Wade asks me about my reasons for travelling
April 26, 2020
Wade Shepard of Vagabond Journey and On The New Silk Road asked me about my reasons for travelling:
Do you have a focus or topic you're looking into, or just out travelling for the pure joy of it?
Of course, there is never a short answer to a question that is actually 3 questions rolled into one.
I've always travelled for the pure joy of the journey. I started travelling long before the days of this internet technology, FOMO world we live in now.
Back then, we wrote postcards, we wrote our diaries, we called home once every 6 months, we took photos which we got developed and sent home, which ultimately ended up in a box, never to be looked at again. Mail could be picked up at the Poste Restante counter at the post office.
There was no ulterior motive. No one was blogging or vlogging. Everyone used the Lonely Planet. Everyone travelled for the journey; more or less.
You worked at home. Nobody was working remotely. A few would set up hair salons or start doing massages as a way to cover their costs and extend the amount of time that they could stay away for but basically, you worked at home, you saved and then went off for however long you could afford to.
Which is exactly how I still operate!!
In 2011, nearing the end of my 549-day trip, at a hostel in Ljubljana I was introduced to Weebly by a Dutch guy. When I got home, I set up my own blog. I just mucked around with it. Learning by doing.
I had only ever written for myself. So I mostly just put up photos in a gallery and added captions. Not much different than having FB.
At some point, I came across thecandytrail, a travel blog with a difference run by MRP. I was inspired. Inspired by his travels, the places he went to and the way he wrote about his adventures. I had always been an avid reader.
I discovered Vagabond Journey too. I enjoy Wade's narratives about getting into blogging and the learning curve he travelled along. But was shocked by reading stories of the 80 hour weeks he used to put in, which initially gave him an income of 3.35US$. But then he got good at it and could actually cover all his costs and then some.
People have enquired as to why I never worked abroad in Thailand or Malaysia. Hmm working 15 hours a day for 10$ as opposed to working 8 hours in the UK and getting 200$. No logic. Which is my prefered modus operandi: Work in the West, travel in the less expensive parts of the world.
So on setting out on my 1423 day trip in December 2013, I started putting up posts. I wasn't wanting anyone to read them. It was just a creative outlet.
But after 2 ½ years of being on the road, I had an idea to try and do something with the blog. I was volunteering at that time in a hostel in Kyrgyzstan. I got to know the area very well. I made contacts. The family set me up with running a small bike rental business. I made contacts with the tour operators. I'd send them guests and they would send me tourists who wanted to hire bikes for the day.
I found out how to get to certain places like the border to Kazakhstan at Kegen for which the locals would tell me that there was no public transport.
But I'd ask around, slowly gathering information. Then I'd turn up at the suggested parking lot and wait to see if the intel was correct. And normally it was.
I learnt that 'No there isn't any public transport', actually meant they didn't really know cos they never needed to go there.
I had time. Lots of time. Which is what bloggers don't give themselves, so if a local tells them that 'there is no public transport' they are inclined to believe them because after all, locals should know, right? Umm no. Well, sometimes there is actually no public transport but mostly there is. You just have to ask the right people.
I remember asking in the tourist office. And was told quite a few times from various people that there was no public transport to Kegen.
"So what about the people who live in these villages?", I asked a girl I hadn't seen before. "Oh, my grandmother lives along that road, I'll ask her". So I learnt the number of the bus and the destination that would be on the bus. Easy eh?!
Living in a place and writing about local interests also opened up some other opportunities which I will be writing about soon.
So writing about things like this got me onto page 1 of Google search results. Blog posts with facts were easy to SEO. Blog posts with details of how to get to rarely visited places gave me a window of opportunity. It was also fun to do.
And then my site got hacked and I eventually took it offline.
***
After almost 4 years on the road, I returned home and got a job as a postman.
I did this job for 2 years. I used my annual leave go to places nearer to home, places that I hadn't yet been to, like Lisbon, Minsk, Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Tirana. Lots of historical stuff to see and learn about.
I had already set up a brand new blog Nomadic Backpacker
I would still like to be able to create a small income from having a blog. That's the goal. For that I need traffic. And for traffic, I have to have lots of posts that people will land on when they are Googling things that I have the answer to. Without traffic, there is little point in putting up ads or affiliate links.
So with these short 1 week or 2-week trips, I was going to these new places, primarily to have a mooch around.
But there would be a goal other than the journey itself. This is what Wade wanted to know about.
I would collect notes about nice cafes, about the known and lesser-known places of interest and the things I'd find by walking around. I'd take a few photos, save their locations on Gmaps. Check out the buses to onward destinations whether or not I was going there. I love to find local buses to places for day trips where bloggers say "there are no buses you must take a taxi".
Back home in the evenings after work, I would type up my notes as blog posts. I'd SEO the hell out of them. Name dropping, linking photos of statues to Gmaps, putting up selfies of me in cafés and adding the cafe name as ALT TEXT.
I was doing this to get my name out there.
These 2 years in the UK achieved several things. I put money back into my back account having arrived home broke. I got to visit Portugal, Belarus, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, visited my dear friend Vania in Lübeck, Copenhagen and a few more. I did about 20 posts and these got my blog onto Google. It takes a while but can be speeded up with information type posts.
I was laying down the foundations. I got some fans who would click on my blog without the need for me to ask them to. I set up Twitter. Made some contacts with great people. Sharing is caring. That's what these social media platforms are about. You have 500 followers. If you put up a post, 10 will click like, 5 will read the post when they click on the link.
But as I said above, in the 2 years in the UK, I was going to places that I'd never been to before.
Now if I was going to a place that I had previously visited and had an idea that I could blog about something that I knew existed, then this would be like getting sent out on assignment. Going to places purely to blog about them.
And now I am on the road again. This is a long haul trip, not a two-week vacation. I am 4 months in, currently going nowhere as Corona has buggered things up.
But my strategy has changed from that of the short trip. I am travelling purely for the joy of the journey once again. There is no side motive.
I am not blogging about 10 cafés for the digital nomad in Nairobi or 10 Big 5 Game Parks you must visit when In Africa.
When I travelled from Cairo to Cape Town in 2015/16 (this trip was part of the 1423 day adventure and I started Africa having already been on the road for almost 2 years), a distance of 19,000km. 10 countries, 7 months, NO flights, lots of crazy buses, train and boat rides, in the style of MRP. I went to a lot of places.
I took photos of the sites and would build into the story the transport logistics, like a small narrative, take selfies of me in a cafe, drinking a beer, riding the train. I would rarely name drop.
But I went to places tourists don't go to as well. Port Said. Port Suez, Port Sudan for example.
I wrote about crazy bus rides from hell, corrupt border guards and one post that never did see the light of day. I was contemplating hanging up my travelling boots in a small town north of Mombasa. But in the end, the road was calling and I left.
And now I am on that sort of trip again. I am here to travel and then write about it
I have travelled down through France and toured Tunisia. I pushed out about 8 or 9 posts from my 4 weeks in Tunisia, then I flew to Dakar. I sorted out the Mali visa, went to Gorée Island, and then travelled across Senegal seeing nothing but the dusty road. Crossed the border into Mali and eventually arrived in Bamako. Picked up my Cote d'Ivoire visa and carried on. 2 visa posts, 2 posts about horrendous travel conditions of West Africa, never once name dropping a cafe or a bar.
Posts about obtaining visas are a God-send to other travellers as the nitty-gritty changes regularly. Visa posts are a 'must write about' type of thing in Africa. Other travellers need the latest news. Not everyone uses iOverlander. :)
I could have gone to Burkina and blogged about getting the visa. I could have gone back to Sierra Leone and blogged about getting the visa on arrival, which is a new thing. When I learnt about this, I Googled it. There was nothing online. Could have been one helluva post.
Cote d'Ivoire was a good place to go to and I put out 2 good posts, 1 from Kong and 1 from Sassandra.
And now I am in Kenya. Going nowhere and writing about my experiences of being 'stranded in Kenya'. Day 43 of being in Naivasha with no end in sight.
Thank you for showing interest, which I assume you have seen as you got this far.
Of course, there is never a short answer to a question that is actually 3 questions rolled into one.
- Do you have a focus
- Do you have a topic you're looking into
- Do you travel for the simple joy of travelling
I've always travelled for the pure joy of the journey. I started travelling long before the days of this internet technology, FOMO world we live in now.
Back then, we wrote postcards, we wrote our diaries, we called home once every 6 months, we took photos which we got developed and sent home, which ultimately ended up in a box, never to be looked at again. Mail could be picked up at the Poste Restante counter at the post office.
There was no ulterior motive. No one was blogging or vlogging. Everyone used the Lonely Planet. Everyone travelled for the journey; more or less.
You worked at home. Nobody was working remotely. A few would set up hair salons or start doing massages as a way to cover their costs and extend the amount of time that they could stay away for but basically, you worked at home, you saved and then went off for however long you could afford to.
Which is exactly how I still operate!!
In 2011, nearing the end of my 549-day trip, at a hostel in Ljubljana I was introduced to Weebly by a Dutch guy. When I got home, I set up my own blog. I just mucked around with it. Learning by doing.
I had only ever written for myself. So I mostly just put up photos in a gallery and added captions. Not much different than having FB.
At some point, I came across thecandytrail, a travel blog with a difference run by MRP. I was inspired. Inspired by his travels, the places he went to and the way he wrote about his adventures. I had always been an avid reader.
I discovered Vagabond Journey too. I enjoy Wade's narratives about getting into blogging and the learning curve he travelled along. But was shocked by reading stories of the 80 hour weeks he used to put in, which initially gave him an income of 3.35US$. But then he got good at it and could actually cover all his costs and then some.
People have enquired as to why I never worked abroad in Thailand or Malaysia. Hmm working 15 hours a day for 10$ as opposed to working 8 hours in the UK and getting 200$. No logic. Which is my prefered modus operandi: Work in the West, travel in the less expensive parts of the world.
So on setting out on my 1423 day trip in December 2013, I started putting up posts. I wasn't wanting anyone to read them. It was just a creative outlet.
But after 2 ½ years of being on the road, I had an idea to try and do something with the blog. I was volunteering at that time in a hostel in Kyrgyzstan. I got to know the area very well. I made contacts. The family set me up with running a small bike rental business. I made contacts with the tour operators. I'd send them guests and they would send me tourists who wanted to hire bikes for the day.
I found out how to get to certain places like the border to Kazakhstan at Kegen for which the locals would tell me that there was no public transport.
But I'd ask around, slowly gathering information. Then I'd turn up at the suggested parking lot and wait to see if the intel was correct. And normally it was.
I learnt that 'No there isn't any public transport', actually meant they didn't really know cos they never needed to go there.
I had time. Lots of time. Which is what bloggers don't give themselves, so if a local tells them that 'there is no public transport' they are inclined to believe them because after all, locals should know, right? Umm no. Well, sometimes there is actually no public transport but mostly there is. You just have to ask the right people.
I remember asking in the tourist office. And was told quite a few times from various people that there was no public transport to Kegen.
"So what about the people who live in these villages?", I asked a girl I hadn't seen before. "Oh, my grandmother lives along that road, I'll ask her". So I learnt the number of the bus and the destination that would be on the bus. Easy eh?!
Living in a place and writing about local interests also opened up some other opportunities which I will be writing about soon.
So writing about things like this got me onto page 1 of Google search results. Blog posts with facts were easy to SEO. Blog posts with details of how to get to rarely visited places gave me a window of opportunity. It was also fun to do.
And then my site got hacked and I eventually took it offline.
***
After almost 4 years on the road, I returned home and got a job as a postman.
I did this job for 2 years. I used my annual leave go to places nearer to home, places that I hadn't yet been to, like Lisbon, Minsk, Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Tirana. Lots of historical stuff to see and learn about.
I had already set up a brand new blog Nomadic Backpacker
I would still like to be able to create a small income from having a blog. That's the goal. For that I need traffic. And for traffic, I have to have lots of posts that people will land on when they are Googling things that I have the answer to. Without traffic, there is little point in putting up ads or affiliate links.
So with these short 1 week or 2-week trips, I was going to these new places, primarily to have a mooch around.
But there would be a goal other than the journey itself. This is what Wade wanted to know about.
I would collect notes about nice cafes, about the known and lesser-known places of interest and the things I'd find by walking around. I'd take a few photos, save their locations on Gmaps. Check out the buses to onward destinations whether or not I was going there. I love to find local buses to places for day trips where bloggers say "there are no buses you must take a taxi".
Back home in the evenings after work, I would type up my notes as blog posts. I'd SEO the hell out of them. Name dropping, linking photos of statues to Gmaps, putting up selfies of me in cafés and adding the cafe name as ALT TEXT.
I was doing this to get my name out there.
These 2 years in the UK achieved several things. I put money back into my back account having arrived home broke. I got to visit Portugal, Belarus, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, visited my dear friend Vania in Lübeck, Copenhagen and a few more. I did about 20 posts and these got my blog onto Google. It takes a while but can be speeded up with information type posts.
I was laying down the foundations. I got some fans who would click on my blog without the need for me to ask them to. I set up Twitter. Made some contacts with great people. Sharing is caring. That's what these social media platforms are about. You have 500 followers. If you put up a post, 10 will click like, 5 will read the post when they click on the link.
But as I said above, in the 2 years in the UK, I was going to places that I'd never been to before.
Now if I was going to a place that I had previously visited and had an idea that I could blog about something that I knew existed, then this would be like getting sent out on assignment. Going to places purely to blog about them.
And now I am on the road again. This is a long haul trip, not a two-week vacation. I am 4 months in, currently going nowhere as Corona has buggered things up.
But my strategy has changed from that of the short trip. I am travelling purely for the joy of the journey once again. There is no side motive.
I am not blogging about 10 cafés for the digital nomad in Nairobi or 10 Big 5 Game Parks you must visit when In Africa.
When I travelled from Cairo to Cape Town in 2015/16 (this trip was part of the 1423 day adventure and I started Africa having already been on the road for almost 2 years), a distance of 19,000km. 10 countries, 7 months, NO flights, lots of crazy buses, train and boat rides, in the style of MRP. I went to a lot of places.
I took photos of the sites and would build into the story the transport logistics, like a small narrative, take selfies of me in a cafe, drinking a beer, riding the train. I would rarely name drop.
But I went to places tourists don't go to as well. Port Said. Port Suez, Port Sudan for example.
I wrote about crazy bus rides from hell, corrupt border guards and one post that never did see the light of day. I was contemplating hanging up my travelling boots in a small town north of Mombasa. But in the end, the road was calling and I left.
And now I am on that sort of trip again. I am here to travel and then write about it
I have travelled down through France and toured Tunisia. I pushed out about 8 or 9 posts from my 4 weeks in Tunisia, then I flew to Dakar. I sorted out the Mali visa, went to Gorée Island, and then travelled across Senegal seeing nothing but the dusty road. Crossed the border into Mali and eventually arrived in Bamako. Picked up my Cote d'Ivoire visa and carried on. 2 visa posts, 2 posts about horrendous travel conditions of West Africa, never once name dropping a cafe or a bar.
Posts about obtaining visas are a God-send to other travellers as the nitty-gritty changes regularly. Visa posts are a 'must write about' type of thing in Africa. Other travellers need the latest news. Not everyone uses iOverlander. :)
I could have gone to Burkina and blogged about getting the visa. I could have gone back to Sierra Leone and blogged about getting the visa on arrival, which is a new thing. When I learnt about this, I Googled it. There was nothing online. Could have been one helluva post.
Cote d'Ivoire was a good place to go to and I put out 2 good posts, 1 from Kong and 1 from Sassandra.
And now I am in Kenya. Going nowhere and writing about my experiences of being 'stranded in Kenya'. Day 43 of being in Naivasha with no end in sight.
Thank you for showing interest, which I assume you have seen as you got this far.