This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Louise Brown who is the Community Manager at TravelPod, her role is to help all of members feel at home in the blogging community, helping people navigate the site, answering difficult travel questions in the forums and recruiting local experts.

How is TravelPod educating travellers to be environmentally friendly?

If you participate for any length of time in discussions on the TravelPod forums, you’ll find quite a few people brainstorming on ways of traveling sustainably. The nature of traveling (especially by air) is detrimental to the environment, we all know that.

What a lot of us don’t know, is any other way to travel. By browsing the blogs, and conversing with Local Experts in the forums, I think many new travelers have found that there are other ways to get around. It’s the seasoned travelers who usually travel in more sustainable ways, and these are the people who influence the new travelers.

It’s those prolific bloggers who will influence those who might have been afraid to get out of their carbon spewing cab before. These are the people who know that walking everywhere will most likely lead to a better trip, and it shows in their blogs.

Do you think travellers are becoming bored of writing blogs?

I think it’s true that people are becoming bored of writing blogs of all types. I think the time of the blog-hype is way over. In 2002, we thought everyone and their mom would be writing a blog. And that was true. For about five months.

The people who are still updating their blogs are quality writers, people who are passionate about writing and crafting a good story, and I think those are the people who are drawn to travel blogs. The great thing about travel writing is, you are only expected to do it when you travel!

So, it’s OK to abandon your blog for a few months, or even years. It’s great if you can write a blog about every single day trip you take, or every weekend getaway, but I think travel blogging puts a lot less pressure on the writer to come up with new material all the time.

What do you think will be the next big thing to inspire travellers?

Instantaneous sharing of your travels. Cell phones now have web capability but it’s slow and usually clunky, especially in North America. This will get better over time. Digital cameras will also soon have web access and you’ll be able to upload your videos and photos in real time.

As for the viewer, I think you’ll find a more streamlined blog environment that will be easier to navigate with bigger buttons and a less technical atmosphere in general.

• Airline industry working towards carbon free flights
• Who do you trust for travel destination advice?
• Tips researching your Holiday Destination
• Holidaymakers do not trust user generated content
• How to become an Ecotourist

Please enter your email address to receive my free newsletter