What makes a travel blog cool for you? And why? I'm often baffled by the winners of travel blog awards and why they're there. The results of a recent contest got me thinking about what makes a travel blog cool for me. Here goes: 1) Personal vision: the blog has to reveal an individual way of seeing the world that's the writer's own, expressed in a focused, compelling and unique way. It must communicate the thoughts, ideas, interests and passions of the author in a creative, well thought-out and highly personal way.
2) Sense of purpose: it must have motivation, direction, a reason to exist, and original stories to tell. It's got to exist for reasons other than to relieve boredom or generate income for the blogger. If it does that on the side, fine, but I'm not interested in blogs where that's the main goal.
3) It must be well-written: I want to read posts that are well-written, have shape, form and focus, and read well. I don't care if they're short or long. I don't go in for this 'optimum blog-post length' debate - they can be 100 words or 1000 words for all I care. Because if the narrative is structured, engaging and holds my attention it doesn't matter.
4) It must be written from experience: I want to read travel blogs written by bloggers who are travelling and experiencing what they're writing about, not simply regurgitating content they've read elsewhere, press releases they've been sent, or compiling posts from other blogs on the web. I want to read posts that provide a new insight into travelling the world, its places and people. I want to learn from what the blogger is learning from their travels.
5) It must 'connect' with its content: if the blogger is writing about other blogs, sites or media content, I want to see a connection. I'm not interested in reading about the same topic on ten different blogs. I want to read about it in a new and revealing way that makes me think about the subject differently or see it through the blogger's way of seeing the world.
6) It should be easy on the eye: if the blog is designed beautifully then that's a bonus, but at the very least I want something that's cool, clean-looking, and with inspiring images I can enjoy.
So what criteria do you use? Or is what makes a travel blog cool for you something that's not so easily definable?