BlogHer

The Magnificent Mile

Last night, in the dense humidity, I strolled the Magnificent Mile with a friend. There are some cool things about the promenade — the wacky giant sculpture of the couple in American Gothic, the splendid, almost Venetian water tower, the flower beds, and, of course, the never ending display of humans. The strapping lad in …


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The TBEX Road Trip

Tomorrow morning, I’m hitting the highway with two other bloggers — the Kelly half of Travellious and Peter of The Carey Adventures. Our destination? Chicago for BlogHer and The Travelblog Exchange. I’m excited to be doing cool stuff at both events. At BlogHer I’m on a panel with three other bloggers (Roz, Nancy, and Angel); …


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A Travelblogging Community

You’d have to be blogging from underneath a rock (or be blissfully disconnected from blognews) to not know that BlogHer was last weekend. If you’re a regular reader of Nerd’s Eye View, you know that I didn’t go. The first reason I didn’t go was because I felt like the offerings were insufficiently enticing for …


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Travelbloggers at BlogHer

This coming weekend is the BlogHer conference, a huge gathering of women (and yes, some guys) with opinions and Internet connectivity. About a month back – I think it was a month back – I’d finally made up my mind not to attend. There are a bunch of small complicated reasons – my dislike of large crowds, a program that doesn’t resonate with me, too much girly girl stuff on the edges. That’s all my point of view, your mileage/interpretation may vary and all that.

The bigger reasons, the ones that ultimately kept me from booking a flight were simple. The only travel event on the schedule is a 40 minute meet-up. Combine that with a price tag of about 800 dollars. That’s with my contributing editor pass – those who write for the site get to attend the conference for free. A nice perk, truly, given the 300+ fee. I have, without hesitation, ADORED (in all caps) meeting my fellow travelbloggers, but I think you understand that 800 dollars to hang out with you for 40 minutes is a little steep.


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On BlogHer: Next Year in Kaliningrad Oblast

For about two years, I’ve blogged about travel for BlogHer, the women’s blogging network. I started as a volunteer writing about Europe while I was in Austria – I was bored and lonely, it seemed like a good use of my time. I tendered my resignation once, shortly after I’d returned to the US, but the landscape had shifted at BlogHer and the travel slot was open – I was excited to take it. Not long after I switched to writing about travel, BlogHer started paying their writers – a generous per post amount by the standards I’ve seen. While I’ve had random bouts of fatigue, in general, I’ve really enjoyed the gig. Not that long ago I dropped a line to the BlogHer founders thanking them for keeping me on, that’s how much I liked it. Writing about travel for BlogHer has been natural work, easy for me, and given my erratic work history, I’ve really appreciated the small but steady income stream. It’s been a great little gig.


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