I attended the travel bloggers meet-up at Blogher on Friday afternoon. The travel meet-up was originally discussed by Pam Mandel at nerdseyeview and on Blogher. It was moderated by Suzanne Reisman at cussandotherrants (who has also written a new book, Off the Beaten Subway Track, more on that later) The majority of our time was spent on introductions, but we did have a few moments to discuss how we could create a more tightly-knit travel blogger community. Delicious Baby collected cards from everyone who is interested in building the community and will be posting the list of bloggers on her site. I captured a few names during the introductions and subsequent discussion of some great travel blogs I want to add to my google reader in addition to the blogs already listed:
Jet Set Girls Blogspot–all about girls getaways
See Jane Fly–for the female road warrior
Mommy Poppins–telling us how to get more out of NY
What A Trip written by Nancy Brown, a contributor to Uptake
Mile High Mamas–(the Denver Post)
KitchenGadgetGirl (and consultant to Uptake) has an idea for creating a page with RSS feeds from all the sites that wish to participate. I think this is the best idea yet, but I may be biased sine I have been working with her for nearly a year.
Uptake also have a travel blog search widget we created in cooperation with the t-list to make it easier to find travel bloggers everywhere. If you are interested in participating, please go here to join the search widget and here for information on the twitter t-list..
A few corporations sent some representatives including SeaWorld, DisneyWorld Orlando, Teleflora, and the Hilton were all there to gain insight into the travel blogger community. They want to reach travel bloggers of all kinds (see Blogher, travel is big business….)
Many of the bloggers were interested in building a more cohesive community and wanted to make ourselves more available to other bloggers, publicists and corporations trying to reach us. Please add to the conversation. Give us your ideas to build a more connected travel community. Next year, we hope Blogher ‘09 will have a panel devoted to travel.
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11 Responses
Hi Patrica, sounds like you had a great time and a lot of constructive conversation. Would love to have been there but it’s a world away from New Zealand and coudn’t justify the costs…maybe next year I’ll make blogher 09 (am working on a two month road trip and should be able to fit it in)
tried to click on your travel search widget but all I got was error.
would love to involved in any travel blogging collective and conversation. I’m one of the writers over at the Perceptive Travel blog and my personal blog Write to Travel focuses on travel writing.
cheers from wintery new zealand,
liz lewis
nice to meet everyone at the conference - as Pat mentioned, I put together an RSS feed for those folks I had cards for. If you want to be included, comment here and we will add you. For now, you can check it out and link to the list at http://travelblogupdates.blogspot.com/.
Cheers and happy travels!
Hi Patricia, Gudrun and Kitchen Gadget Girl, and everyone else too - we were sad not to be able to get to BlogHer this year, but fully expect to be there next year. Count us as two votes for a travel panel! We’d also love to be included on the RSS feed - many thanks!
Fran & Raq at Travels with Child
http://www.travelswithchild.org
I really want to go to BlogHer next year. It looked like so much fun, and I’ve heard a lot about it from different bloggers I read.
Wish I was there! Am determined to make it to the next one. See, I have my bumpersticker already made, “Blogher 09 or Bust!”
Yeah, the search widget link doesn’t work for me, either… Help!
Good to meet some of you at the travel meetup; perhaps we’ll be successful in requesting a travel panel for BlogHer next year? Fingers crossed.
Jessica, the search widget is located here. And, I agree, an official panel at the BlogHer conference next year would be great. How about a photo class to go along with it
Thanks for including me in your BlogHer Travel Meet up post. For some reason I’m not included on the T-list yet. I’m sure Elliott is quite busy keeping it updated.
https://twitter.com/WhataTrip
[...] up at the recent BlogHer conference in San Francisco. There was no travel panel, but there was a meetup of travel bloggers and it looks like that could be the catalyst for something more. Pam, at Nerd’s Eye View, has [...]
Patricia, we met at BlogHer ‘08. In an effort to continue the camaraderie we discovered at the conference, I have created a community for us- the Seniors and Boomers Community. It’s a place where we can stay in touch, become acquainted with each other’s blogs, talk about what we’re reading and writing, and we’ll have a place to go when we have blog/techie problems.
Please come join the Seniors and Boomers Community–our Community. http://seniorsandboomers.ning.com/
Sorry to get in touch through comments. Did not have your email address.
Frances Ellen
http://storyofnadia.wordpress.com/
[...] gabbed together in person at fun blogging/geek conferences like BlogHer (which had a 2008 travel blogger’s meetup,) Austin’s South by Southwest Interactive, SOBCon (”Biz School for Bloggers”) and [...]