Taking off Travel blog

Are you blogging and writing about travel? Want to make some money and gain the recognition of your peers and others? Check out these travel writing and blogging contests.

Telegraph Travel Writing Competition

Called Just Back, the weekly competition offers writers the chance to win £200 in the currency of their choice. Just submit an entry of up to 500 words to justback@telegraph.co.uk (UK residents; see full T&C)

Solas Awards

An annual competition for which submissions are open all year round, the Solas Awards have a submission length of 750 words. Entry fees apply. (US residents; see full T&C). Closing date for this year’s competition is September 21, 2010.

52 Perfect Days Travel Writing Contest

Submit up to 1,000 words on an experience in a National Monument, National Seashore or Historic Parks in the United State or Canada. The prize for the 52 Perfect Days Travel Writing Contest is a trip to Hawaii. (US, Canada, Mexico residents; see full T&C). Closing date: October 31, 2010.

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It’s been a busy month for us here on Park Ride Fly USA. We’ve been getting more active on sites like Facebook and Friendfeed and we’ve begun stumbling our favourite sites on StumbleUpon. That means that we for even more great posts for this edition of  our occasional Traveling The Blogosphere blog carnival (last edition here). Read on and enjoy!

Volunteering and Seeing the World on the Sharing Travel Experiences blog. Lillie talks about an extended trip around the world featuring learning, laughter, liberty and love. She says:

Travel is about love of humanity, love of one’s inner self, and (for a solo gal like me) an underlying quest for what future long-term love could and should look like.

The rest of the interview is well worth reading.

It’s OK To Hate Some Places on the Fox Nomad blog explodes the myth that you have to love everywhere you travel to. As Anil points out:

You’ll end up finding that the things you don’t like say more about you than anything else. Whether its the cleanliness, people, or food you can’t stand it’s all about you.

This post really struck a chord with many people as there are around 30 comments. Read more »

Can you believe how quickly the past year has gone by? Here’s our roundup of the posts you liked best this year (courtesy of some of PostRank’s technical wizardry):

Three Travel Trends That Tick Me Off

Ah - the glory days of travel: excitement, romance and luxury. The first time I stepped onto a plane, the experience was alluring. Seating felt roomy (I was young), there was food on little trays, and the cabin crew visibly loved their jobs - or put on a good show of doing so. Not any [...]

Traveling The Blogosphere - September 2009

This has been an interesting month. I’ve spent a lot of it visiting first Florida and now New Jersey, but today my travel will be virtual, as I look at some of the posts that caught my eye during the month of September. First, a recent post by Darren Cronian where he says it is Time to take [...]

Coasting And Karting In Florida

To round out my review of Florida attractions (see parts 1 and 2), there are just a couple more to mention. On Tuesday, we returned to Boomers to try out a couple of things we’d missed the previous week. The first of these was the wooden roller coaster, the largest of its [...] Read more »

It’s Christmas Eve, so it’s a good time to get in some holiday reading. Here are some of the travel posts that have caught my eye in December:

First of all, there’s a thought-provoking post on Man vs Debt, titled Is Travel Worth It? The post examines the pros and cons of his family’s semi-nomadic lifestyle and makes a clear assessment of what worked for them, what didn’t - and why. While admitting that there have been difficulties, Baker also says there have been a lot of pluses, not least this:

Tomorrow, while much of the U.S. bitches about the cold weather, we’ll pack our bags and catch a plane to what is widely considered one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

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If you were keeping track, you will have noticed that I skipped last month, mostly because I was dealing with the aftermath of recent trips. This month, though, I’ve got some great posts lined up that should provide plenty of reading material for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. To get things started, have a look at this great video on world air traffic, which I saw on the Matador Network.

Lessons On Location Independence

Lea Woodward gets some lessons from her daughter in 5 Things Our Four Month Old Could Teach You About What It Takes To Become Location Independent. It contains gems such as:

By treating new skills development & learning as a game rather than a serious “must do” to cross off your list, you’re likely to create a far more fun and enriching experience

Nomadic Matt reflects on the experience of being back home, highlighting the enjoyment both of exploring the new and experiencing the familiar. Read more »