The Freedonia Post is intended to be entertaining first, informative second. As I start my “round the world” journey in July of 2010, I wanted to have a nice way to share my photos, stories and warped sense of humor with friends, family and anyone who’s interested. It’s meant to show off what I consider the most important part of travel – the fun! So it’s usually silly, often random and always a skewed view of the world from a card carrying goofball.
After working in the tourism industry for 20 years, I decided to spend more time in my destinations than a 2 day sit and spin. My travel goals are to see the world in a deeper, more meaningful way by settling in various regions for weeks or months at a time. As much as I love visiting the icons of world travel, I’m interested in the lighter side of travel so the site is focused on the people, the customs and the strangeness of other cultures. Let’s face it, things that people do in foreign countries are just plain weird. Of course, being a scatter-brained American in unfamiliar territory means I’m the one in the comedic targets more often than not.
About me:
What do you want to know? I’m somewhere north of 40. I’m an introverted attention whore, which is a real challenge, let me tell you. I’ve worked in the tourism industry in some way for over 20 years and helped to develop some wonderful attractions. Since there’s a lot of world left to explore, I left to explore. I write, I ride a bike and I try to find the comedy in every aspect of life. If you’re interested in learning more about me, I can cut and paste from one of my old personal ads. I prefer short walks on the beach, followed by making out on a park bench.
No one’s asked any questions yet. Go ahead and start:
This is a really great concept!!! I look forward to reading more!!!
This line really resonated with me “After working in the tourism industry for 20 years, I decided to spend more time in my destinations than a 2 day sit and spin.” I just finished studying tourism in the hopes that it would let me travel but what i realised is that it doesn’t really let you travel in the sense of getting to know the real heart of a place only the heart of the 50th hotel you have seen in a day on a famil!!!
How are you planning to meet people and understand cultures? What will you do differently to actualize this goal?
Great question, Keith, and one I have a couple planned posts to address. In short:
Goal setting: I get past any shyness by having something concrete to achieve – eg. interview one local per week and profile them on the blog
Routines: as much as I’m planning my RTW to avoid the mundane, I will have regular routines – afternoon walks, morning cafe visits, bike rides. All of these will help to see the same faces and interact with the same people.
Participation: not just observing. Though I’m not religious, I will go to an evening mass in Lourdes or watch the soccer match in a pub with other revelers.
Just a teaser – I have more details to come.
How long do you expect to be travelling for? How unplanned do you intend it to be? Has working in the tourist industry made you want to plan everything ahead of time?
Graham – I’m planning for a year, but could stretch that out for 2, 3 or indefinitely if it’s going well and I’m enjoying it for that long. We’ll see!
I’m not planning a lot, actually. I’m learning everything I can and I have specific goals of where I’d like to go & what I’d like to do – but how I get there is very much open to my whims along the way.
Working in the corporate world has made me NOT want to be too structured.
More on this:
http://freedoniapost.com/2010/03/there-is-no-plan/
waawwoo gud..
Joel,
Very nice! I’m looking forward to reading about your world adventures.
Onward,
O. Lee
Hi,
This is a wonderful blog! It was a very good read.
I was wondering if you would be interested in guest blogging on my blog. It is a collection of my travels and the travels of my guests. If you scan the site you can see that now almost 100% of the posts are from guests. Lately I’ve been finding many people interested in guest posting.
Included in your post will be a link to your website using whatever anchor text or key words you wish and a description of your site (if you choose to include one.)
My blog (onetravel.wordpress.com) receives about 1000 visitors a day and that number is steadily growing.
So if you are interested in being a guest, please let me know.
Send me an Email:
gchristodoulou(-at-)OneTravel(-dot-)com
Warm Regards,
George Christodoulou
Travel Blogger | OneTravel
Phone: 1(212) 478-0335 ex:90098
gchristodoulou(-at-)OneTravel(-dot-)com
Hi,
I am emailing from a leading advertising agency based in London.
I am getting in touch with you as I am looking for quality websites,
such as yours, to place some adverts on your website and would like
to know if this is something which would be of interest to you?
The placement of our adverts are contextually matched to the content on
the page, therefore relevant.
Do let me know if you are interested to discuss any partnerships with us
as we feel the positioning of your website will have strong benefits for
both parties.
Please email me back with your thoughts or questions.
Kind regards,
Daniel
Daniel Revita
New Media Specialist
Hi Site Admin,
http://freedoniapost.com
I am emailing from a leading advertising agency based in London.
I am getting in touch with you as I am looking for quality websites,
such as yours, to place some adverts on your website and would like
to know if this is something which would be of interest to you?
The placement of our adverts are contextually matched to the content on
the page, therefore relevant.
Do let me know if you are interested to discuss any partnerships with us
as we feel the positioning of your website will have strong benefits for
both parties.
Please email me back with your thoughts or questions.
Kind regards,
Kevin Graham
New Media Specialist
Dear Joel,
My name is Lidia Nyiri and I work for http://www.travelgrove.com, a meta-search engine that helps users find cheap offers on airfares, hotel and car rentals, cruise deals and vacation packages.
I’m contacting you because I want to propose a deal that I hope might interest you. I was wondering if you would be interested in writing a blog article covering our services, containing three links: one to our homepage and two to “cheap flights to city” pages.
This review can be completely unbiased and declared as a sponsored review, in accordance to the latest FCC standards.
We’d like to buy this review, if you can make us an offer. If you don’t like the review idea, perhaps you could make us an offer for a direct link or domainwise link.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Kind regards,
Lidia Nyiri
SEO Consultant
Travelgrove Team
Travelgrove Inc.
“The Freedonia Post is intended to be entertaining first, informative second”
Oh my god, i wish i could make an entertainment blog. My blog intended otherwise…
Puppy´s last [type] ..Padang-Padang Beach, Bali