Road Warriors: Bloggers in Motion

Want to be location independent or a digital nomad? Blogging has exploded over the past few years opening the door to endless opportunities. A number of bloggers have been able to have professional writing careers, quit their desk jobs to travel the world, or prolong that backpacking trip indefinitely. Enduring Wanderlust travel blog caught up with four travelers who manage to keep their blogs flourishing while globetrotting.

The Bloggers

Gary Arndt of Everything Everywhere was blogging before the word was invented. He went around the world in 1999 and kept a website allowing his company’s employees to follow his travels. He made subsequent trips to Iceland and Argentina updating on his website. His latest travel blog is thriving as he continues to wander the globe.

Lara Dunston of Cool Travel Guide is a professional travel writer who teams with her husband Terry (travel writer and photographer) to produce countless research and articles for magazines and guidebooks. On the road for the past three years, Lara’s life and work are unique takes on the concept of location independent.

Christine Gilbert of Almost Fearless left her managerial position at a large Fortune 500 Company to be freelance writer who travels the world while working remotely. Her blog follows her day-to-day experiences. She is currently wandering through Mexico and Central America.

Matthew Kepnes of Nomadic Matt is a vagabond who has been traveling continuously since finishing his Master’s and quitting his job in July 2006. Backpacker extraordinaire, Matt has managed to build a network of friends around the world who often house Matt during his journeys.
Christine Gilbert, Jack (White), Molly (Black) © Christine Gilbert

The Challenges

Time is a universal issue for bloggers on the run. Balancing professional duties, traveling, and taking care of the inner working of their blogs isn’t easy. Add to that the poor Internet connections in a number of countries and it becomes essential to plan ahead. Christine follows a rigid schedule allowing time to write, apply for freelance jobs, and handle the social networking aspects of blogging while Matt sets aside certain days or mornings for the majority of his output.

With a heavy focus on photography, Gary struggles to upload the 50,000 images taken over the last two years. Internet connections in the Middle East have hampered him of late. Of the four bloggers, Lara has the most difficult time keeping up with the blog itself because of her heavy writing and travel schedule. Though her blog is updated regularly, her focus remains on the travel writing that pays the bills. Travel and guidebook writing sound glamorous, but come with a lot of responsibilities in a short amount of time.

Lara explains that we “essentially go to wherever the work is, so when we got an offer to do a book in Amsterdam, we rented an apartment there for about 6-8 weeks, we went to Buenos Aires for two and a half months, renting two different apartments in two different parts of town so we could get to know those places…we were on the road in Italy for 3 months researching books including one month in Milan, and now we’ve been in Australia for a while now – we did a 4 month road trip for two books – this is a huge country!”
Open Road For Location Independent Lifestyle © Lxsocon

The Technology

Twitter has been a tremendous help for Gary. Thousands of people have found his site through the micro-blogging site allowing him to improve traffic to the blog along with giving him lots of travel tips for each location he visits. Christine uses a similar strategy asking her followers (lots of travel experts) about a best plan of attack for each new location. Christine travels with an extra laptop and power cord to ensure that her work gets done on her schedule.

Lara has found that technology remains a mixed bag. Many countries have slow web connections including a reliance on dial-up in some hotels. Even countries like Italy and Australia have woefully slow connections in many establishments. Not to mention, a lack of access in the Australian Outback or country towns. Without ample time to go to Internet cafes, Lara must complete the bulk of her work in hotels, which charge very high rates. She finds it difficult to justify spending more than $20 to add one blog post. Lara and her husband prefer places like Brussels and UAE that have abundant access to free Wi-Fi.
Digital Nomad Writing Gear © RintaKumpu

The Passion

When asked about delaying or giving up blogging none of the four were considering it. Each gets a certain joy from sharing their travels with others. Gary finds that in the big scheme of things blogging is pretty easy. Both Gary and Christine pondered about the life cycle of a blog especially after the trip ends. The former found that the problem with many blogs was a lack of updates or a total abandonment whereas Christine wondered about transforming a blog that focuses on trip reports into other avenues such as multi-author blogs. For Lara and Christine, getting paid for their travel writing has left a sense that no end was near for their travels or blogs. The same is true for Matt who recently dropped anchor in Taiwan after an extended stay in Thailand.

Though none of the bloggers have been recognized on the road in connection with their blogs, Lara and Terry had a touching moment when several travelers in Dubai recognized their photos from the Lonely Planet guidebooks. In fact, three groups of people in a carpet shop all recognize and approach them. They’d all been using their books and loved them and had great feedback – one woman from Australia was on holiday, another was a Scandinavian girl, and a third was a German girl that had moved to Dubai and was using the books to get to know the city. “That was funny. And sweet. It’s nice to be recognized and nice to hear people appreciate all the hard work we put into writing the books.”

Read more about being location independent or a digital nomad.

Follow On Twitter

Gary @EverywhereTrip
Lara @laradunston
Christine @almostfearless
Matt @nomadicmatt
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Gennaro Salamone is the founder and editor of Enduring Wanderlust. Feel free to contact him with questions, comments, or inquiries with reference to contributing an article or photograph for publication.

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