Another rather slow month posting wise.  There has been a lot of work in the background getting the hosting site up and some of the testing done.  It is still on track to launch here shortly.  There hasn’t been a firm date set yet.

Looking into a couple trips in January and February, possibly Argentina, Chile and Europe.  The hard part is finding a flight while using my SkyPesos.  It seems like there is only a couple seats available per country destination per month.  We’ll see how it goes.

For those who are going to TBEX11 in Vancouver next year, you may be interested in Chris Guillebeau’s  World Domination Summit the weekend before TBEX. Looking at the reply’s to the post there is huge interest in it.  I plan on going to his book tour event to see is it’s like a good business-brain-storming/networking event or if it’s more get-rich-quicky.   Work it into your calendar if you can.

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Alexa rank 1,074,237

Posts 4 (including other sites 15)

Upcoming events

Sept

Meet Plan Go – Sept 14 (at Honey in Minneapolis)

Oct

The Unconventional Book Tour -  Oct 3 (Chris Guillabeau’s book tours’ MSP stop)

Nov

Wordcamp MSP – Nov 13 (Eagan Community Center)

Publishing numbers is something few sites do and I have been kicking around the idea for a while now. Hopefully you will find this helpful, encouraging or at least entertaining.  This is a bit of an experiment but I will try to post numbers through the end of the year or so, good or bad.

June 2010

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Alexa Rank   1,996,260

Posts        12

In an effort to start writing better I’m also going to go to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday posting schedule, with possibly smaller bits on the weekend.  It takes me quite a while to write as it doesn’t come naturally to me.

Since there seemed to be quite a bit of interest in the Twitter list I reworked. Over the last couple days I have put together another, this time reranked for Facebook.   The couple surprises are how many sites have neither a Twitter presence or one on Facebook.  This time 38 sites did not link to their Facebook page. The other (not real relevant to the list…)  is that Julia Dimon is on the list.  Before Word Travels Tv was pulled from Hulu I really enjoyed watching her and Robin Esrock. It was a great show, I wish we got it here in the states.

Again,  this list is taken for Travel-Pods weekly top 100 Travel Blogs that lists the top independent travel site.  If you think your site should be ranked you can submit a request.

Also, I looked for a Facebook link or plugin on either the homepage or the about me page.  There were a couple pages that linked to someones personal page that was not public and required them to add you as a friend, these pages were not included in the list.

This post has taken a bit longer then I had expected. Every couple weeks I take a look at the Top 100 Travel Blog Sites just to see how where everyone ranks. After reading it this week I thought humm, I wonder what this list would look like if you reranked it by Twitter followers?

If you have wondered that too – here you go!

Also, feel free to add follow me @headingthatway, I may not be on this list yet, but I will be before the end of the year!

20 sites did not have twitter links in their homepage or their about me page that I could find.

Continued from:  The Best Flight I Ever Missed, Part 3 (or I <heart> Delta)

While I’m laying in bed I remember hearing about a volcano going off and didn’t think much of it until my mom came. She told me I was very lucky that I didn’t make that flight. It was then that I saw in tv what everyone was talking about. Big giant volcano shutting down Europe.

What a 24 hour difference would have made.

If I had my kidney troubles one day later that would mean I was 6 hours into an 8 hour flight over the Atlantic. Had I made it to Amsterdam, I would have been in a foreign country in a hospital where I don’t speak the language.

To top it all off. the flight would have been the last one out of Minneapolis before the European airspace was shutdown because of the Icelandic volcano. So no flight home, not even a medical one.

And I’m healthy. Well I thought I was. I don’t smoke and don’t really drink, maybe a 6 pack a month. Yes a month. I’m really good at it so I don’t need anymore practice. Getting ready for the trip I had been walking around with my 30lb pack for several weeks.

It could have been much worse.

It’s wasn’t like a black bruise where is changes color, it’s just black, from the small of my back to my right side hip bone.

This explains why I can’t sit in a chair. Every morning there are things I need to do for Indie Travel Podcast online, I do some intern stuff for them. 5 minutes is all I can handle either at my computer or at the kitchen table.

This means more tests to make sure nothing is wrong. They think it’s related to the nurse popping me with morphine the first day along with the huge amounts of blood thinners I was on at the time. I don’t blame her, that was the best damn shot I ever had in my life.

Thankfully it was just a bruise and not more clotting problems. Being on blood thinners means it’ll take much longer to heal.

It took me a month to feel normal again.

But I still feel happy and lucky and healthy and still moving forward with my travel plans.

I’ll just be on a later flight.

Yesterday will be a day I remember for a while.  It was the day I had my first guest post! Go check it out it’s on Indie Travel Podcast. You may have also seen it on their Facebook page (you should fan them). It may not be the greatest writing in the world but it’s a start.

It’s my review of David Lees Travel Blog Success.  It turned into more of a comparison of three different courses that I’ve taken.  Each has it’s strong points.  This course is good and I like it a lot, if your thinking about travel blogging I really think it has the best bang for your buck right now.

I was going to write something different today but decided to continue to revel in this ‘first’.   There will be more to come I’m sure, this was kinda a big one in my book.  Thanks Craig and Linda.

This morning while having coffee I thought of my Turkish Coffee experience and the story I wrote while doing MatadorU.  There are a bunch of errors but I like it and since I’m a bit behind in my writing I’m going to post a link to it on Matador here Turkish coffee.

photo credit: nihan peker

This week has been full of working on different websites,  reading guide books for route planning and doing a little graphics training.  It seems like I have spent all of my waking hours on the computer.  Tonight I desided to turn on my tv for the first time in a couple weeks. After all there is the new season of Bourdian to catch up on.    The Travel Channel is pushing the “Good Tony Bad Tony” thing a little to much.   It looks like they are also experimenting with tilt shift lenses a bit too.  Normally I Tivo through the commercials, tonight I was working on a couple different posts that just weren’t working very well and what is this?  Boudrain is going to be in my town?   AWESOME!!  I’m so there!  I wonder what he talks about, is it a foodie thing or travel  either way it should be good.

There’s a commercial on tv in America that’s called “Messing with Sasquatch”,’ where several guys pull pranks on Sasquatch such as putting shaving cream in Sasquatches hand  and the tickling his nose.  They have a good laugh and end up getting thrown over a pine tree or something.

When your planning on traveling you inevitably are barraged with questions.  I keep thinking of that commercial when the questions drag on for to long.  So I’ve been working on several of my own:

Messing with friends and family.

If your young and college aged, when someone asks who you are going to travel with you can mention “There’s this guy, he owns this club. He said I can stay with him.”  For added impact state his age is at least 30 years older than yours.

Watch the National Geographic  series  “Locked Up Abroad” on tv or video.   Continually refer to it as “training”.  After watching an episode state “Amateurs, that’s not how you do that.  There this guy that said there’s a better way to do it.“  Abruptly stop talking and look around like you have said to much.

When asked how you are going to pay for the trip say “I don’t need money”.  Imply that with the exchange rate and a little bit of arbitrage you can make a great deal selling your blood.  This is due to one countries dire need for blood, you know because of the addicts.  Feel free to throw in “there’s this guy… “ to add to your credibility.

Actually using any of the above really, really won’t help your case at all.  Friends might get a real kick out of some of these.  Your mom won’t think the last one’s funny at all.

photo credit: Thomas Roche Still from the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot Film, from Wikipedia

Blogging courses.  Today I spent the morning writing a review of Dave Lees Travel Blog Success for another website.  I’m not sure if it will get used but it sure would be cool if it did, if not I will post it here later.

As a new blogger I know the feeling when your thinking about joining and contemplating should you or shouldn’t you?  Is it really worth it?  Heck I’m still debating this now as I look at another program. It’s only natural.

Why do courses at all?  Can’t you learn all this stuff one your own?  Well yes of course you can, through good old trial and error.  How long do you think it will take you  and what is your time worth?  I’d rather learn now so I can travel more later.

Disclaimer:  Dave was kind enough to provide me with a complimentary membership to review and I will receive a small commission if you click the above link. You will have my thanks for helping me along my way realizing my dream of traveling.