"Blogging has exploded over the past few years, opening the door to endless opportun-ities. A number of bloggers have been able to have professional writing careers, quit their desk jobs to travel the world, or prolong that backpacking trip indefinitely," writes Gennaro at Enduring Wanderlust in his latest post Road Warriors: Bloggers in Motion, looking at the travelling lives of 'digital nomads'. Through interviews with four globetrotters (including myself), Gennaro explores the challenges of blogging from the road. It's a revealing post that compares the experiences of the four of us, written in a journalistic style, rather than straight Q&A, which is nice to see. I might clarify though that travel blogging didn't lead me to my career as a travel writer. I began travel writing first, co-authoring with husband Terry The Sydneyside Guide, a compact city guide within Gregory's street directories, almost 14 years ago. Terry took up full-time travel writing around six years ago, while I began to dabble in it again (I had a full-time academic job at the time), and we both threw our heart and soul into it, taking to the road to travel continuously, bouncing from one assignment to another, just over three years ago. For me, blogging came in 2007 as a creative release and space to reflect. I don't get paid to blog at Cool Travel Guide. I wish I did! But I'd hate aspiring travel writers to think that travel blogging is an easy way to establish a successful travel writing career. The two are mutually compatible, but professional travel writing is a different kettle of fish with its own set of challenges and involving the development of a huge skill set - which can partly be developed through blogging of course. What I found interesting in Gennaro's post was how people manage the tech side of things, and I might expand on that in another post. Do check out Gennaro's post. He poses the question at the end "How has running a blog influenced your life?" I can't wait to hear what travel bloggers say...Pictured? Terry making tea at the side of our road warrior, one of several vehicles that took us around Australia on our most recent 4-month research trip. I just wished I would have been able to blog from the thing! But it's a bit hard when you don't even have cell phone access for most of the day!
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