• Meta-Blogging

    Quality Content, Dream Jobs, and the BlogHouse

    Lately, I’ve been thinking about content creation, content creators, and what I want to do with my life. I started thinking seriously about these topics earlier this month at TBEX, and, more importantly, at the BlogHouse. You probably remember me talking about TBEX — the largest travel blogging conference in the world, which bills itself as “the future of new media” — and Navigate Media Group‘s BlogHouse — an opportunity for up-and-coming junior bloggers (like me!) to live with established senior bloggers for three days of intensive group workshops and one-on-one mentoring. If you don’t remember me talking about TBEX and the BlogHouse, you clearly don’t follow me on twitter,…

  • Tea Tuesday

    DAVID’s TEA is trendy and I am an old grump

    Last week I was in Toronto at TBEX (the largest travel blogging conference in the world) and the #BlogHouse where I spent a lot of time talking to people about travel blogging. And tea. Every time I told someone about my blog, I would say, I write about travel — my personal travel narrative to be exact — and I also write about tea. Because TBEX is a travel blogging conference no one is impressed by how many countries I’ve visited or my chosen lifestyle, but everyone was surprised when I mentioned tea. And everyone had an opinion. My conversations with other bloggers went a lot like this: “You blog…

  • Meta-Blogging

    Upcoming (Mis)Adventures!

    Remember my first blog post? Well this is my 100th! What?! I know, I’m excited, too. You know what else I’m excited about? My travel plans for the month of May! After six weeks spent crisscrossing New England (Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont), I’m heading a bit farther afield by going on a… Road Trip! On May 10th, I’m heading down to DC to meet up with two of my best friends from college and begin a week-long road trip to Miami! Places we intend to stop along the way (but which are subject to change and subject to your input, fair reader) include: Williamsburg, VA Virginia Beach,…

  • That Time I Studied Abroad

    Fleeting Encounters Over Tea

    There was an old woman listening in on our conversation. Or, maybe she wasn’t listening to us so much as simply noticing us. We were an odd-looking group, I suppose: two white women, barely older than teenagers, speaking jovial English with a Lebanese man in his early 30’s. We were in Perpignan at the time — a small city in Southern France. Noticeable, if not notable. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but we were in the courtyard of the Palais des Rois de Majorque (Palace of the Kings of Majorca). We smiled at the old woman when we noticed her noticing us, and she felt emboldened to…