Category Archives:Blogger of the Month

Bridges and Balloons follows the personal journey of Victoria and Steve, a writer/yoga teacher and filmmaker from London, who took their careers on the road.  This inspiring blog is an exploration of living the life you want to, not the life you think you should – and the ups and downs involved in the attempt.

“We started the blog when we left London and set off for Rio in March 2012…We want to share inspiring stories and beautiful photography, which will encourage other people to live their dreams too. It’s taken a while to find our feet, but we try to publish posts we’d like to read – photo stories and personal tales of the ups and downs of trying to stay true to one’s dreams.”

“Life is one big puzzle and we’re trying to find out the best way to put ours together. Bridges and Balloons is just as much a lifestyle blog as a travel one.”

Read More »

I met Hannah last month in a serendipitous travel blogger’s meet-up in Patnem, Goa.  I immediately connected with Hannah’s story – and thought you would, too – partly because it’s incredibly honest.  She’s learned to write that way, the hard way, and shares stories of past deceit, debts, and do-overs.  Plus, I just love her style!  A  graphic designer as well as writer, Hannah’s branded herself beautiful and practical with her more-than-just travel blog, Further Bound.

Hannah of Further Bound

“[Further Bound contains] tales of my personal journey dealing with issues such as debt, love, health scares, fear and chasing your dreams. I try to live honestly and wholeheartedly, and I think my blog reflects that.

” ~ Hannah

Read More »

Thongs, flippers, slip slops…jandals?  Perhaps you’ve heard the Kiwi term for the ubiquitous flip flop, but I hadn’t until I heard of Four Jandals, adventure travel blog of one of the worlds leading independent adventure travel blogging couples, Cole and Adela. (Phew!)  They’ve been slipping and slopping, flipping and flopping, around the world since 2009.

Four Jandals Snowboarding

“Our main goal is to inspire others to travel. And we do that by providing stunning photos, adventure travel tips and tales to help you step out of your comfort zone, in comfort.” – Cole and Adela, 2013

Read More »

Allow me to introduce to you  Flora The Explorer ~ a blogger that recently came on our radar, recommended by trusted and well-read travel blogger friends.  After spending 6 months in India, Nepal, and Southeast Asia, Flora is headed to South America to teach English, and check more than a few experiences off her long bucket list.

This is a blog more of prose than photos – with many bloggers moving towards sleek and minimal, Flora stays with the tried a true: honest writing, will of straightforward, simple reflections as she discovers herself and the world.

“I’ve always been writing ever since I started traveling but it was normally on paper, in various diaries and notebooks, and I had never made a dedicated effort to document my travels online…Over the last year I’ve realized that there are more people than just my friends who are interested in what I do and how I think.”

Read More »

Happy new year!  What a better way to start the year inspired to travel than to share with you some great travel stories.  This month, we’ve interviewed Dave Dean, writer of the travel blog What’s Dave Doing? and founder of Too Many Adapters, a technical resource for travelers.

A native of New Zealand, Dave’s been on the road for about two years now.  Like many of you dreamers, and many of our featured bloggers, he had a dead-end office job he didn’t believe in.  Don’t worry, though, you’re not in for the same ol’ story – Dave’s got a great, yet gritty sense of humor, and I get the sense he’s more than a little bad-ass.  He’ll tell you the truth, and give you a kick in the bum to make what you’ve been day-dreaming about come true.  He calls his way-of-life ‘ongoing slow budget travel,’   a term I can get a grip on.  And you know what? It’s something you can do, too.

Meet Dave:

“What’s Dave Doing? is a mix of information, inspiration and motivation for those looking to hit the road themselves. It’s a personal story, hopefully told in a way that can help others achieve their own travel dreams…what I’d most like to communicate on the blog is that long term travel is far more affordable and achievable than most people believe – and far more valuable as well.  Contrary to popular belief, stepping out of the rat race for a while to explore new countries and cultures could well be one of the best and most important decisions you ever make.   Mass media is very good at telling us that we are all supposed to want and do exactly the same things in life, so I think it’s important to present a somewhat different view on my little corner of the internet.”

Read More »

Most travel blogs aim to guide you to hidden sights, tip you off to the best restaurants or hotels, and help you get around a new city.  Meet Lauren, our featured tripwolf blogger of the month for November.  She commenced traveling and writing her blog Never Ending Footsteps 15 months ago.   “On Never Ending Footsteps I mostly write about how NOT to travel! I always have the most ridiculous things happen to me on the road – I’ve been “poked” during a massage in Bangkok, punched a scammer in Shanghai, been attacked by monkeys in Bali, sat next to a dead woman on a slowboat in Laos and so much more!”  

Let’s just say Never Ending Footsteps is not most travel blogs.

Lauren in the Sahara Desert

We will feature posts from Lauren’s blog on the tripwolf facebook and twitter pages this month, so keep an eye out!
Read More »

This series aims to build community – yeah, we swap a few tweets and likes here and there, too, but we want to get to know the people who are sharing all this information, the people who are really doing it – those I deem the experts.

Dalene and Pete Heck of Hecktic Travels are the experts on house-sitting.  They didn’t set out to be these people – their tagline, “No possessions, no plans, just travel,”  opened a unique pathway for them.  3 years ago, the couple left their home and jobs in Alberta, Canada, to spend a few months volunteering in South America.  They returned to Canada, and were surprised to share the mutual understanding that their trip was not over.  They landed a 6-month house-sitting job in Honduras, and haven’t looked back.

Meet Dalene and Pete – Hecktic Travels

What you’ll find on their blog:  Gorgeous photos, tips on house-sitting, a font that’s easy on the eyes (love this, guys) and good, quick reads about new destinations.

Read More »

Kim started her travel blog 2 years ago, before she’d stepped foot from her door. “It was around this time that I’d admitted to myself that I wasn’t happy and I didn’t want everything that I had- a good, professional job, a house with a mortgage, two cars, lots of stuff. I’d decided I wanted to shed it all and travel the world and I wanted to pursue my lifelong dream of writing for a living. I started the blog to document the whole process. For 1.5 years I wrote about all of it- selling everything I own, quitting my job, the reactions of my friends and family, saving money. I wanted people to know that the process is scary but the end result is worth it. At the time it was just a hypothesis, but now I know it is true.”

So many of us dream of leaving it all behind, but Kim’s blog outlines her process of actually making it happen. And it’s not just “#&*% it!” and buying an around the world plane ticket (well, for some of you it could be), but a slow, deliberate process.
“Even though I write a travel blog I don’t really think of it as a travel blog. Travel is the lens through which I tell my personal story of leaving behind a life that was unfulfilling to live in a way I’d always dreamed of living: exploring the world and writing for a living.”

Meet Kim!

Sushi or pork roast? I’m a vegetarian!
Coffee or Red Bull? Coffee
Wine or beer? I love both
Suitcase or backpack? Backpack
Night train or night bus? Train
Sleeping bag or bedding? Sleeping bag
Window or aisle? Window
Diarrhea or constipation? Ha… neither? Diarrhea
Malarone or malaria? Malaria
Hops or grass? Hops

tw: Once you actually quit your job and bought your first plane ticket, what did you feel?

Read More »

Marriage itself is enough of an adventure, but the brave ‘Flowtrells,’ are truly taking a leap – immediately after the wedding, they embark on an open ended, ’round the world honeymoon…hello, adventurous!  They’re new bloggers as well as newly weds, though their funny, quirky writing style is sure to draw some attention. (Hey, perhaps they’re inspired by last month’s featured bloggers, Married with Luggage?)

Annie and Chris in Munich

So here they are, meet The Flowtrells.  “[Our blog] follows the life and adventures of Chris Cantrell, a North Carolina native brought up on hot sauce, grits and sweet tea and Annie Flowers, a frugal foodie and adrenaline junkie. Together, we are about to embark on our two biggest adventures: traversing the globe during our first year as newlyweds! We are straight shooters and mostly like to share our experiences with lots of photos paired with quick updates of our trip highlights!”

Coffee or tea?  Coffee

Wine or beer?   Beer…mmmm.

Suitcase or backpack?   Backpack

Night train or night bus?  Train

Sleeping bag or bedding?  Depends on the situation but we do love our mummy bags.

Window or aisle? Window for Chris. Aisle for Annie.

Diarrhea or constipation? Constipation…yuck.

Malarone or malaria? Malarone

Hops or grass? Hops

tw: Tell us how your travel blog idea originated – why did you decide to start a public blog?

F: “We originally started our blog as a way for our friends and family to keep tabs on us when we moved to San Francisco.  We wanted a way for them to keep up with what we were doing and share photos from our west coast adventures. The blog has recently taken a new direction as we started planning our upcoming wedding and RTW trip!”

Read More »