The Joys of Travel Blogging

I have now been blogging for around four and a half years — two and a half of which I have averaged more than one entry a day. This has been a lot of blogging — a lot of writing, picture taking, and searching aimlessly for internet cafes and WIFI connections. In all, on this travelogue, I have published more than a thousand entries.

I began blogging as a writing exercise to hone my skills for other writing mediums — at first I did not even give the URL out to my family or friends. It was private. Then I soon got the notion that I could possible make enough money off of blogging and a website to continuously travel from . . . and thus this vagabond journey (.com) began:

I looked around one day and realized that I really enjoy blogging, much more so than writing for magazines. My journalistic impetus has landed me on the path of the professional blogger, and, as corny as this may come off as being, it is working out. It is now a pain for me to peel myself away from the WordPress to write articles for magazines that I can sell for $$$.

The instant gratification of immediately publishing that which I write is far too great of a charm too voluntarily choose to go through the drawn out process and archaic seeming process of editing, formatting, back and forth emails, and publishing of print media. I have an article coming out in a magazine this month that I wrote in the autumn of 2006, nearly three years ago. I cannot say how many times I have gone back and forth with the editors, how much time I have put into writing photo captions, nicking off minor edits, answering the questions of a junior editor, and explaining my situation and how many times I have had conversations like the following:

“I am in Iraq, my photos are in upstate New York, I cannot have them to you by deadline.”

I long for the joyous gratification of knocking down the “publish” button immediately after nailing down the hatches of a travelogue entry. It is akin to shooting a tin can dead on  with a pistol.

“Gotcha.”

It is gone, I did my job, the story is complete. Now it is time to move on to the next story. Like this, blogging is an endless process — a black hole that you will never get to the bottom of. You write, publish, write, publish into oblivion, and, seemingly, never really get anywhere.

Photo taken from www.fotosa.ru

I often feel like a hyped up lab rat running on its spinning wheel in the midst of some sort of mad science caffeine test.

I go nowhere, but the joy is found in the running.

Like this, blogging is much like traveling: you will never arrive, the joy is the journey. One place just leads to another, which only leads you on to another.

Destinations are merely signposts in the road, resting places from which to take bearings on the Road ahead, massage your weary legs, and get back on the spinning wheel.

The joy is in the traveling. The joy of blogging is moving on to the next entry, the next story, the next time you feel the gratification of pulling that “publish” trigger.

It is a feeling that is addictive.

Vagabond Journey on blogging

• Renewed vigor for travel blogging
• How to take field notes when traveling
• Blogging about travel preparation

Other resources

• Motorcycle Bob on blogging
• Amanda on Vagabond Journey.com