Liebster Award!

It was a wonderful surprise for me to find out that I had been nominated for a Liebster Award by the lovely and inspiring Dream Fly Discover! I feel really lucky to have been recognised, especially by such an awesome blogger, and I can’t wait to share the love with my own nominations 🙂 Make sure you check out Dream Fly Discover over at https://dreamflydiscover.wordpress.com/ – his ‘Travel Fails’ section in particular will definitely brighten your day!

Sounds good… but what is a Liebster Award?

The Liebster Award originated in 2011 as an online award that is given to travel bloggers by travel bloggers. You take your award and pass it forward. Liebster in German means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome. It’s a great way to explore new blogs and expand your network in the blogging community whilst also showing others that you appreciate their hard work and talent.

So what next?

The official rules of The Liebster Award vary, but generally it is agreed that if your blog has been nominated and you have chosen to accept it you must:

– Thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog. Try to include a little promotion for the person who nominated you.
– Display the award on your blog by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”.  Images you can use for your 2016 Liebster Award can be found here.
– Answer your nominator’s questions and create 11 questions for your own nominees to answer.
– Nominate 5 to 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than 200 followers.
– Give 10 random facts about yourself.
– List these rules in your post.

Once you have written and published it, you then have to: Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it.

My 11 Questions

1. What made you start writing your blog?

As an English student I’m constantly looking for ways to practise my writing and get some feedback. I decided that starting a blog would be the best way for me to do this, alongside getting some experience of using WordPress, and travelling is the one topic that I could write about for hours and hours without getting even slightly bored. I’ve always kept travel diaries, noting particular restaurants or parks that I’d like to return to, so I knew I’d enjoy compiling all of this information in a blog.

2. What motivates you to write your blog posts?

After two of my best friends and I went interrailing last summer I was hit by the travel bug and have since planned tons of mini breaks, meaning that I have loads to keep writing about! I’m also aware that one day, when I’m all grown up, I might not be able to travel as much as I’d like to, so I know that I’ll want something to remind me of what it was like to be young, broke and single in some crazy part of the world.

3. If you had to move to a new country permanently, where would you pick and why?

I’d choose France because I think I’d forever feel like I was on holiday. The thought of waking up on the weekend, cycling to the local boulangerie and getting a brown paper bag of croissants is just so idyllic. I also studied French up until AS Level and I always regret not carrying it on. I keep saying that I’ll take lessons one day but I think living in France is a much better idea 🙂

4. What has been your best experience while travelling?

Last summer in Zagreb my friends and I made a weird cocktail out of cartons of wine and some other kind of alcohol (we couldn’t really understand the label…) and stumbled upon a free, outdoor, French concert. We took off our shoes and started dancing, and one by one people stopped giving us disapproving looks and joined in. After half an hour the place was heaving and at the end of the concert the band even thanked us for being so lively!

5. What is your favourite way to travel long distance around a new country; train, plane or car?

I think I have to say the train, because you get to see places that you’d never ordinarily visit. Of course this depends though, as I imagine a car is the best form of transport around America!

6. Does your career involve traveling/will it ever?

I hope so! I’d absolutely love to work for a marketing agency as there are often opportunities to travel, but one day I’d also like to teach English abroad. At the moment I’m a voluntary travel writer which is also a lot of fun.

7. What is the most disappointing place you have visited?

I have to say Amsterdam. I’ve been twice and although each time has been incredible, I think that was down to the people rather than the place. I can appreciate that it’s a beautiful city and I truly love how non-judgemental it is, but there are other places in Holland I’d much rather see.

8. Have you had any travel fails of your own? Whats your favourite story? (Missed flights, language barriers, bad choices etc?).

Last summer my friends and I were booking hostels through our phones, often with a poor wifi connection, deciding only a few days in advance where we were heading next. This was usually fine, however one day we turned up to our hostel in Prague, only to find that we’d arrived a day early…oops! I mean, I blame that on the tiny phone screens/rubbish internet but I think we’d all just had  ditzy moment!

9. Whats next on your travel itinerary?

I’m camping in Slovenia is two weeks time, visiting both Lake Bohinj and Lake Bled with the same friends I went interrailing with. I’m very outdoorsy so I’m super excited to swim and hike every day. The only thing I’m worried about is that we’re taking a little bit of a gamble and staying in a campsite you can’t book in advance…good luck to us! After that I’m hoping to book a trip to Iceland with my sister, as we’re both desperate to stand beneath the Northern Lights.

10. What will your blog be like in 5 years time?

I hope it’s full of cool stories about my time spent abroad teaching English in schools, or volunteering with animals 🙂 I also hope to have at least one post from every continent, so I’d better get saving!

11. What destination best describes your personality?

Hmm…that’s a tough one. I actually just took a quiz online to help me decide and it came up with Alaska…I mean, I can kind of see that! I can be very calm and collected, so I’ll take Alaska for now, but I think realistically I’d be somewhere like India. Lively, colourful, and never stops moving 🙂

10 random facts about myself…

1. I’ve been inside of 10 Downing Street, where I met Tony Blair as part of Actionaid’s ‘My Friend Needs A Teacher’ campaign.
2. I have one cat, one African snail, and three puffer fish as pets…
3. My dad used to live on a houseboat 🙂
4. My favourite ways to exercise are dancing, bouldering, and doing yoga.
5. I live in Bristol, UK, where the TV show Skins was filmed.
6. I sponsor the education of a lovely little boy from Kenya.
7.  My favourite film is 10 Things I Hate About You.
8. I graduate on Tuesday!
9. I’m currently obsessed with How I Met Your Mother (and everyone judges me for this…)
10. Iceland is my favourite country, despite the fact I haven’t been yet!

My Nominations:

yasmintravels – for inspiring me to roadtrip around the USA! (https://yasmintravels.me/)

gotthepostcard – it’s clear that you know how to plan a great holiday! (https://gotthepostcard.com/)

introvertravel – I love your advice for budget travelling  🙂 (https://introvertedtravellers.wordpress.com/)

the confessions of a wanderer – a truly honest and insightful blog (https://zoemaggard.wordpress.com/)

My 11 Questions:

1. What is your best piece of advice for new travel bloggers?
2. If you had to write a blog about another topic what would it be?
3. If you could attend any festival from anywhere in the world what would it be?
4. What is the one thing you can’t travel without?
5. Who is your favourite travel companion?
6. What is your funniest travel memory?
7. If you had to move abroad permanently where would it be?
8. If you could teleport to another country right this second, where would you choose?
9. What is your favourite type of cuisine? (E.g. Spanish, Italian…)
10. What country would you least like to visit and why?
11. If you could travel with any celebrity who would it be?

Thanks for reading!!