You know how sometimes you find yourself smack dab in the middle of a group of people … everything seems to have come together for a reason and things just generally click?
Man, I love that.
If you are a regular reader, you might have noticed My Bella Vita’s newest series, Experiencing Italy, written by guest travel bloggers and published every Wednesday here on MBV.
What you might not know, is that there are seven other travel blogging series rotating in the blogosphere on seven other sites.
As I type … .
Lisa at Wanderlust Women’s Travel Dreams is hosting a Sunday Soul series where bloggers write about their favorite way to spend a Sunday alone while Robin of My Melangè is asking bloggers about their favorite French Experience. In fact, I’ve already written on both of those sites … you can hear all about my favorite way to spend a Sunday in Catanzaro Lido or have a glimpse into my life as an expat in Paris.
Mike of Fevered Mutterings is asking what people miss by not traveling, Abi of Cheap Weekend Breaks wants to know about well, cheap weekend breaks, Cecil from Travel Feeder is interested in our favorite city and Danielle from When in Rome Tours wants to hear even more about the bel paese.
Through the Experiencing Italy series, you’ve already heard from Danielle and Laura and by the end of the series you’ll have heard from the whole group.
But what was really interesting to me, as the group began to take form, brainstorm topics and exchange ideas, was the realization of just how intimate the travel blogging world is. Unknown to me, Laura and Lisa are (gasp!) real-life friends who met on one of Lisa’s trips to the Amalfi Coast. Danielle and Laura are now teaming up for some of their tourism efforts and Mike and Abi are regular twitter friends.
But it doesn’t stop there. Mike, who initiated the round robin-type series idea is a longtime friend of southern Italy’s own, Katja of Driving Like a Maniac and winner of several of the Blogging from the Boot awards I co-hosted earlier this year. Speaking of those awards, my co-host Tina has now set up shop in Puglia and too, has met, that crazy-drivin’ expat, Katja. Mike is planning a trip to Italy this summer and wants to swing by Umbria to meet one of my favorite expats in Italy, Judith, of Think on It!
I was telling all of this to Mike, who echoed my respect for the travel blogging world and at how helpful and generous these bloggers are with their time, ideas and projects.
I feel lucky to be part of this group.
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I look forward to spoiling any and all of my favorite bloggers! Between Couchsurfing and Bloglines, I feel like I am connected with half the world. Nicely so, too.
I’d spoil you, too, if you ever came to Calabria! 🙂
That Fevered Mutterings chap doesn’t half get around. Mind you, that’s no bad thing.
When I first came to Italy, and was hopelessly homesick and miserable, I found a rich seam of support online, through the Italy bloggers. At first I was quite shy of commenting, and just read. However, one day I went onto Facebook and discovered that Mike was already FB friends with a whole lot of people whose blogging I’d admired from afar. Suddenly the world got a whole lot smaller and less scary, I leapt in with the comments and – well, here we all are!
Speaking of the Blogging from the Boot competition (as you were), I met Georgette last weekend in Florence, too, I will, of course, be blogging it all in due course, ‘cos that’s what I do. I look forward to hopefully meeting you at some point too, Cherrye!
Yea for Mike! I’m glad you came our your shell, Kate. It is tough getting adjusted to life in southern Italy. I hope we can meet up, too.
.-= Katja | Driving Like a Maniac´s last blog ..On littering and lion tamers =-.
Tch. Trust me to miss a prime opportunity to bask in how wonderful I am. Well, I’ll just have to bask belatedly.
*basks*
Okay okay, enough of that. Ahem.
That’s the joy of the travel-blogging community: it’s one great big extended family. Oh, you know Such-&-Such? That’s amazing – she’s friends with Wotsit who is the other half of Thingy, and *they’re* best friends with This Lad and That Lass. Not for nothing has it been described as an online global village. And I like that. It’s a fitting metaphor – and it’s a delight to go somewhere ‘exotic’ (I use the word as a Brit does, to refer to anything beyond the White Cliffs of Dover) and be able to bump into someone you’ve been chatting with for years.
Too much fun.
It is fun-I just *love* when I see people I “know” in a new place. It’s like a virtual water cooler!
.-= Mikeachim´s last blog ..Thanks for Failing, Doctor Beeching =-.
Oh, and that Abi and that Judith and that Katja? They’re trouble, those three.
In the friendly sense, of course.
But definitely trouble.
Yea, total trouble. I’m actually avoiding them at all costs. 😉
.-= Mikeachim´s last blog ..Thanks for Failing, Doctor Beeching =-.