[Photo courtesy Nomadic Matt]

Travel Blogger Broke-Ass Stuart Brings Cheap Thrills to TV

by Chris Owen on

Called “A travel show that’s on the map but off the beaten path”, Young, Broke and Beautiful, debuted this week on the IFC network starring funnyman, writer/blogger Stuart Schuffman (aka Broke-Ass Stuart). The new show goes to some of America’s largest cities but typically avoids touristy stuff to revel in cheap, underground offerings and weird people.

In the season premiere of the 6-city summer series, Stuart dives right in on his mission to uncover the hidden, cheap attractions that might be overlooked in mainstream travel guides. According to Stuart, known for his popular guidebook Broke-Ass Stuart’s Guide to Living Cheaply in San Francisco being a “broke ass” is a state of mind where life is not about the stuff you have, but the stuff you do.

In the New Orleans episode of the new show, Stuart hangs out with a fangmaker (for humans), cooks gumbo, talks New Orleans music history, then hits an all-night bounce party at the NOLA Art House.

Also available in paperback, a free chapter of Young, Broke and Beautiful is available to download on Schuffman’s Facebook page.

“Broke-Ass Stuart’s philosophy is to write for busboys, poets, social workers, students, artists, musicians, magicians, mathematicians, maniacs, yodelers and everyone else out there who wants to enjoy life not as a rich person, but as a real person” says TheFutonCritic.

Let’s take a look at what’s coming up on Young, Broke & Beautiful , Fridays at 11 p.m./10 p.m. Central on IFC.

Travel photo app invites users to “think outside the camera”

by Chris Owen on

Ralph Velasco is an award-winning travel photography instructor and international tour guide. Shooting travel photos in more than forty countries on six continents, Velasco has led cultural photo tours to Egypt, Eastern Europe, and throughout the United States. Now, with his iPhone app, My Shot Lists, Velasco makes it easy for photographers to stick to the basics and come home with some great photos.

“My Shot Lists for Travel is based on a class I teach called Capturing the Essence of a Place. In it, I outline the importance of adhering to a fundamental principle of photography, that of working from a shot list.” says Velasco on his blog, adding “Doing so takes the guess work out of whether or not you’ve thoroughly covered a destination or subject and increases the odds that you’ll return with a set of images that truly creates an overall sense of a place for the viewers of your photography.”

Designed for travelers of all photography skill levels, My Shots Lists is a great way to develop and track “a well-rounded collection of images that truly captures the essence of a place” Velasco says.

The app is designed to guide users towards creating an overall cultural portrait of any destination or subject by incorporating a shot list into a daily shooting routine.

Flickr photo by Evil Erin

747 lands in Oregon water park, just for fun

by Chris Owen on

What has ten water slides, a wave pool and a children’s museum dedicated to teaching students about the power of water? Its Evergreen Wings and Waves, the nations newest water park at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon and that 747 is there to stay.

Called “the only water park that comes with an aviation and space museum” Wings and Waves opened this week with rides like the Nose Dive inner tube ride and the Mach 1 slide that descends 60 vertical feet.

That Boeing 747 mounted on the roof of that 60 foot-tall building? Four different water slides start inside including the Sonic Boom offering an “outdoor water park” feel with a view of most of the park. Above the roof, the top section of the slide is transparent to allow glimpses of the shape of the plane and building. Inside the park the top section of the slide is removed and the top is open.

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“To get kids’ attention these days you need to more interactive. It’s all ‘Been there; done that; got the T-shirt.’ So we built an aviation and water museum with slides it in,” explained Evergreen Aviation museum’s executive director Larry Wood to StuckAtTheAirport.

Unlike other water parks, this one has a museum attached. The Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum is best known for housing the original Spruce Goose but is also the is home to over 200 aircraft and exhibits including military aircraft, helicopters, commercial and private aircraft with an entire building dedicated to space flight.

Add in an IMAX theater, restaurants, cafes and shops and this water park looks to be flying high for summer fun…the kind of summer fun we might find when Traveling the American Road, a project running right now and you can keep up with us here on Gadling, at travelingtheamericanroad.com or on Facebook, Twitter and Gowalla.

Untitled from Evergreen on Vimeo.