My blog will be 3 years old next month. Food for reflection!
This message is one of those rare cases where you have an idea and you just have to write it immediately, an unplanned spontaneous position. It all started the day I decided not to follow something like 6000 people from my Twitter account.
When my spring cleaning was finished, I felt light. Very light. I was tired of the game: “I follow you, you got me” shit. I didn’t really care to lose all my subscribers overnight. If they hadn’t stayed, they were not worth following anyway, and I was not worth following either. A win-win situation for everyone.
This is the message I put on my Twitter account:
The result?
As expected, I lost more than 7,000 subscribers overnight. Not a big surprise.
This “drastic” decision really made me feel because I had just started a detoxifying diet, so naturally I started wondering why it was so good: Really wishes to be the “conventional” travel blogger that only defined by traffic, subscribers and figures? But above all, I was satisfied with what I had created so far?
After almost 3 years of blogs, sweat of blood and denigration of bitter remarks to arrive where I am today, I needed to stop a second and think about what I was doing, not what others thought I was judging by my Twitter follow -up or how many likes I received on each post.
I hate when someone tries to define who I am by the figures I have, even when they congratulate me for my “success”. When you are a travel blogger, half of the population probably doesn’t even know what it really means, and the second half (generally other bloggers) silently judges your work in one way or another.
History of my life!
An alarm clock from my ex …
This is what the ex use: they secretly like to start innocent, but hard, here and there. Usually things about yourself that you don’t really want to hear.
A few months ago, I lived in Chiang Mai and my ex-friendly friend decided to help me with my blog for a while. He’s not a blogger, but It was curious to see what was behind this glamorous work. During one of our conversations, he stressed that I was probably starting to compromise my voice to make money. Eeeeeek… Excuse me?
Even if he also politely indicated that I give the idea of someone who never listens to what others have to say, I do it. In reality, I think things about much more than people would imagine. Well, I’m a woman, what are you waiting for?
After this conversation, I took the afternoon for myself to think about what he had just told me. Was he right? Did I really lose my authenticity?!
I tried to concentrate for a moment, I was in Pai and I was thinking of 40 degrees outside was not an easy task. A few hours of perspiration and countless cold showers later, I finally got it.
He had a point there. I did not exchange exactly my authenticity for the good of money, but I was obsessively checked my Google Analytics Every hour and feeling constantly under pressure because I did not write invited messages. Heck, I didn’t even write enough content for my own blog, Without forgetting that I still had to cover a good part of the trip of my previous year. SHIT.
But hey, on the right side, my figures were great! My traffic had more than tripled in just a few months, my main messages were quite high on Google and I started to receive more sponsorship offers that I could manage physically. Without forgetting that my income with affiliates went much better than the previous year. Boast a lot? Not really.
I should have felt happy and proud, but I was not as delighted as you could expect. These were just figures. Where was the devil my voice in all of this?
Here is the truth: I hate being a travel blogger.
Let’s say it this way. It’s phrasing. I prefer to say that I am a traveler and a blogger.
When I started my dream trip, I didn’t know much about this crazy world, I just found some blogs that gave me the balls to write this fucking letter of resignation and fucking all my existence. I thought these people were cool and if they had managed to change their lives, why could I not?
I remember this girl very well: an excited 15 -year -old adolescent, trapped in a 35 -year -old body.
I did not have fun on blogs at the time, I was looking forward to taking the road as soon as possible and starting to write my adventures on my brand new travel journal. A gift from a girl who spent the previous 5 months traveling to South America. She definitely knew one thing or two on the perfect gift for a traveler soon!
My travel journal… after 3 years of travel!
This is this very first newspaper… 3 years later!
Writing newspapers has always been one of my passions. Yellowish pages glued with half scribbled notes, entry tickets on a random site, the phone number of a guy I met at the beach and above all: my interior trip.
This is what I always liked to do after all. Writing newspapers, collecting memories and … curse.
In a newspaper, you don’t have to put the filter mode for your audience, no one would read it anyway. I also opened my blog, but as soon as I arrived in Asia, I completely forgot it. I was too busy being happy and enjoying the new adventures to worry about it.
Blog on this? Naaah, maybe one day I sat and I wrote some articles. Make a career in travel blogs? It didn’t even go through my mind at the time.
I had sacrificed my social life for months Save enough money For my trip, and it was enough to rock my world. The future? Why care? Screw the future, my gift was much better!
And then, I don’t even know how, the impossible happened: Almost 3 years later, I am now a full -time travel blogger. Last November, I was even invited to Sri Lanka With some of the bloggers I use to read when I was a 15 -year -old girl (still trapped in this 38 -year -old body).
It was a strange feeling. I don’t see the best bloggers like “celebrities”. I mean, come on, even if my soul is still 15 years old, I am not a groupie. In the end, they are just people like me. And this is the main reason why they were able to inspire me during my exciting months before the trip, and later, when my blog slowly became my full -time work. Against my will 🙂
They inspired me because they were travelers and adventurers, before being “bloggers”.
The blogging part was a tool to show their love for the journey, not just a money generator business, and that is why they stood out from the crowd (do you want to know who I talk to? Continue to read it).
So, what is a travel blogger means for me?
When I started to take my blog seriously, I did it because I really liked to write stories. One day, I woke up with an idea and simply wrote it. No pressure at all. I didn’t care if I only had 1 or 1 million likes. The point of writing was to share my experiences, to entertain me first and of my readers accordingly.
My English was probably much worse than now (yes, it can become even worse than that) but When I press the publication button, I felt happy and accomplished.
It is not a coincidence that some of my old messages like the 17 Italian gestures explained or the Top 10 from the List of Strange Travel Stories are still among my most popular messages. I didn’t even know what SEO meant at the time and yet they are still at the top of research on Google.
Do I earn money with them? No! But I can see myself shine through these messages, even considering my poor English. This is what it means to be a travel blogger for me:
Stay real and really enjoy what I do.
It is I who is “real” .. and for the recordings: no, I will not make it a video. Closed box 🙂
I’m not saying that other messages are wrong. Not even a little. It’s always me with the difference that I wrote them with the pressure of the creation of “good content“, Negligating the spontaneous and joyful part of me.
So now I want to come back to the origins: lift the lid and abandon the pressure. Screw my obsession to write in perfect English or write the perfect piece (Wake up: it will never happen!).
A new balance.
From now on, I want to keep a healthy balance: I will always create static pages with information-factor articles, As I know of the first hand to what extent they can be useful, but When I write a story, I want to do it without thinking too much.
Even if writing in Italian is much more spontaneous and easy for me, I will do my best to transmit my emotions and my experiences in English as well. After all, people who started following me a few years ago loved my style less than perfect.
They are not English teachers (well, my English teacher in high school is one of my most affectionate readers, but she is not there to correct my mistakes).
If you are a native English speaker, I invite you to put yourself in my place for a second: try to master the Italian at 30 and open a blog on a very competitive “market”. It’s like climbing Mont Everest with a single leg. This is how it does for me. Each day.
Am I complaining? No, I had the choice to write in Italian, but I love the challenge and it’s okay. There will always be people who will criticize you, whatever your work and people who will like what you do.
The 4 best bloggers who taught me the value of authenticity
But before giving you the names of my fabulous 4, let me tell you what this list does not concern.
1 | This is not a list based on “numbers”.
I only considered the person behind a specific travel blog and why this person taught me the value of being authentic. Personality on numbers. It is not a surprise that these people also reach the other highest lists, they have great personalities and are not afraid to say things as they are. They did not sell their soul to earn money And has managed to remain faithful to their real nature over the years. And this is an excellent example to follow.
2 | This is not an objective list
It should go without saying it, but you never know! I see a lot of me in what these bloggers have to say, even if I do not necessarily agree with everything they write. This means that my choices were strongly influenced by whom I am. There are many other authentic and large bloggers, but they focus on different things and subjects.
