I I was 14 when I moved away from my country (Greece) and had to learn English so I could attend school in Romania. No fancy electronics, my first social media accounts starting to pop up (Goodreads is still the oldest one) and a naivety that I almost miss.
The first travel blogs I stumbled across became a part of my everyday life. I routinely checked on their stories, had an RSS feed with my favourite two dozen that I would skim through before delving into the different articles, and I took notes and studied the information intensely, in preparation for what I knew one day would be my own trips around the world.
I just didn’t account for one little thing. The world changes so damn fast.
The first time I became aware of travel blogs was in 2009 and it was love at first sight. Now, revisiting my favourite travel bloggers from more than 10 years ago carries a bittersweet nostalgia. Unreasonably, I seem to crave a time with badly designed clanky websites, simple straightforward travel stories and no fancy retargeting marketing, Instagram influencers, perfect photos or countless advice on how to monetize your followers.
It could be that I was simply a child or that I have chosen to look back at that time through rose-tinted glasses but there was something magical about it then. In celebration of that, I want to revisit the Travel Bloggers of my childhood that brought me here.
To make this extra fun I have given myself a few rules.
- The actual writing of each of these sections has to be done by heart. I can’t start researching past posts to refer to. (obviously I can add the links in after I have already written about them)
- There needs to be a reason that each one of them was memorable. Something that a child found important and an adult still remembers.
Twenty-Something Travel
What is the first thing that comes to mind:
- My first travel blog experience. Stephanie Yoder.
What is one story you can’t forget:
- I poured over her blogs obsessively. I probably read each and every one of them.
- Highlights are the trip to China and meeting her future husband, the proposal in Colorado and her writing about moving to Argentina.
*This blog has rebranded and is a collaboration under the name WhyWaitToSeeTheWorld
Adventurous Kate
What is the first thing that comes to mind:
- Wait, you can fit your life in a backpack and go to risque shows in Thailand and blog about it?
- Also, there is something called blogger conferences and they happen all around the world.
- This is a job that allows people to travel all around Europe and even move to New York City.
- Also, people are going to want to know everything about your personal life and you need to stay safe with what kind of information you share.
What is one story you can’t forget:
Young Adventuress
What is the first thing that comes to mind:
- Whether you want to or not people are going to give you hate on the internet.
- Having a loud opinion as a woman might get you into trouble but that is not reason enough to stop what you are doing.
What is one story you can’t forget:
- Moved to New Zealand the same year my family relocated to New Zealand.
- Kyrgyzstan is beautiful!
- Whale stranding in the south island of New Zealand (much more recent story because I still read her blogs)
Wandering Earl
What is the first thing that comes to mind:
- You don’t need a degree to go after your dreams.
- Working on cruise ships and hosting tours is a legitimate career path.
- There is something called Couchsurfing. (I made an account but never actually did it)
What is one story you can’t forget:
- The story of purchasing a rat to eat from a local market (I want to say the country was India) and then realizing it was full of maggots. That picture has never left me!
Dave and Deb – The Planet D
What is the first thing that comes to mind:
- Travelling is great for your relationship and can bring two people closer together.
What is one story you can’t forget:
- Needing medical evacuation in the Amazon after an accident and the importance of travel insurance.
- The Mongol Rally! Still one of the coolest things I ever learnt about.
Never Ending Footsteps
What is the first thing that comes to mind:
- If the pickiest eater in the world can learn to embrace new food then so can everybody else.
- It is okay to talk about mental health and anxiety.
- Finding love on the road and still making time for solo trips once in a while.
What is one story you can’t forget:
Katie Going Global
*it doesn’t exist any more
What is the first thing that comes to mind:
- You can travel at any age.
What is one story you can’t forget:
- Eastern Europe adventures
- Trans Siberian and solo female in “difficult countries”
You know what else is cool. After years and years, I logged back into Feedly again and checked my RSS feed. Then I checked the “unreachable” and “inactive” section. Tons of familiar names flashed before my eyes. Blogs that I can remember browsing, whose interfaces I can still picture, and whose authors may have completely moved on with life yet I still feel like I know.
Isn’t that the strangest thing? It feels surreal that ten years ago somewhere, probably on the other side of the world (because I am still in New Zealand) someone wrote something on a blog that resonated with me so much so that I am writing about it now.
It’s like those weird moments when you start talking about a completely random person, which in turn makes you wonder, who is talking about me right now?
Do you have any travel blogs that marked your young age and you still remember now?
[mailerlite_form form_id=2]
Save it for later!
After years of editing and content writing, when I was traveling in Nepal later last year, I came to conclusion that I had to go back to my blog and write about the amazing people I met along the way. I did it anyway. And since January, I’ve posted like 9 blog posts, which is a lot, considering that in 2019 I only wrote like 7 posts. And the sad things occurred when I did some blogwalking only to find that most of the bloggers I interacted with like a decade ago had either abandoned their blogs or deleted them. And I started to wonder where they are now, what they do, what life has done to them. But I believe someday they’ll return and we’re gonna chat at the blog comment form.
Really cool post, anyway! 😀
Hello, hello,
Thank you for sharing this. 🙂
I know I definitely wonder what happened to people who I only knew through the internet. It seems like so long ago now.