Pam is a freelance writer who divides her time between Seattle, Washington, and her husband’s tiny town in the middle of Austria. She has written about destinations for Snowshoe Magazine, World Hum, Travelblogs, International Living.

For a little over a year, she has been the travel editor for BlogHer - she seeks out interesting blog writing by travelers or about travel. Though her first passion is writing about travel, she blogs at Nerd’s Eye View, a site she started nearly five years ago.

What is the BlogHer Network and how did you become involved?

The BlogHer network is defined on the “about” page as a guide to blogs by women - though in my eyes that’s not entirely true. BlogHer is more about blogs - and issues - that are of interest to women. As to how I became involved, shortly after Hurricane Katrina I helped out with Hurricane Katrina Direct Relief, a project started by a Grace Davis who’s connected to BlogHer.

BlogHer was starting a community site and they were looking for subject editors. Grace recommended me for the travel section. At that time, the editor positions were first come first served and I was too late. As a part time resident of Austria, it made some sense for me to take Europe.

About six months in to it, I was back in the states and I was getting blog fatigue. Luckily, there was a shift. The travel editor position opened up and knowing that it was my first choice, the BlogHer founders asked me if I’d like it. I snapped it right up. There’s nothing I like more than when I get an idea for a post and I get to spend a few hours surfing for good writing about - oh - well, right now, I’m working on something about aquariums as good rainy day travel diversions.

What one peice of advice would you give to someone travelling alone?

One? Only one? Wow. I guess I’d have to go with a negative: Don’t be paranoid. Solo travelers - especially women - tend to put the walls up. It’s a completely understandable self defense mechanism but one that can lead to shutting out so much. If we step out in to the world with the idea that most people are well intentioned and want to share that attitude, we’d have a much more positive travel experience. Let me try this again from the positive: Trust humanity.

What’s your opinion on the impact that Airlines are having on the World’s environment?

I was at dinner just last night with a handful of traveler friends, including Doug Dosdall, who founded [and has since sold] Travelblogs and Ian Mackenzie of Brave New Traveler, and this issue came up. We talked about how you can now buy “carbon offset” for your flights. Candidly, this business of airline impact breaks my heart. My husband and I both fly long haul several times a year and we can’t imagine giving it up.

We are all hoping for alternative fuels and new engines and new technologies to green our travels. The cost of long haul flights is already hard; I’m grappling with the idea of adding carbon offset dollars to the bottom line on the ticket, but I also wonder what else could be done to keep us flying without doing further harm.

The bottom line is whether or not we are willing to stop flying. I don’t know the answer to that yet. I would like to push some of this back on business travel - it seems that telecommute technologies could really lower the amount of flights necessary by business travelers, but I know that’s just passing the buck and that I am going to have to take responsibility for the impact my own travels have on the environment.

Apparently less than 30% of American’s own a passport.

Why do think that American’s are not good travellers outside of the US?

This is a pretty shocking statistic. I’ve had a passport since I was 15 years old and can’t imagine living without one, but wow, I’m sure in the minority on that! I can’t say why the percentage is so low, but in the US we can travel hundreds of miles through vastly different terrain and not leave the confines of our national borders.

Further more, until very recently, we could cross in to Mexico and Canada with only a driver’s license. Americans have thousands of miles of travel available to them without needing a passport. Compare that with Europe.

A few winters back we went on a sledding adventure in Switzerland and to get there, we traveled through four countries in a period of several hours - I think it was Austria, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein andSwitzerland. With the EU, we didn’t need passports, but only a few years back, we would have.

Outside the US [and perhaps other large nations like India], not having a passport is a serious hindrance to travel - look at all those little countries, so close together! But in the US, until this year, a traveler could drive from Barrow in northern Alaska to the end of the Yucatan peninsula without a passport.

Do you book a vacation on impulse or do you need inspiration and what resources do you use to inspire you?

I am never without inspiration to travel, and to make things worse, nearly everything inspires me to travel. Nature programs make me wonder what the fish look like in that part of the world, food magazines make me want to visit the places the food is from, some random traveler’s photos of their trip to Angkor Wat will make me wonder why I’m not already packing.

I do travel on impulse, but usually, it’s because I have some new friend in a far away place that I want to visit. Last year I went to Antwerp on a whim to visit a fellow travelblogger/photographer. I don’t think I’d have selected Antwerp on my own, but because my friend was there and because I had the time and because RyanAir was (annoying but) cheap, off I went.

If you could travel to any destination in the World, where would you visit and why?

I feel a little self conscious about this response, but here you go. I was out to dinner with a friend in Seattle’s International District - it must be over a year ago now - and I knew that I had no coffee at home. We were in a little shopping center in an area that’s sometimes referred to as Little Saigon.

I dropped into a market there to buy some coffee and picked up a Vietnamese brand called Trung Nguyen. Well, we’re drinking nothing else at home, since, and I take it with me to Austria now, too. I really want to go to Vietnam to learn about coffee culture there.

Apparently Trung Nguyen is the Starbucks of Vietnam - they have branded coffee houses, the whole deal. I’d love to travel backwards up the chain - to start at coffee houses in Hanoi, maybe visit the corporate headquarters, then get out to where the growers are.

• Travel Blog Networking Day
• Traveller walks through passport control showing her bus pass
• Travel Safe .. Be Safe
• Passport Rant, Tips and Advice

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