My TravelEmotion goes Liebster Award

First of all I thank Katelyn with her charming travel blog Wanderlust Series for nominating me for the Liebster Award. The nomination words of a more experienced travel blogger truly put a smile on my face and encourage me being on the right track with my blog vision:

I LOVE that Conny not only covers destinations, but she writes WITH and ABOUT emotions. Yes, Conny! Keep it up!


ABOUT THE AWARD

I did some research on the Liebster award and very quickly discovered it being discussed and criticized very controversially. It seems that already every blog newcomer has this award – mainly driven by the huge amount of new nominations. According to the „rules“ every nominated blogger should nominate another 11 fresh blog starters. Well, that sums up very quickly to a lot of award holders – making the term and sense of the award itself rather questionable.

Also the way how bloggers get their nominations is being criticized a lot. There are numerous Facebook groups where award winners ask for interested bloggers that want to get a nomination. On one hand this nomination hunting is not in line with the initial purpose of the award, according to which bloggers should nominate other blog newbies they really like and want to promote rather to „give away“ their nominations to more or less every interested blogger lining up.

On the other hand this procedure supports getting to know new blogs at all. Today’s blogger scene is filled with countless awesome full-time and hobby as well as popular and unknown bloggers. Usually the unknown hobby bloggers do not pop up on ones radar and I doubt that every new blogger can come up with another 11 new blogs without connecting in any kind of social media platform.

And well, I am thankful for any online blogger communities, because if I had not heard of Katelyn’s call for nominations on Facebook I am pretty sure I would not have gotten the chance for this award – only 3 months after my blog launch. After all, I decided to participate for the Liebster award as I want to support the concept in its core – promote other new bloggers and give them the chance to let people know more about the person behind the blog. But rather to stick to the next 11 nominations I go for more selection and only decided on three blogs, that appeal most to me and I got to know in different settings.


MY LIEBSTER AWARD ANSWERS

Well, coming to the core of this post I will tell you a little more about myself by answering my assigned questions. Enjoy 🙂

1. What inspired you to start your blog?

I simply love traveling and I feel privileged and very lucky that I have been able to experience a lot of great journeys already. In my blog I want to share my experiences and past and future travel stories to inspire people and help fellow travelers with useful tips. Besides I am a very emotional person and I want to connect this component with the travel parts. If you want to know more continue reading my about myTravelEmotion post.

2. What resource do you find most valuable for your blog?

My old travel diaries – doubtless. If I would not have written down my travel stories it would be a real pain in the ass to reconstruct my past journeys. Luckily my diary is filled with my impressions of accommodations, sights and activities that I can now all use for adding a special personality to my blog posts.

3. What activities do you enjoy outside of blogging?

Traveling! Planning and going on journeys that make my future blog stories. Besides I like to hang out with friends, who I also visit in foreign places. (Actually, at the time I am writing this post I am just in the train on my way back from a fun weekend in Innsbruck, where I visited a very close friend).

4. What tactics do you employ on those days when blogging is hard & frustrating?

Giving it a break. My blog is probably my greatest hobby. It is honestly very time consuming and I put a lot of effort in the looks and contents of my blog in general and every single post. I do not want to force myself to strict publish plans. Instead I write whenever I feel up to it. I will grow this blog as long as it gives me all this excitement and joy, that I have been enjoying ever since I started my blog.

5. If you could choose to be any animal, what would it be and why?

Haha my friends will laugh on this one. Truth is, I am not the greatest animal lover. I can already hear the disappointed murmurs and feel the judging rolling eyes of my readership. I could go on about defending myself for this harsh statement for hours and trust me I have good arguments^^. But cutting a long story short: I’d probably like to be a bird, because it can fly, live in complete freedom and visit all the places it wants to. 

6. What are your three favorite blogs to follow?

I am a huge fan of Sommertage Blog, an Austrian travel blog of a very likable couple. I kind of feel connected to them as they have traveled similar destinations like I have. Besides I enjoy their writing style and agree with their (travel) attitudes. Secondly I love EscapeTown. I stumbled upon Lea and her blog in the book „This year will be different“ by Monika Kanokova. In an instant I liked her down-to-earth style, which is also reflected in her blog. Last but not least I found the blonde abroad on Pinterest when I was looking for new travel destinations myself. Even though the blog has a strong „sex sells“ component, I just love the playful website. It is filled with fancy effects, catchy videos and an overall fun style and still very structured and easy to navigate at the same time.

7. What piece of blogging advice have you found to be most helpful?

Stop being a perfectionist! In theory I tend to overthink, thoroughly structure and plan everything I do. A characteristic I quickly had to get rid off if I ever wanted to launch my blog for real. I realized soon that there is no design template pretty enough, no blog post written eloquently enough and no picture photoshopped well enough. It helped me a lot to at some point to JUST DO IT.

8. Are you a full-time blogger or do you also hold down a day job?

I work full-tim in the marketing department of a well-known telco company in Austria. I love my job. Really. It is challenging, deals with digital trends and with my job I feel a purpose by connecting people in the emerging online world. My blog is, as mentioned above, my greatest hobby I work on purely in my spare time.

9. What is your favorite post on your blog thus far?

Uff.. tough one. As I am a very indecisive person I go for two favorites^^. Firstly it’s the Surf & Yoga in Morocco post as this was simply an overwhelmingly great holiday and one of my first posts. Secondly, it is my 17 days road-trip guide for New Zealand’s South Island. When I wrote this post it literally threw me back to this so special and most worry free time of my life.

10. What social media platforms do you use and which one is most effective?

Well, I am still in the trial and error phase and have been trying many different kind of social media platforms Including Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Snapchat, StumbleUpon and Pinterest. Most effective so far are Instagram and Facebook, on which I am also most active on. In the near future I want to expand my Pinterest activities as I believe this to be a very powerful channel especially for travel bloggers.


MY NOMINATIONS

  1. New Social Design: What I like most about Georg’s blog is his ability to cut all that architecture, design and arty vocabulary and really makes this complex topic a fun and interesting read for non-architects.
  2. KONN I NIT: When I met Irina I instantly fell for her authentic out-going attitude. With her blog she really puts herself and her (crazy) thoughts out there. I love that unique and entertaining style of her blog.
  3. Masturdating: I love the humorous approach of Alice’s blog towards love, told from the singles perspective. Her citations pictures are simple, catchy and have a high recognition value.

THE QUESTIONS FOR MY NOMINEES

  1. How would you describe yourself in three words?
  2. What is your favorite meal / food?
  3. What is you favorite movie and why?
  4. What is the best gift that you have ever gotten?
  5. What was your desired job when you were a kid?
  6. Where do you want to travel to very badly and why?
  7. What was your inspiration to start your blog?
  8. What is your favorite post on your blog so far?
  9. What are your three favorite blogs to follow?
  10. What blogging advice would you give a blogger new in business?

THE LIEBSTER AWARD RULES / GUIDELINES

  1. Thank the person/blog who nominated you and post a link to their blog on your blog.
  2. Display the award on your blog. This can be done by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a widget (note: the best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then upload it to your blog/post).
  3. Answer the 10 questions about yourself that your nominating blogger chooses for you (see my questions above).
  4. Nominate blogs that you feel deserve the award. These must be new bloggers (less than two years blogging) who have fewer than 1000 followers.
  5. Create a list of questions for your nominated bloggers to answer.
  6. List these rules in your post (feel free to copy & paste!)
  7. Inform the blogs that you nominated that they have been awarded the award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it.