5 Things You Should Do to Find Your Voice

There is an overabundance of travel blogs. It's true. And because readers have a limited amount of time to engage with blogs, there must be something unique about yours to captivate readers. One of the key elements of blogging is to find your own, distinctive writing voice. An author’s writing voice has many ingredients, such as writing style, tone, syntax and humor. However, at its heart, writing voice is a reflection of an individual’s singular lens of viewing the world. The journey to find your blog voice can be a difficult one. I started my blog, Running with Elands, soon after I received all of my Peace Corps clearances. When I sat down to write my first few posts, I felt stymied by my lack of experience blogging. What did people who were reading Peace Corps blogs want to hear about? Was a kitschy title more important or rich cultural detail? I took a break from writing and researched the Peace Corps Blog It Home winners for inspiration. I pored over their topics, stories, blog design and photos for inspiration. I decided to keep my writing light and somewhat whimsical. My posts were often banal, sugar-coating my Peace Corps South Africa experience. I was too concerned with how my posts might be received to do the hard work of translating my lived reality into words. Sometimes, I began to break out of that habit. I found myself grappling with more serious issues in my village, making my formerly light tone seem inappropriate. I slowed...

Lessons in Sharing While Living Abroad

It was a Sunday afternoon as I sat outside watching my host brother, Mengela, carve a key chain for me from makalani nut. His schoolmate, Shiluumbu, sat between Mengela and I as we watched him attempt to carve “NAMIBIA” on it. Shiluumbu, then reached into his front pocket and retrieved a small sweet wrapped in shiny gold paper. The sound of the wrapper crinkling drew all of my and Mengela's attention away from his carving. Shiluumbu unwrapped the outer gold wrapper next the wax paper, he raised the small, nickel-sized sweet to his lips, bit it in half and offered the remaining half to my host brother. This small gesture spoke volumes to me.

3 Simple Post Topics to Keep You Going

You've been living your life overseas for a while now. You've settled into a routine and it seems nothing can surprise you anymore. Not only that, but you feel like you've covered all the big cultural difference on your blog already. What else is there to write about now? If you're struggling to come up with some topics to write about, think about the nouns in your life. Nouns? You know, the people, places and things that you come across regularly. Here are some ideas to creatively write about some of these everyday parts of your life, and maybe help you to start seeing some things with fresh eyes.

3 Simple Steps to Prepare to Blog Abroad

In the world we live in today, where quotes about traveling by any means necessary laid over-top of dreamy pictures make daily appearances in you social media feeds, where you can’t do a Google search about a place without coming across the travel blog with a rundown of travel tips, where announcing your past and future travel plans are met with statements of jealousy, it can be easy for your blog to fall into a cycle and habit of being a bit of a travel diary. But, your blog can provide so much more. It can act as a bridge of cultural connection, especially in a time when people seems to want to isolate themselves more. Taking the time to seek out cross-cultural experiences and subsequently sharing these observations may take a little more effort than a restaurant review, however, it will enrich your writing and your audience's experience. With these three simple steps, you'll be on your way to writing more meaningful blog posts focused on cross-cultural understanding. They're perfect for thinking about in between packing, or for reflecting on when you've returned. With a bit of foresight, incorporating culture into your travel and increasing your own understanding of the host culture is easy.

4 Mistakes To Avoid on Your Cross-Culture Blog

There are plenty of benefits to blogging while you're abroad. But if you aren't careful, you could run into some pitfalls as well. To help you avoid the mistakes that we see over and over again on blogs around the world, we compiled this quick list to keep you on track: Missed Opportunities You will be hard pressed to find a more captive audience than when people are following your blog while you’re abroad. People want to live vicariously through your adventure, and they will be inspired by it. The true power of your blog is that it will multiply the number of people who get to benefit from what you’re experiencing abroad. You will inevitably be learning and growing through your cross-cultural exchanges, but so will your readers! Don’t miss the chance to multiply your impact by promoting cross-cultural understanding through your blog posts. Think of yourself as a digital Ambassador. You represent your home country to your host community. And you gather valuable insights from your host community to share with folks back home. You get to explore the best of both cultures and demonstrate their value to each other. You’ll likely become an expert in the downfalls of both cultures, as well, and will thus have the tricky responsibility of painting an honest and balanced picture for your readers. Too Much Info, Too Little Editing The people who read your blog will either be interested in you or what you're doing - or both - and there's no doubt that they'll want to hear...