Christy and Kali from the wonderful Technosyncratic (go check out their blog - not only have they RVed across America with their dog, their pictures are stunning with a capital S), nominated us to participate in Tripbase's 7 Links Project. The purpose of the project is to get us bloggers thinking about old posts and bringing them up out of the archives to see the light of day. (I have also linked to relevant tags that you might be interested in checking out; you can find all of our tags on the left hand bar under Browse by Country and Browse by Category). So, without further adieu:
Most Beautiful Post
This was a hard one to choose because there are many days and posts that stand out for me as beautiful but, today, this picture post of the Whitsunday Islands struck me as particularly beautiful . . . though it might just be because I'm in a beachy mood.
* For more beautiful photography posts, check out our Photo Post tag.
Most Popular Post
99 Lessons Learned Traveling In One Year
We had no idea that this post would go viral when we wrote it. It started off as a game we used to play on long car drives or train rides where we would describe the lesson learned that day or that week. "Remember when we learned that ham and cheese potato chips actually taste like ham and cheese?" As we approached our one year travel anniversary, I decided to write down all the lessons and publish it as a post. Now, it is the most visited post on our blog and we've received over 80,000 Stumble views for this one post. (And, yes, if you're wondering, we've already started talking about our lessons from year 2 of travel.)
If you're interested in other summaries and overviews of countries, check out our Wrap-Up Posts tag.
Most Controversial Post
How We (Don't) Fund Our Travels
We got a surprisingly vehement response to this post on our strategy for funding our travels, primarily from bloggers who fund their travels using their blog. We continue to get very interesting responses to this post.
If you're interested in more posts about RTW planning, check out our RTW Planning tag.
Most Helpful Post
Is a Japan Rail Pass Worth It?
There are many posts that I have written that I've thought are helpful but others didn't necessarily agree. But this one, which breaks down the types of itineraries that make a Japan Rail Pass worth the expense for foreigners gets rave reviews from our commenters, including one person who called me a "Japan Rail Pass guru." Heck, if I can't be a guru in anything else, at least I can be a guru in this one very tiny aspect of traveling.
If you're interested in other helpful how-to posts, check out the How To Tag.
A Post Whose Success Surprised Us
How To Not Be a Stupid Tourist in Thailand
I wrote this post as a rant. I was in a bad mood, irritated by the general disrespect shown by Americans in Thailand and Sihanoukville, including the above guy wearing a F*** you shirt in a beautiful Thai temple. We had just left Sihanoukville, a city in which most of the foreigners treated the locals as either prostitutes or lackeys, and I was genuinely disgruntled. I hit Publish and immediately regretted it, worried that it was too offensive to the number of nice, ordinary tourists out there. I went back to our site fifteen minutes later with the intent of cleaning it up and found, much to my surprise, that there were several comments agreeing wholeheartedly with us.
If you're interested in other rants and musings, check out our Musings tag.
A Post I Didn't Feel Get the Attention It Deserved
When I look at some of our older posts, I grimace because I realize how much better my writing and our photography has become. But, I still like this post on the reasons why we think it is a good idea to plan our round-the-world itinerary. We followed it up more recently with a post on An Unhelpful Guide to Planning a Round-the-World Itinerary.
If you're interested in other posts on planning a round-the-world trip, check out the Plan a RTW Trip tag.
A Post I Am The Most Proud Of
One afternoon, a week after we returned from Cambodia, I began culling through our Cambodia pictures and realized that we had hundreds of pictures of children holding balloons. Our boat driver in Kampong Chnnang, who didn't speak any English, stopped us at every boat house on the river for us to blow up and hand balloons to the many kids living in near poverty. These kids were, for the most part, the children of Vietnamese immigrants who were refused land by the Cambodian government. They live on houseboats with electric wires that run into the water, drinking the same water in which they bathe, and with little chance for upward mobility except for by selling fish at the local market.
I had this inspiration of coloring just the balloons and leaving the rest black and white. And, once I did that, the story of Cambodia took shape in the colors. Cambodia first showed me a philosophy that has now become my mantra. It is something I have seen confirmed in every country in this world, despite what we see on newstations, novels, and movies. It is the truth that I now try to live my life by: the world is a good place and there are good people here.
If you're interested in other inspirational posts about different cultures, check out our This is a Good World with Good People tag.
And now, I get to nominate five travel bloggers to join in on the 7 Links Project (yay!):
I can't wait to see what they write up.
