Halley. Back to the desert.
I’m going back to the desert. The cold desert. This was the tweet that started it all, one evening back in November 2013: @matthewteller Forget the cold. It'll melt your heart. — Peter Gibbs (@PeterGWeather) November 23, 2013 I recognised Peter Gibbs from the telly – he is one of the BBC’s weather presenters – but we’d only…
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Speaking notes from #tbcamp12
Last night I spoke at TravelBlogCamp #tbcamp12 in London on the theme of ‘Back To Basics’, examining some ideas to help us all reconnect with the reasons why we write about travel. It seems I split the room, deeply annoying some people, and deeply inspiring others. For what it’s worth, here are my speaking notes, as…
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Power and responsibility
There’s a firestorm over on David Whitley’s industry-leading travel blog Grumpy Traveller, where he savages bloggers involved in the ongoing Visit Jordan social media campaign that’s been running all year (2011). David’s post is here, but also read the comments – they’re a fascinating glimpse into the travel blogging mindset. After what I wrote there, Nathan…
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Decisions, decisions
Another bad news story out of Dubai – a British woman goes into a shopping mall wearing a low-cut top; an Emirati woman objects; in response the British woman strips down to her bikini and carries on walking through the mall; is arrested for indecency, then released, with all charges dropped. A tide of follow-up…
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Blog will eat itself
It started with writing for print – books, magazines, newspapers. Then it seemed like the print world was losing impetus, and online was where things were happening. So I got a blog. Now, in what I think might be a world first (please tell me if it isn’t!), a print magazine has devoted a page…
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Bloggers and journalists
There’s been a great debate over on Jeremy Head’s Travelblather blog, which started off as a proposal for a new way to fund travel writing, but which – in the comments – has shifted over, at least partly, into the old familiar barney about the differences (if any) between bloggers and journalists. One comment on…