Guest interview - Nate of YourDailyVacation.com
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I met Nate of YourDailyVacation when I featured one of his posts in the first Travel Blog Carnival.
1 What is the aim of your blog?
NP - There are two main aims to my blog, the first is to provide the sites guest with information on travel tips and tricks as well as give them a new vacation destination to explore on a regular basis. The second aim is selfish. It provides an opportunity for me to live vicariously through other peoples’ travel experiences and stories. Having an 8 to 5 desk job doesn’t afford me enough opportunity to travel nearly as much as I’d like to. By running a travel themed blog on the side I’ve got a social network of individuals that love traveling as much as I do. I learn just as much from them as they hopefully do from my site, so I can maximize the travel time I have.
2 What prompted you to start your own blog?
NP - I was reading about blogging on a few websites and since I knew very little about the technology around building websites I thought I would give it a try. It’s important to keep learning new things, expanding your skill sets, and getting out of your comfort zone. Starting a blog has allowed me to do all three of those things, while having fun.
3 What has been the hardest aspect of having your own blog?
NP - Coming up with regular quality content. At first it was fun to write about places that I had visited and relive those experiences through sharing them with others. But writing about brand new places and keeping a captive audience is hard. What happens after you’ve written for a month and you run out of places that you’ve been to talk about? I decided to use articles written by other people who have traveled extensively the various locations I want to cover. I really was hesitant to do this but the only other options was to google locations and make things up about places I only read about. I didn’t think that was fair to my readers. Most of the articles I write now are tips and tricks related. I’ve been helping quite a few people set up online travel journals which is fun and rewarding.
4 What is the funniest thing that has happened running your own blog?
NP - I read more blogs now than I used to, and not just travel blogs. I came across an article yesterday about a plug in you can download for wordpress that allows your readers to donate money to your beer fund. Not having an extensive background in web design and writing code I am fascinated that there are brilliant individuals our there that have a sense of humor to match their ability to innovate.
5 Is there anything that you would do differently with hindsight?
NP - I got the idea to start a blog and the next day I did it. That is not a bad thing but I figured a lot of things out on my own and it was time consuming. Not that I’ve been up and running for a while I’ve met some fantastic individuals who have given me a lot of use tips for improving my blog. If I would have made those contacts up front it would have saved a lot of time. Realizing now how easy it is to blog I always emphasize to my readers if they are thinking of starting a blog to please let me know I will help them along in the process. In hindsight to put the time in upfront that I did, it’s ridiculous.Speaking of figuring things out, I am researching the possibility of taking charitable donations through my website to help children and families that live in poverty. This is my next new challenge so if anyone has any ideas or suggestion I would appreciate it if they emailed me nat @ yourdailyvacation.com
My comments - Thanks Nate and it’s a laudable idea to use your blog to raise money for charity. I know all about trying to figure out the details of blogging, I couldn’t believe that so many of what I’d considered basic blog features are actually Wordpress plug ins. It was a real feat when I managed to master widgets and start adding them to the blog margin. It’s hard to keep writing regular, quality content for a blog, some days you can’t be bothered or are too busy with other things like the day job, family or even personal leisure time.
