Fireworks over London on New Year's Eve

The clock ticked its last second and we flipped the pages over to a new calendar.  2012 begins and, because I'm a glass-half-full, forward-looking person, I thought I'd fill you in on what we've got in store for the new year rather than looking back at last year.  (Because last year was soooo 2011, you know.)

Shiny New Partner I am super excited to announce that we are partnering with Context Travel throughout 2012.  Context provides "walking tours for the intellectually curious."  Each tour has no more than six people led by Ph.D.-level experts and every guide we've met has been passionate and brilliant, as curious about our thoughts on a particular place as imparting knowledge to us.  My dad - who has been a college professor for over 25 years - explained it best when he said that our latest tour with them was like a "walking college class" and the "three hours flew."  Exactly! In 2012, we will be in 10 out of the 18 cities in which Context offers tours.  We'll be providing you with in-depth insights on what Context offers in each city plus we're planning some other fun surprises throughout the year.
Shiny New Site Design Every year around this time, I get bored with the way our site looks and (much to Patrick's chagrin), we spend a couple of weeks sprucing up the site.  This year's highlights include: New colors!  Because who doesn't love Tiffany blue and pearl gray? Bigger, wider format for those of you with large screens, meaning large format photography, and the ability to create cool new magazine-style layouts. A new snazzy post slider on the front page from SliderPro. A monthly-changing banner and individual banners for each page/country. An integrated social networking bar to your right to easily share posts. Tags listed prominently at the bottom so that you can jump between similar posts easily.

. . . keep reading shiny 2012 after the jump

Vancouver from the waterfront

"It is so nice to meet you in real life," the words drifted across the Vancouver Convention Center conference floor, across multiple conversations, as if 500 people were tied into a singular loop of ten words.  Hugs abounded amongst physical strangers, people who have met each other only in words, photographs, and tweets.

Michael from Go See Write, Anita from Anita Go Travel, Keith from Traveling Savage, and Lisa from LL World Tour

But, I knew these people.  In the two years since we started this blog, it has grown into something we never expected: a community of passionate travelers and foodies.  I have virtually traveled with many other round-the-world travelers, just as y'all have traveled with us.  This weekend, I met many of these virtual friends at TBEX 2011, a conference for travel bloggers. 

 Cailin from Travel Yourself and Matt from Landlopers

I met bloggers who started out at the same time as me, like Michael Hodson from Go See Write, and Stephanie from Twenty-Something Travel.  I met some of the bloggers I followed before I first started blogging, like Anil from FoxNomad and Shannon from A Little Adrift.  I met bloggers who inspire me like Marilyn Terrell from National Geographic's Intelligent Travel and Evelyn Hannon from Journeywoman.  I met so many fantastic bloggers that if I named them all, I would be sitting here for the next hour or more. 

Pulled pork taco from Feastro truck

There's a lot of discussion about TBEX in the blogosphere today.  Many are upset with the disorganization, as evidenced by faulty A/V equipment, miscommunication, and overly generic sessions.  But, those are minor nitpicks. 

Ultimately, I think TBEX failed to produce the conference experience most of us hoped to receive because it lacked purpose and focus.

Shrimp and prosciutto taco from the fantastic Feastro truck

Most of the panel sessions did not have independent travel bloggers on them, which I found quite strange considering that the conference is geared toward independent travel bloggers.  In the monetization section, the panel insisted that there is no way to make money via advertising, though I know for a fact that Dave from Go Backpacking funds most of his travel through advertising on his site.  There was no discussion about e-books or newsletters, two large sources of revenue for many bloggers. 

Many sessions were watered down because it is impossible to discuss video, photography, writing, or SEO in just one hour.  A "crowd-sourced" whiteboard of ethics topics devolved into name-calling on a sheet of paper, until Robert Reid saved the discussion by calling us neither journalists or bloggers but rather jourblists, which term I shall certainly use in the future.

. . . keep reading in real life: thoughts on tbex 2011 after the jump

And, now, ladies and gentleman, The Road Forks is proud to welcome its newest little sister . . . .

Drum roll, please . . . . [lights dim and the snare drum thrums]

Lights up . . . .

The.  Road.  Unleashed.

[And the crowd goes wild, men toss their hats in their air, and women clap their begloved hands for the shiny new member of The Road Forks family.]

Chewy and Abby at a park in Atlanta

Yes, my friends, Patrick and I have launched a new blog named The Road Unleashed, focused on our travels with dogs across the United States and Europe.

To be honest, the world probably doesn't need another blog.  But, I do think we need more information about traveling with dogs, especially from real-world canine travelers.  As we started traveling around the United States and planning the transportation to get to Europe, we realized that there aren't a whole lot of people doing what we do.  We scrambled to find information on vaccinations, country requirements, and pet passports in Europe, not to mention the difficulties in finding pet-friendly lodging in the United States and abroad.  We look for different things now than when we travel alone: a restaurant should have good food and also a pet-friendly patio; hikes must offer great views and be comfortable for eight paws to manage; and, lodging must welcome dogs. 

. . . keep reading introducing the road unleashed after the jump

I have been so caught up in writing about our trip to Australia that I haven't had the time to finish up the series on essential resources for new travel bloggers (part 1, part 2).  The good news is that I have become much more comfortable managing this site as time goes on.  At the same time, I am still struggling to figure out how to travel and blog because we often find ourselves in places with poor or limited Internet or we don't have the time to devote to writing and uploading photography on the site.  Though I have been blogging for five months, I am still figuring a lot out and am very much a newbie.  Today, I am going to highlight the resources we have used to develop our photography skills and search engine optimization.

Note: When I list multiple resources, I try to order them in order of my preference on that particular topic though I think all of these resources are worth the read (otherwise they wouldn't be on this list!).

Add Great Photography

• Gist: Take great pictures and add them to your site because blogging is a visual medium.  For food photographs, use a tripod, shoot in natural light, and get close.  For travel photography, take shots of people and places in angles and lights that reflect the personality of the people or the places.
  
• Food photography resources: VeganYumYum's Food Photography for Bloggers; Still Life With (her entire blog is about food photography); Food Bloggers Unite on Food Photography; Living Room's How to Take Mouthwatering Food Photography; Simone Paddock on Tasteful Food Photography
• Travel photography resources: Stuck in Customs on 10 principles of beautiful photography; Dan and Audrey's tips at the Uncornered Market for photographing street people; Traveler's Notebook A-B-C-D-E of Travel Photography
• How we applied the advice: You have no idea how tickled pink we are when you compliment our photography.  Honestly, we don't know what we are doing and experiment A LOT.  For example, I have no idea how to use the controls on our DSLR and ask Patrick to set the white balance every single time I need to take a picture which annoys him to no end. 
• Because Patrick doesn't like to take photographs when he is hungry, I handle the food photography.  I use a tripod, take photographs in natural light, and use a white foam board as background in most of our pictures.  Because I don't like to take photographs when I have the whole world to see (the new places, the new sights, the new smells!), Patrick handles the travel photography.  He concentrates on finding unique angles and great views and likes experimenting with all of the gizmos and gadgets on the camera. 
• However, our number one trick to taking good pictures is to take LOTS of them.  I take about 75 pictures for one recipe even though I only end up using about 5 of the pictures.  When we travel, Patrick takes approximately 250 pictures per day, even though we only save about 10 pictures in our web albums.  As we take more pictures, we get better at identifying good lighting, and interesting pictures, angles, and objects.  We always shoot in RAW and I use Photoshop Elements to minimally edit our photos by cropping, brightening, and fixing the saturation of the pictures.  

. . . keep reading essential resources for new travel bloggers: photography and seo after the jump