Sunshine Blogger Award Nomination No. 4

A pleasant surprise discovering that I have a Sunshine Blogger Award Nomination, which is the 4th of this type.

Checking the Comments area in my WordPress Dashboard, a notification popped up from Emma and Nathan Travels for this award. Many thanks for the wonderful gesture, Emma.

Please check out Emma and Nathan’s great travel blog for loads of tips and cool travel stories.

What is the Sunshine Blogger Award?

The Blogosphere community holds several awards that bloggers use to nominate a blog in appreciation for its creative, inspiring, or motivational content.

The award also helps other bloggers receive recognition and free exposure for their blogs.

Award’s Rules

There are some basic rules to follow if you decide to participate:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you and link their blog so everyone can visit.
• Answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who nominated you.
• Nominate 11 other bloggers and ask them 11 new questions.
• Notify the nominees by commenting on their blog post.
• List the rules and display the Award logo on your blog post.

Questions from Emma & Nathan’s Travels

1. What inspired you to start blogging?

An easy question. My blog is a place to centralise all of my travel experiences whilst providing insight and tips for other travellers. Still have loads of small travel journals from decades of travel to digitise.

I’m hoping that my travel tales are also an impetus for people that are maybe apprehensive to take that first step.

2. What do you do in your spare time?

What spare time? Take photos and write blog posts.

I finished re-designing and rebuilding my Nilla’s Photography website, which took me an age as it’s self-hosted. This replaced my old site I built 8 years ago. Still need to upload photos for about 30 countries, so it’s a continual labour of love.

This year, I also changed my Image Earth Travel blog’s theme as WordPress retired my old theme without advising me so no longer supported – one day my site would have fallen over following an update.

I tend to heavily customise my themes with CSS so it takes me a few weeks of designing, building, and testing across all devices.

3. What is your biggest achievement outside of blogging?

Outside of blogging and my working career, then it’s my photographic career.

The biggest achievement is holding my first solo exhibition in Cleveland, Australia. They say you never break even when selling your art at your first exhibition. I’m happy to say that I came really close. I did sell a couple of pieces afterwards, which means I did break even – does this count?

I held my 2nd solo exhibition last year in Cerisano, Italy although this was funded by the Mayor of the village, so not for selling artwork but a great way to gain exposure. I want to hold another solo exhibition here in Italy and just looking for an appropriate space at the moment.

Over the last 6 years, I’ve also been invited to be a part of 7 group exhibitions around the globe, which is humbling.

4. Who takes the photos on your blog?

As a professional photographer, I take all my own photos although my partner or friends take photos of me as I rarely take selfies. I really don’t like having my photo taken.

5. Is your blog your hobby or profession?

My blog is at the stage that it’s taking a lot longer than a hobby should take.

Blogging as a profession is when you start earning money. I’m not earning money from my blog, except a few dollars from WordPress WordAds.

I would like to earn enough to pay my yearly costs for running the blog.

6. Where do you write your blogs to?

Are you asking where I physically write my blogs or for which countries I write blogs?

If the question is which physical place I write my blogs, then it’s everywhere – whilst on the road or stationary somewhere. It’s great to enjoy a refreshing Spritz when writing in Italy.

Although if the question is what countries do I write blogs for then it’s for each country I visit. Travelling to 60+ countries across 6 continents, I haven’t caught up with writing about all this travel.

7. What was your favourite destination in 2018?

The favourite is Tuscany over Christmas and New Year, which I haven’t finished writing about yet.

Flying to Pisa and using this amazing city as a base, discovered it’s not just about the Tower.

Pisa is an excellent and cheaper base to explore Florence, Lucca, and Siena – gorgeous destinations in Italy.

8. Do you have people guest post on your blog?

No, I don’t as my blog is a diary of all my travels plus some award nominations like this one, so like to write my own content.

Other bloggers ask me to guest post on their blogs but I just don’t have the time. I read that guest posting is a great way to gain more exposure for your own blog – is this true?

9. Where are most of your readers from?

My top 3 countries…

I write a lot on Italy these days as I’ve been here for nearly 3 years so always exploring new places, especially in the south.

My 4th top is Australia, which is a little disappointing as this is my country and hoped that this would be my top.

10. Have you any plans for travel in 2019?

Of course. Just returned from a fleeting 4 days in stunning Sulmona, Abruzzo.

I’m spending a month in south-west England mostly over June/July catching up with friends in Somerset before returning to southern Italy. I’m not sure where else in 2019.

My visa renewal took 7 months to arrive and only received this in March. I missed my chance to meet up with my sailing friends in Madagascar late last year and in South Africa this year as they’ve now left for Brazil.

11. Where do you see your blog in 5 years’ time?

I hope that in 5 years’ time this blog reaches every country in the world.

The way I’ll know is by the FlagCounter widget I’ve added in my blog’s sidebar inside each post.

I’m up to 158 flags so far and hoping to collect the rest of the world within the next year. So, if you’re in an exotic country that’s not in my flag display, please check out my blog whilst there…

The other goal is to have the blog pay for all yearly costs.

My nominees

This list is in no particular order as I enjoy all of these blogs:

1. The Go to Girls Blog – family, love, life, and travel
2. The Mysterious Blogger – interesting posts about everything
3. Cherrylynn – lifestyle and travel
4. Jhilli’s Culinaireculture – food’s influence on different cultures and countries
5. Frank & Wel Travel – just recently discovered this blog of posts on South Africa
6. Kshi Vee – keep moving travel tales mainly in Nepal
7. TravelAndClick – cool travel stories
8. Best Indian Food Blog – most amazingly delicious recipes
9. MaritimeMac – Kelly’s motto is ‘go explore’
10. LOVEUROWNLIFE – teaches you to love your own life
11. In Dianes Kitchen – sharing wonderful step-by-step recipes

My questions for nominees

1. Do WordPress WordAds displayed in a post annoy you?
2. What’s your best travel experience?
3. What’s your worse travel experience?
4. What types of blogs do you follow?
5. Do you prefer an itinerary with everything pre-booked or do you wing it when you travel?
6. What is the most dangerous situation that you encountered whilst travelling?
7. Do you listen to background music when writing or prefer complete silence?
8. What do you enjoy most about blogging?
9. Roughly how many hours each week to you dedicate to writing blog posts?
10. How often do you publish a post?
11. How many posts would you like to see published each month from a favourite blog you’re following?

Hope you can participate in this nomination and really looking forward to reading your responses.

Nilla

Visit Nilla’s Photography for more images. More posts on amazing destinations at Image Earth Travel.