My Backpacking Buddies aims to be the place to meet other backpackers, with a forum, photo albums and a blog. I met Sarah when she linked to my post about 10 euro Travelodge rooms in Spain on the My Backpacking Buddies blog.

1 What is the aim of your blog?

The blog aims to help people, who think of traveling the world with their backpack, know that it is possible to leave their ordinary lives and just go and enjoy the world. I’ve done it twice and am grateful for every minute and for the courage I had to be outside the box. I share stories about places, show options that might have been over looked and occasionally recommend new gear that might help.

2 What prompted you to start your own blog?

Two things:
a I miss traveling. I’ve traveled recently by moving to a remote place in the mountains so it feels like a totally new experience but I love the life on the road trying to bring it with me. The blog enables me to feel connected with the life of traveling.

b I believe that many people can benefit greatly in term of their personal growth from time on the road. Backpacking in particular forces upon you the exposure not just to new scenes but to new people, new
perspectives of lives and can change the way you connect to the world greatly. Being a meditator for many years I realize that the more we open ourselves to other ways of living and of perceiving the world, the more
compassionate we become for other people and we become better people. Realizing that people are afraid of making such changes in their routine and in themselves I decided that the blog can be a service for many peoplethat need inspiration to take their lives to new places.

3 What has been the hardest aspect of having a blog?

For me it is reading and writing about places I haven’t been to yet. It makes me miss the road even more.

4 What is the funniest thing that has happened to you running your blog?

The funniest thing was following a travel blog for few months before realizing that I know the blogger from my last trip couldn’t recognize her because she wrote in a screen name but when it finally clicked it was very
amusing.

5 Is there anything you would do differently with the benefit of hindsight?

I would probably feel less guilty about choosing this life rather than the ordinary one that was planned for me.

My comments – I’ve only travelled for a longer than 2 weeks once in my life when I was 19 I spent a couple of months in Greece, touring the mainland and island hopping. I stayed in cheap hotels and rooms in family homes, rather than camping or in hostels. I do wonder if you travel for extended periods if it does become hard, if not impossible, to settle into every day life again? Writing about travel can be a kind of substitute for travel but it could make the wanderlust even stronger.