Heather on her travels has moved

If you've been following my blog, you'll know that I've now moved my travel blog to a new location at Heatheronhertravels.com. But if you're a new visitor, please do come on over and see all the archive and new posts I'm putting up there. As well as my travel blog I have a new section called my blogging journey about how I set up and develop my blog. If you're still subscribing at this address, please do change your subscription to my new location at Heatheronhertravels.com. I'd hate for you to miss out!

Time Out supports Passports with Purpose

If you're a Travel Blogger or Travel Blog reader, I'm sure that you'll have heard by now about Passports with Purpose, a charity raffle being supported by Travel bloggers around the world, to raise money for Heifer International, a charity working at grass roots level to beat poverty and hunger.

Read more of this article over at my new travel blog at Heatheronhertravels.com

If you're still a subscriber at this address, do switch your subscription over to my new address at Heatheronhertravels.com

Lonely Planet supports Passports with Purpose

I hope you'll have heard about Passports with Purpose by now, not only from me but from all the other travel bloggers who have been publicising this charity raffle on their blogsites. If you haven't bought your tickets yet, do check out all the fab prizes here and then go to First Giving here to buy your tickets. It's all in a good cause of Heifer International, a charity that fights poverty and hunger at grass roots level all over the Developing World.

I've already told you about my prizes of not one but two Christmas Hampers of Travel Inspiration, with guides and stationary to kick off your travel planning for the year ahead. To thank my sponsors, I'll be telling you a little more about their products over the next week or two, in case you need some more ideas for your Christmas list.

Read more of this article on my new travel blog at Heatheronhertravels.com

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Heather on her travels around the web in November

As I'm extending my writing to a few other places around the blogsphere, I thought I'd give you a quick round up of some other articles I wrote in November. I've been doing a weekly post every week on a Thursday over at Europe a la Carte, so here are the highlights.

Read more of this article on my new travel blog at Heatheronhertravels.com

Fantastic raffle prizes at Passports with Purpose

You'll also find this article over at my new blog at Heatheronhertravels.com

I'm so pleased to be supporting the launch today of Passports with Purpose a charity raffle in aid of Heifer International. For me December is the start of advent and the build up to Christmas, a time when we enjoy the company of our loved ones and appreciate the important things in life.

As travellers, many of us have seen at first hand that others around the world can't rely on the things we take for granted like a nice home, education and healthcare. Heifer International is an organisation that works at grassroots level to address hunger and poverty and it would be wonderful if our Christmas giving could extend to include those throughout the world who need our help.

Today Travel Bloggers all around the world are launching the Passports with Purpose raffle with some fantastic prizes and all the proceeds going to Heifer International. The prize that I'm going to tell you about is only one of many being offered through the efforts of Travel Bloggers and the Sponsors who have donated prizes. Tickets are $10 each and can be bought through Firstgiving here, but first let me tell you about my raffle prizes which have been donated by Lonely Planet, Time Out, Alastair Sawdays, Paperblanks, Pocketcomms and Indus Films.

I'm calling my prize a Christmas Hamper of Travel Inspiration with books, guides and stationary to inspire your Travel plans for 2009 and years to come, and I have not one but two of these hampers of travel inspiration to offer. This is what you'll get if you win one of these great prizes;

Christmas Hamper of Travel Inspiration number 1 - you'll get all of the following

Lonely Planet The Travel Book, a wonderful coffee table book packed full of photos and travel inspiration from countries all over the world and guaranteed to give you itchy feet.

Two Alastair Sawdays guides to Special Places to stay - these are guides to independently owned small hotels and guest houses which are special because of their attention to design, idyllic surroundings and a warm welcome for their guests. As you look at all the wonderful photos and descriptions you'll be dreaming of that cosy cave hotel in Cappadocia or the converted windmill on the Greek Island of Milos. You can choose two from the following guides; Turkey, Greece, Croatia, Green Places and English B & Bs.

Five Time Out City Guides - (yes that's not one but five) You can choose whichever five city guides you want from the Time Out City Guide collection, written by locals with an insider's perspective on all the best things to see and do in each location. This could be some great holiday reading to kick off your travel planning for next year.

Two Paperblanks Dayplanner 2009 diaries (one for you, one for your loved one?) in gorgeous covetable designs, to start to fill with your holiday plans. There are five designs you can choose from, and I'm also offering some more Paperblanks Dayplanners as a bonus prize if you read on.

A handy Pocketcomms communication aid with pocket sized pictures to help you communicate, even when you're stuck for words (What's I'm allergic to shellfish in Hindustani?)

Christmas Hamper of Travel Inspiration number 2

You'll get all the prizes listed above, except that..

Instead of the Lonely Planet Travel Book you'll get a DVD set of the Bruce Parry BBC Amazon series, following the incredible journey Bruce took through the Amazon Basin. I love seeing Bruce interact with all the different groups he meets, from the indigenous people who are fighting to protect the rainforest, to the loggers, gold prospectors and cocaine growers who are all trying to make a living around the Amazon. This prize was kindly donated by Indus Films who co-produced the Amazon series. (It works on UK DVDs but maybe not on US ones, but if you have no way to view it through a laptop, you can return it to me and I'll buy you another travel DVD - I just love to see Bruce in his tribal body paint)

Also, in this hamper you get three of the Alastair Sawdays Special Places to Stay Guides listed above.

How to buy your raffle ticket
By now I hope you'll be itching to head over to First Giving and buy raffle tickets for yourself and all your travel loving friends and family. But first take a look at all the other raffle prizes, as when you buy your ticket you'll be asked to specify your first choice of prize. Once you've selected your prize or prizes, go to First Giving to make your raffle donation. For each ten dollar donation you make, you'll be entered into the raffle for the prize you've selected. The winners will be drawn and notified via e-mail on December 30th and you can see all the details on the Passports with Purpose web-page.

Now for my Special Bonus prize. As Paperblanks have been kind enough to send me a whole box of their gorgeous dayplanner diaries, I have a further 18 to give away. So the first 18 people who head over to First giving to buy at least one ticket ( don't mind if it's my prize or one of the others) and then notify me through the comments over at my new blog, I will also send a Paperblanks dayplanner. That's on top of any prize you may win in the raffle.

So that's it folks - I hope I've convinced you to spread some Christmas cheer by heading over to First Giving to get your tickets and support Heifer International. A big thanks to Debbie, Pam, Beth and Michelle who came up with the great idea and have been working so hard behind the scenes to make it all work and also to my sponsors, Lonely Planet, Time Out, Alastair Sawdays, Paperblanks, Pocketcomms and Indus Films. I'll be thanking them all over the coming couple of weeks with more detailed reviews of their products, in case you're looking for any more ideas for your Christmas stockings.

Here's all the links again
The Passports with Purpose webpage
Heifer International
Details of all the Prizes
Buy your ticket at FirstGiving

PS If you're a travel blogger who is also offering a prize, let me know in the comments over at my new blog, as I'll be doing a round-up in a later post of all the prizes on offer

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Choosing my Wordpress Theme

In order to start my new blog at Heatheronhertravels.com, I need to choose a Wordpress theme and I'm finding it rather confusing. A theme is simply some software that you download that determines the visual look of your blog, and it's important to give it some thought, because it's a real pain to change later, as I'm finding out. Because Wordpress is an Open Source software (that means any developer can create related software), there's a whole industry out there in creating Wordpress themes.

Finding a theme
Some themes can be used if you're hosting your blog on Wordpress - you can find these at Wordpress.com. Others are only available if you're self-hosting your blog, and in this case you should start at Wordpress.org where you can find all the free ones. They're categorised in various ways, for instance by the number of columns or colours used. After a while you notice that most Wordpress Theme developers also have their own websites where they offer other themes that you have to pay for, and it's worth exploring these too.

I also started looking a lot more closely at the themes used by other travel bloggers and at the bottom of the page, there's usually a link to tell you what theme they're using. If not, you an always e-mail them to ask.

Cut through the confusion
This is where it started to become confusing, as there are thousands of themes out there, so I decided to fall back on some Project Management techniques to help me make sense of it all. In the early stages of any project you always define your requirements. This means making a list of all the things you require from your blog, and also thinking about what other users of your blog will require.

For instance an advertiser, reader and blog writer may all have different requirements and you should try to address them all. Ideally you should ask your readers and advertisers what they think, but if that's impractical, you can put yourself in their shoes. Once you have your list of requirements, you can use it to narrow down your list of themes to those that will best meet your requirements.

My requirements as a blog writer
- Good support and a user community who can help me get the best out of my theme
- Built by a reputable developer who will respond to questions
- A header with a picture at the top that I can change from time to time
- Potential to expand into a magazine style website over time
- Clean and simple look to showcase colourful photographs and content
- I like to see blue in the theme as it reminds me of exotic destinations with blue sea and sky
- Layout to support adding advertising and commercial activity to my site, probably a 3 column theme
- I don't mind paying for the right theme

My requirements as a blog reader
- Easy to find the latest post
- Easy navigation through tabs at the top
- I prefer to see the full post immediately, rather than just the first few lines
- Light rather than dark backgrounds
- Easy to find destination information
- Easy to search the blog for topics

Requirements of an advertiser
- Blog looks professional and is easy to use
- Blog will attract and retain readership
- Information on how to advertise and rates
- Adverts are displayed prominantly and look attractive
- Adverts are relevant to content to encourage readers to click on them

Listing my requirements helped me narrow down the potential themes to a shortlist.

Here's my shortlist
Clockwork Mint by Łukasz Sobek
Zigzag3 by Sadish Balasubramanian
Palnila by Sadish Balasubramanian
Seashore by Sadish Balasubramanian
Revolution Lifestyle by Brian Gardner

So can you guess which one's my favourite? Which would you choose if you were me?

Related Posts
My blogging journey
Tips to keep readers on your blog

Useful links
Here's a useful video at BecomeaBlogger.com on choosing your Wordpress theme

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Some tips to keep readers on your blog

I've been blogging about travel for a year now and although I'm no techie guru, there are a few things I've been trying out recently, to reduce my bounce rate and keep readers on my blog. Being a sharing kind of person, I thought I'd pass on these tips, for those of you just embarking on your blogging journey.

Minimise your Bounce
When I started, I just wanted to make some record of my travels and share them with whoever was interested. If this is where you are, then I'm sure you'll want your readers to explore the best of what you've posted and enjoy it to the full.

A year down the line, I'm thinking of my blog as a way of generating some financial reward for the time and energy I put in, so building and retaining a readership is becoming increasingly important. If this is where you are, then you may need to attract and retain readers to maximise advertising revenue and create credibility for yourself as a writer and blogger.

Either way, you'll want to minimise your 'bounce' - in other words you don't want readers to arrive at your site and bounce straight off it. You want them to stay a while, read a few posts and hopefully be interested enough to become a regular reader and subscriber.

Monitor your traffic
The first step to retaining your readers is knowing where they came from and what has attracted them to your blog. Free tools that I use to help me with this are Google Analytics and Sitemeter which give me statistics on different aspects of my readership. If you don't already have these or something similar, you should install them - it's quick, easy and free.

Before you start, ensure that you set the account settings in Sitemeter to exclude visits from your own computer, otherwise you will get a false picture of your readership - it may just be you!

The first thing that surprised me from analysing my traffic was that almost 30% in the last month is from search engines and 55% from referring sites. So only 15% are those faithful readers stopping by read my latest post. The vaste majority are people searching for information on a particular destination or being referred from another site. If you're not careful they could read one article and bounce straight off into the blogsphere. To stop this happening, these are the steps I've taken on my own blog;

My Tips
1. Reduce the links to external websites early on in the article and try to put them nearer the end of the post, so that the reader is more likely to read through my post before bouncing off.

2. Increase the links to other posts in my blog, to encourage the reader to explore what else I've written.

3. Add a list of three or so Related Posts to the bottom of each article (that's posts from my own blog of course), to encourage the reader to explore other things on my blog that might interest them. This sometimes means going back to an older post to add in new related posts.

4. Add a Back to Home button at the bottom of each post. This means that a reader who lands on a specific post that I might have written a while ago can easily get to my most recent posts.

5. When you create a link, ensure that it opens in a new window, so that the reader can easily close it to return to your post. Some platforms give you an option to do this when you create the link but in Blogger you have to add a bit of code target="_blank" into your link as explained here

6. Establish a mental pecking order for links that will take the reader away from my post as follows;
a) Links to other posts within my blog
b) Links to my Flick photo site
c) Links to other bloggers who have helped me or are worthy of a mention
d) Links to sites that will give the reader further useful information about the topic

7. If I see that a lot of traffic is being directed to a particular post, for instance because people are searching for information in Google, then I go back and ensure that I've followed all these steps for that post.

8. Not forgetting that the biggest thing that will keep your readers on your Blog is interesting and informative articles that keep them coming back for more.

They're all easy tips that just require a little regular housekeeping and hopefully will reduce that itchy finger syndrome. Perhaps they don't all apply to you but will encourage you to consider how you can turn a one-off hit to someone who takes a journey through your blog. As I said, I'm far from expert in this area, so please share with me any tips you use to keep your readers on your blog for longer.

Related Posts
My blogging journey

Useful links
Google Analytics
Sitemeter

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Thanks to Sean Drelinger and Brian for their photos on Flickr

At the Travel Blog Camp in London

This week I spent a couple of days in London, attending the World Travel Market for the first time and spending a very enjoyable evening at the Travel Blog Camp, organised by Darren from Travel Rants.

It was a get together at a London pub of around 80 travel bloggers, folk from the online travel industry and people with a PR interest in what's going on in the blogging world. I was excited to meet some of the faces behind the blogs I regularly follow, as there seem to so few of us in the UK, compared with so many in the US and around the world. I linked up with Karen from Europe a la Carte, where I've recently joined the blogging team, posting every Thursday. I spotted Guido from the Happy Hotelier who was taking enough photos to start a Blogger's society page. I also chatted to Caitlin from Roaming Tales who has also written a nice summary of the evening on her blog.


Read more of this article on my new travel blog at Heatheronhertravels.com

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Heather on her travels around the Blogsphere

In an effort at shameless self-promotion I'd like to let you know about the places that Heather on her travels has recently been featured around the Blogsphere.

I've been a regular reader of Monna's blog Teacher Meets World for a while now and we've exchanged guest posts here and here. Monna's recently launched a new blog called Slow Blogs, celebrating blogs that are well-written, authentic and not overly commercial. I was honoured to be featured on the site this week here. It's always nice to know that someone is reading and appreciating those random ramblings that I throw out into the blogsphere - thanks for your kind words Monna!

Read more of this article on my new travel blog at Heatheronhertravels.com

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Where are all the female travel presenters?

Ok, I'm not normally the sort of person to rant. But after having watched yet another TV travel documentary hosted by a middle-aged male presenter, I feel I must nail my colours to the mast on behalf of womankind.

This autumn the UK screens seem to be awash with travel documentaries. Last night it was writer and comedian Stephen Fry tootling around America in his oh so very British London taxi. Then writer and comedian Paul Merton was in India trying out his batting at a cricket club for the blind. Competing with him on the same night was writer and comedian Gryff Rhys Jones trying to sing Gospel in New York as part of his Greatest cities of the World series. Can you see a pattern emerging? Is there a conspiracy out there to get all the aging male comedians on our screens in one week and then flog us their coffee table book for Christmas?

I blame Michael Palin, the grand-daddy of them all for starting the trend. I'll even admit to having his videos and books on my shelf.

But where are all the female TV travel presenters? I'm longing to see some attractive and intrepid gal getting up to something adventurous in somewhere exotic. My husband is getting fed up of hearing me moan about it too. The closest we've got recently is Tribal Wives, where the formula is to take an English women in need of a life change to stay with a remote community and then line them up for a prospective romance with some unfortunate local. No stereotypes there then!

I'll make an exception of course for Bruce Parry, who brings a charming if slightly mad brand of enthusiasm to everything he does. I can't forget the sight of him leaping naked over a row of cattle in an initiation ceremony in Ethiopia. And at the prospect of taking the halucinogenic drug Ayahuasca, which will make him vomit uncontrollably before giving him wierd dreams, he can't wait!

When I was in Ecuador our guide told us a fairy tale of two travellers who mysteriously disappeared into the rainforest. But unlike Hansel and Gretel there was no happy ending. Eventually it was discovered that they had died after overdosing on Ayahuasca but the locals had hidden their bodies for fear of the trouble they'd be in. After that I decided to pass on the Ayahuasca.

Then there are those Medicine Men, the identical twins Chris and Xand, with such a lovely bedside manner. They agonise over whether they should treat sick children using western medicine or leave them to the herbal remedies of the local shaman. The scene where they found a tapeworm in a piece of roasted monkey was especially appetising.

But there's something missing for me - where are all the adventurous female TV travel presenters? I know the women travellers are out there because I read their blogs. But why aren't they on TV?

Here's my vision for the next hit TV travel series.

Intrepid lady sets off to explore the unspoiled wildernesses, penetrate into the deepest rainforest, stay with the nomadic peoples of the desert and bring us her stories from a woman's point of view. No powerful motorbikes or other boys toys will be involved!

Or how about this scenario?

Hip and gorgeous babe scours cities from Istanbul to Marakesh, Berlin to Beijing, searching out the most secret and cool haunts with the help of the local blogger in each location. By the way, I'm past thinking of myself as that hip and gorgeous babe, but I could always be her fixer.

What do you think? Any collaborators out there?

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My blogging journey

It's nearly a year since I started blogging after an amazing trip to Ecuador last October re-awakened my long held love of travel and I started looking for ways to share my travel experiences.

In the real world (as opposed to the parallel internet universe) I am a project manager, working on contracts of 3-9 months. Recently some down time between contracts has given me the opportunity to think about where I want to go with this travel writing/blogging thing. A chance encounter with some excellent videos from Yaro Starak on becomeablogger.com has made me think that I ought to put a bit more effort into professionalising my blog and perhaps recoup some financial rewards from my efforts.

Although I already have a good day job, I've alternated in the past between steady employment and running my own business. I could see myself in the future as a portfolio worker with one steady income stream and other projects building up to become the income streams of the future. Ten years from now I'd like to be writing this from a cool ecolodge or sunny hotel terrace rather than my kitchen table with the dishwasher humming in the background.

In order to achieve this goal I plan to explore how my blog can become an income stream for me over time. The first steps I believe are to;

• Move from my Blogger format to a professional looking website at heatheronhertravels.com


• Invest some time and energy in building up my readership


• Introduce advertising to my website

If your first reaction is No No please no Google ads!, then that was my starting point too. But most serious bloggers who don't try out this route are making money in other ways such as showcasing their work as a writer or promoting their guest house.

It all sounds so straightforward but after an hour spent puzzling over Wordpress themes I realise it will be a steep learning curve and take lots of hard work. I'm not setting any timescales, as if I get a 9 to 5 contract next week the project will probably grind to a temporary halt.

In the longer term, I'm hoping that having a successful travel blog will give me opportunities to explore my love of travel in ways I haven't even thought of yet.

If you've made this blogging journey before me, I'd really appreciate your help and tips. If you've found some great resources and articles, or even written them yourself, please let me know through the comments or by e-mail. And if you have any do's and don'ts that were learned the hard way, I'd love to hear them. Thanks a million!

P.S. Don't worry, I'll continue to post as often as I can about my travels and adventures wherever I go.

Blogging resources I've found so far
Becomeablogger.com
entrepreneurs-journey.com
dailyblogtips.com

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Friday photo - my Indian sponsor child

Today I'm joining in with the Friday photo over at Delicious Baby to bring you a picture with a story behind it.

I've also picked up on the theme of Blog Action Day which this year was on the theme of poverty. I believe that our individual actions can make a tremendous differerence to families across the world and have a ripple effect in inspiring others to do the same. What goes around, comes around as they say and sometimes the difference it makes can be to you too.



This is how I began sponsoring a child in India. An Indian priest, Father Pratap Reddy, visited my church some years ago and made an appeal for people to sponsor the education of children in his parish. We had been blessed with three children and wanted to spread our happiness around a little. We offered to become sponsors and over the years we received pictures and news of Thirumula Sagar and saw him growing up just as our children were too.


Read more of this article on my new travel blog at Heatheronhertravels.com

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Guest Post - Nomadic Matt visits Penzance

While Matt Kepnes was visiting us last week, I persuaded him to write me a guest post on something he'd enjoyed while travelling in the UK. You can find Matt's other travel tips, hints and photos on his website Nomadic Matt's travel site.

While I was in Cornwall, I was fortunate enough to visit to Penzance, a coastal town in western England. Penzance is famous for being near St. Michael’s Mount, a historic church built on an island in the harbor. It’s similar to that of Mont St Michel in Northern France.

My friends and I spent the day driving through the English countryside. I’m in love with the English countryside. Rolling green hills, grazing farm animals, and the occasional house conjure up images of a simple and relaxed lifestyle. Everything is so green, so peaceful, and so picturesque. Every train ride, every car ride sees me staring out the window in awe. The English countryside is my favorite thing about England.


Read more of this article on my new travel blog at Heatheronhertravels.com

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A visit from Nomadic Matt

For a couple of days last week we hosted Matt, a fellow blogger and traveller who I met though the internet. Matt has developed a great website called Nomadic Matt's Travel site with tips, tales and photos from his travels and was in the UK for a few weeks on his European tour, so I invited him to call in and see us in Bristol.

As you'd expect, Matt is a pretty relaxed and experienced traveller and it was interesting to compare notes on our different approaches to travel. I discovered that while I might study the guide book avidly and make a mental list of places to see, Matt's approach is to turn up, get a map and then wander around wherever the fancy took him. I noticed that he still managed to take in all the major sites of interest but they came to him as a charming surprise as if he was the first person to stumble upon them.

I asked Matt to share with me the things he had enjoyed most while visiting Bristol and it's picturesque cousin, Bath and here is his list;


Read more of this article on my new travel blog at Heatheronhertravels.com

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Carnival of Europe

This month I'm delighted to host the Carnival of Europe for Karen from Europe a la Carte, who's been off on her travels in Italy.

It was fun to read so many great articles from blogs that were new to me and it took much longer than I thought as I got hooked on reading all the other interesting stuff on these blogs. Here are the best ones for your delight.

For some family fun, why not have a picnic in Parc Guell in Barcelona, among the glorious Gaudi mosaics with Debbie at Delicious Baby. If you're travelling with children you'll be interested in her city-guides with child-friendly things to do in other European destinations such as Paris, Rome and Seville.

If you're heading for Rome, find out how to eat pizza and read about some favourite restaurants in Kristie's article Rome, Italy: The Food & Drinks posted at Culture Shock. Like Kristie, when we were in Rome recently, we found some great new places to eat and some that were well reviewed in the guidebooks but didn't make the grade for us.

If you enjoy ski-ing there are plenty of smaller ski resorts in Europe that are worth visiting for a day or two if you're travelling in the area. My sister often visits northern Greece, a country known more for beaches than ski-ing, over Christmas and Year for the mountain scenery and the local ski resorts. In this spirit Ultimate Vacation Guide visits the Cairngorms in Scotland for a day's ski-ing and lunch at the highest restaurant in Scotland.

However, if your idea of the perfect holiday is to drift down the river admiring castles and vineyards, then you may be interested in this post at The Cruise Info Center, which suggests a few alternatives for river cruises through Europe on the Rhine, Danube or Scottish Lochs.

Always a source of great travel tips on a minimal budget, Less Than a Shoestring shows us how cheaply it is possible to travel in this post on Baring My Budget: Madrid and Barcelona. The post gives plenty of ideas for free things to do in Madrid, Barcelona and Girona in a trip which costed a mere €150.

One of my favourite museums in Paris, the Musee d'Orsay, which always seems more accessible and manageable than the Louvre was featured in this post at The Earthly Paradise. If you're artistically inclined, you'll find some other interesting posts about the decorative arts in Paris and the interesting places Margaret visited on her trip there - I loved the look of those pink macaroons at Duree.

Finally, I hope you'll indulge me if I mention a couple of other posts from my own blog. Firstly, take a look at a guest post on my blog entitled Teacher meets Europe by Monna from the Teacher meets world blog, in which Monna visits different European destinations and muses on what each of them has taught her.

In exchange I did a guest post on Monna's blog on Memories of travelling and Rome, based on my two holidays in Rome, one at the age of seven and my more recent holiday with my own son in April. If you want to see my old family snaps of Rome from the 60's this is your chance.

And if you need any more inspiration to plan your next trip, read the 10 Inspirational Travel Quotations posted at Travelers stories - my favourite is;

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page
St. Augustine

I hope you enjoyed the Carnival of Europe and next month it will be back to Europe a la Carte as usual on 7 July. Do submit your blog articles on travelling in Europe by 30 June using the carnival submission form.

Thanks to Loops San, wwwlicious and tgraham for the photos on Flickr.

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Valencia re-visited with the Amateur Traveler

I was thrilled to record an interview with Chris Christensen of the Amateur Traveler Podcast last week to tell him all about our visit to Valencia. The podcast has just been published on Amateur Traveler, so do head over here to listen.

Each week Chris publishes a new show on the internet with some travel related news and resources as well as an interview with a fellow traveller about somewhere they have visited. You can listen to the podcast via your computer or download it to listen at leisure on your i-pod or MP3 player.

Read more of this article on my new travel blog at Heatheronhertravels.com

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Guest Blog - Teacher Meets Europe

Today I'm trying a new experiment - a Guest blog exchange - a bit like a house swap. I'm pleased to welcome my new blogging friend Monna, a Canadian on the loose in Barcelona, who blogs at Teacher meets World. And in return she's hosting me today as a guest blogger on her site - so when you've finished here, head over to her site to read my post on Memories of Travelling and Rome. I know you'll enjoy Monna's insights on what different cities she's visited have taught her.

Teacher meets Europe by Monna McDiarmid
I grew up in rural Canada, in a community so small that there were more animals than people, where we did not have a stop light or even a proper intersection. From my bedroom on this tiny pin-point on earth, I yearned for Europe.

At the time, mine was a storybook longing for castles, dragons and lovely golden-haired girls rescued by brave knights. Later, my longings grew to include the homelands of favourite authors, famous cathedrals and beloved paintings. With Scottish and Irish heritage, I wanted to go "home".


Read more of this article on my new travel blog at Heatheronhertravels.com

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Vote for me in the Best of Blogs award

I'm thrilled to find that I'm down to the last ten in the travel/leisure section at Best of Blogs award. So if you enjoy my blog, do head over here and vote for me.

Some blogging collaborations

Not content with posting on Heather on her travels, I've been putting myself about the blogsphere these last couple of weeks in collaborations with other bloggers, which you might like to check out.

Firstly thanks to Karen from Europe a la Carte for featuring my post on cycling in the Turia Gardens in Valencia on the May Carnival of Europe. There was plenty of other good stuff too - I particularly enjoyed the post on Five most unusual buildings including three in Europe - the pictures have to be seen to believed.

Shannon from Travelling Mamas also wrote about her trip to see Stonehenge, not too far from me, and she obviously felt as disappointed at the crowds and the theme park atmosphere as I felt on my visit to the Colisseum in Rome. As locals we don't feel the need to visit these places because they are so overcrowded and 'touristy' yet when in the area as visitors we feel we can't go home without ticking them off our list.

Karen's also asked me to cover the Carnival of Europe for her while she's off on her travels in Italy, so next month the Carnival will come to you from Heather on her travels. I've already had some great stuff sent to me but please keep the posts coming on anything to do with travel in Europe (by Sunday 25 May) and I'll be posting the best ones on 2nd June. You can make your submissions here.

I've also been in collaboration this week with Kim from Wild about Travel + Writing blog. Kim's currently in South Africa and she featured some ideas in this post for offbeat things to do in South Africa from her book, Offbeat South Africa - the travel guide to the wacky and wonderful.

Kim also featured ideas for offbeat things to do around the world in this post, including my ideas for following the Slave Trail around Bristol. You can also go Yarn tasting in California, explore the waterways around Lisbon, go kayaking in Manhattan and go for a pub crawl in Edinburgh.

I have a few more collaborations in the pipeline but I'll let you know once they're posted on the web in the next few weeks.

Thanks to Leesean, Rob Ball, and magro_kr on Flickr for the photos.

Grazie Mille for the carnival mentions

I'm still catching up with myself after my recent trip to Rome, so forgive me if I've only just got round to saying Grazie for a couple of mentions I got in the last few weeks on various Blog carnivals.

My post about a contemplative lunch at Bristol Cathedral was featured on the Carnival of Travellers at Flyaway cafe for their theme on local attractions.

Among the other posts featured I enjoyed Ester Garvi's on the Baobab forest in Nigeria where she works as part of the Eden Foundation. On exploring some of her other posts, I felt very humbled to read about the work being done to improve agriculture in this arid area and the sense of fun and fellowship of the local people of the Tanout region.

I also enjoyed wandering around the Cathedral square in Strasbourg with Christine from Me, my kid and life - it looks like the sort of place that would be great for a winter break. Before I knew it I was checking out how I could get there from Bristol and whether they have a Christmas market.

Keep your eyes peeled for the May carnival of Travellers from Flyaway Cafe which will be on the theme of local events.

Thanks also to the Carnival of Cities hosted at Family Travel which included my post about the Bullfighting museum in Valencia.

I enjoyed reading one of the featured posts from Innovative Traveller on why people should not be terrified of travelling with children. Travelling with children is a dilemma I struggle with, especially as my teenagers would often rather be at home with their friends - I wrote about it here. I've concluded that it's impossible to satisfy everyone, so you have to compromise or go without them, which is now becoming more of a possibility as they get older.

Thanks to mooncross on Flickr for the photo of Strasbourg.