The Liebster Award

Since I’m not on the road at the moment (back in Canada for a few weeks, but more on that in my next post), this is the perfect opportunity to share some fun news: my blog has been nominated for the Liebster Award!

The Liebster Award is bestowed upon bloggers by other bloggers as a way to give props to cool blogs and support one another in these projects of love. The award is specifically designed for up-and-coming blogs and those that have smaller followings as a way to get our little-heard messages out into the wider world!

A big shout-out to the two bloggers that nominated me for the Liebster Award: Hannah from I’m Fresh off the Plane and Shalinee from Life, Love, and Travel, both expats, travel-bloggers, and fellow Pink Pangea writers.

Part of the Liebster ritual is for the nominee to share 11 fun facts and answer 11 questions before nominating 11 more bloggers for the award. Looks like today my readers are going to learn just a wee bit more about me! (If, after reading my answers, you’re still craving more, may I suggest listening to my recent podcast interview on Nomadic Tales?) Here goes:

11 Random Facts about Me:

1. I’ve never lived in a single place for more than four years, and that was in college!
2. I had two cats that I found on the streets of Thailand, flew to Canada for a year, and moved to Zimbabwe with me. My Asian-Canadian cats are now totally Africanized.
3. I’ve been a vegetarian for 11 years. There’s something with the number 11, here, don’t you think?
4. I’ve visited 46 countries. 48 if you count a 15-hour layover in Japan and a 4-hour drive through Germany.
5. If I could eat every meal with my hands, I would. Food just tastes better that way!
6. I’ve never owned a TV. I just got my first smartphone this week, and it was a gift from a friend. I told you I’m low-tech!
7. Sometimes I get hyper-sensitive hearing and everything around me gets really, really loud.   The air feels like it’s trying to pound its way through my ears. I love it when this happens, but I don’t know how to bring my super-power on.
8. I used to sing in a jazz band. And in a choir. And in a funk band.
9. I love making lists, and take immense satisfaction in crossing an item off a list. Sometimes, I’ll add something to a to-list that I’ve already done, just so I can cross it off.
10. During my travels, I’ve learned obscure languages like Wolof, KiSwahili, Thai, Nepali, and Turkish. I forget pretty much everything from all of them. Next time, I need to learn a language that’s spoken in more than ONE country!
11. Growing up, I was a disciplined figure skater, a very good softball player, and an excellent student. No one at the time ever would have pegged me for a nomadic, wandering hippy. I sure showed them! 🙂

For my 11 questions, I’m going to pick and choose from the 22 questions I was asked by the two lovely ladies that nominated me.

1. What was your first travel experience?

My first true travel experience (outside of North America) was to Mexico with my family. Though we spent most of the week at a resort – swimming in the ocean, doing water aerobics, and hitting piñatas after the dinner buffet – we did venture out into central Puerto Vallarta one day. I remember being absolutely fascinated with the colors, food, language, and local people (and at the same time confused that I preferred this to my time in the resort). It took me another decade to really venture out into the world, but I think this trip to Mexico kick-started the journey.

2. How has your outlook on travel changed since then?

Well, for starters, I don’t travel to resorts. Since then, I’ve traveled as a student, volunteer, and expat, and now I travel overland in a camping car.

Secondly, I don’t do short-term trips. I travel eleven months of the year, and try to spend several months in a country, because I find it allows me to delve deeper and experience a destination in a way that a two-week trip just can’t accomplish for me.

Oh yeah, now I eat the local street food, too! 🙂

3. What is the most important thing you pack on a trip?

I’m thankful to rarely have to pack for travel anymore, since I have everything I need in my home on wheels. The rare time I do pack for a trip – this year it has been to Singapore and Istanbul – my most important item is definitely my camera. In my early years of travel, I rarely took photos. Now, I love capturing everything – from people, food, nature, houses, signs, and tiny details I didn’t notice as much when I was a younger traveler. Probably the fact that I know I’ll want to share these images on my blog keeps me motivated to capture a place as best I can!

4. What is one of your favorite travel books?

Now that I travel full-time instead of work full-time, I read obsessively! I don’t often read travel books, per se. I prefer reading fiction and non-fiction that gives me insight to a place I’ll soon be or currently am.

However, I loved Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Gelman and Love with a Chance of Drowning by Tori DeRoche (who happens to be an amazing travel blogger, too – the Fearful Adventurer).

5. Who is someone you’ve met on the road who had a great impact on you?

Easy question: my husband, Bruno. We met just over three years ago while I was on holiday in Mozambique. He’d just finished an around-the-world trip in a camping car that had lasted 14 years and was just starting his next one. I was supposed to be heading back to North America to “grow up” (again). Needless to say, twenty-four hours after meeting I’d changed my plans, and I haven’t looked back since. Bruno changed the entire course of my life, so to say he had a great impact on me is a bit of an understatement.

For the full story on our fateful encounter, check out the story I wrote about it for Pink Pangea.

6. Do you prefer to go to many places in one trip or to spend all your time in one place?

This is an excellent question. The first few trips I planned (to Italy and to Mauritania) I read the guide book, wanted to go everywhere, planned a crazy-busy itinerary that didn’t even consider travel times from one place to the next, and was unable to do most (or any) of it. I’ve had to learn to contain my big-eyes syndrome. I am now happy to travel much more slowly. That doesn’t mean, though, that I only spend time in one place – I just have the gift of lots of time! Many places it is!

7. Has new technology changed the way you travel? If so, has it been a positive or negative change?

I’m still rocking the same technologies now that I did a decade ago when I started traveling – namely, a laptop and an Ipod. Technology has probably changed my husband’s travel more than mine because he started his trip last century, before cell phones were ubiquitous and before internet banking and online travel websites like Kayak and Travelocity. He sometimes had to send morse code messages home to let his mother know he was alive! So he certainly appreciates the ease of communication, the GPS (he overlanded for 6 years in Africa without one!) and online banking, though he feels the overload of travel information and advice online is both overwhelming and confusing, and longs for the old days where you had to figure things out for yourself on the ground.

8. Worst travel experience ever?

I’m thankful for all of my travel experiences – good, bad, inspiring, and uncomfortable – and there is no single experience that I would describe as “horrible”. However, I can name a few that were certainly less-than-wonderful at the time. Most of them are related to illness, like the time I pooped my way across Saudi Arabia or the concussion that mysteriously turned into giardiasis as I kickstarted my overland travels with Bruno in Namibia.

Probably my worst travel experience was the time (ok, let’s be honest, it was three times) I took a bus from Kathmandu to New Delhi. The 46-hour ride on a bus with no AC and no toilet, jam-packed with Tibetans, and driven by a posse of intoxicated Nepalis who blasted obnoxious music, was hell-on-wheels. I remember having to do my business on the side of the road under the watchful eyes of the local Indian men (I learned quickly to wear a skirt) and trying desperately to find a comfortable sleeping position for the TWO nights we were aboard. The ride was definitely not worth the $200 I saved by not flying.

9. Favourite city and why?

I find cities sort of overwhelming places when I’m seeing them as a tourist with limited time. This is probably why my three favorite cities – Kathmandu, Bangkok, and London – are all places where I lived. By living in these cities, I got to peel back the outer layers that a tourist experiences, to meet local people, to eat in restaurants off the tourist trail, and to make the city my own. I got to feel the beat of these places – something you can only do if given the gift of time.

My favorite city of the three? KATHMANDU, for sure! (If you’re thinking of going, don’t let the recent natural disaster stop you! Nepalis need your tourism support now more than ever.)

10. What motivated you to start your blog and how long have you been blogging?

I’m really proud to say that I’ve been blogging for ten whole years! I started this blog just before moving to Dakar, Senegal, to study abroad as part of my undergraduate degree. The blog has changed slightly over the years, from a sort of public email message to family and friends to a much-cherished online narrative of my experiences around the world (I can’t wait to read my stories when I’m old and grey). Wandering Footsteps is currently charting my overland trip-around-the-world in an old camping car with my husband!

11. How many stamps do you have in your passport and where are they from?

I must be on my 4^th or 5^th passport by now. My current passport, which I’ve had for a year, has stamps of Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Oman, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, and the E.U. My passport has had slightly more action than usual this year, that’s for sure!

***

Now that you’ve all gotten a chance to know a bit more about me, I’d like to share 11 cool, practically unknown travel blogs. I’ve chosen blogs that are all about people doing overland travel, just like us. It’s nice to know we’re not the only ones out there living in a house-on-wheels!

My Liebster Award Nominees are:

1. Cameron Belscher from Follow the Wind.
2. Kerstin Frӧlich from One Great Adventure.
3. Bob Friedman from The Further Adventures of Robert Sean Friedman.
4. Emma Rogers from Flightless Kiwis.
5. Don Anthony from Take to the Highway.
6. Günter and Sissi from Alaska Wilds.
7. Lauren Troutman from Because Adventure.
8. Paula Vlamings from Our Bigger Picture.
9. Suzanne Curran of Tigger Travels.

And two that I’m especially excited to announce as nominees, because they’re our FRIENDS:

10. Phil Flanagan from Phil and Angie Footprints. (I talked about Phil and Angie at length here.)
11. Nikos and Georgia from The Pin Project. (Its Greek section is more up-to-date than its English section)

Instructions for Nominees:

Create a blog post on your site about your nomination for the Liebster Award. Your blog post should include the following:

1. A shout-out and link to me, Brittany from Wandering Footsteps, for nominating you for the award.
2. Eleven random facts about yourself.
3. The answers to the 11 questions I’ve asked (see below for my questions).

Then, you too get to choose 11 new nominees for the Liebster Award. They should be small-time bloggers (generally less than 200 followers). Create a list of 11 questions for them to answer, copy these instructions into your post for them, and think of 11 new questions for them to answer.

Don’t forget to contact you 11 nominees to let them know of their nomination.

Also (and most importantly) please copy the link to your own Liebster Award blog post onto the comments section of MY Liebster Award post. That way, I get to read the answers to the questions I asked you!

And now, here are my 11 questions for my nominees:

1. How long have you been blogging and what’s your blog all about?
2. What was your first ever travel experience?
3. How has your travel style changed since then?
4. What inspired or motivated you to hit the road?
5. Describe your particular set of travel wheels.
6. What are your upcoming and long-term travel plans? What’s your route?
7. Do you have a crazy, funny, or scary vehicle/road/customs/immigration stories to share?
8. Any favorite destinations or countries to explore overland? Why is this place better to see overland than with a backpack or as part of an organized tour?
9. If your vehicle had wings and could take off to go ANYWHERE, RIGHT NOW, where would you go?
10. What is the most important piece of gear you travel with?
11. What activities do you like to do when you’re on the road?

Thanks everyone for reading this post, and a special thanks in advance to my nominees. Can’t wait to receive your post link on my website so I can read your answers! Happy travels!