Travel blogging comes of age – the Bloggies are the icing on an incredible year.
What a difference a year makes! This time last year I was bemoaning the fact that there were no travel blogs in the finals of the 2008 Bloggies compared with 11 food blogs. I suggested that travel bloggers needed to develop more of a sense of community so that we would put each other forward for these type of awards.
Fast forward to today. The winners of the 2009 Bloggies were announced yesterday and travel blogs made a sterling showing. Congratulations to everyone who was nominated but particularly to the winners.
So much has changed in the past year. For starters, many travel bloggers badgered the organisers of the Bloggies to introduce a travel blog category, which they did. Pam Mandel set up a forum for travel bloggers on her site Nerd’s Eye View, then more recently Kim Mance set up the TravelBlogXChange social networking forum on Ning. We had the fabulous fundraising event Passports with Purpose, which I was proud to be a part of, and numerous face-t0-face events such as Travel Blog Camp in London and recently SXSWi where Sheila Scarborough of Family Travel Logue and Pam Mandel presented a panel on travel blogging. I’m also connected to many wonderful travel writers and bloggers on Twitter and StumbleUpon. I really do feel part of a community now, something that has benefited not only me personally but the travel blogging genre as a whole.
So before, I tell you who won the Bloggies (assuming you haven’t gone and looked already), I should remind you to please go and vote in the Lonely Planet Travel Blogger Awards. Voting closes on 20 March, just a few short days away, so get your skates on! I think there are flaws in the way these awards have been run and I’ll write more on that another time. However, I also think there is recognition of that fact and hopefully they’ll get it right next year. In the mean time, these bloggers deserve your support!
Without further ado, the 2009 Bloggies winners…
- Camels and Chocolate won the inaugural Best Travel Weblog category. Well done, Kristin!
- Susie’s Big Adventure by an American woman living in Saudi Arabia won the Best Asian Weblog category. I’m particularly excited by this because I nominated Susie.
Please also check out the food blog winners.
Photo by: ɹǝɯıʇɹoɯ on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons licence.
I love Kristin’s Camel and Chocolate! A well-deserved win!
PS: Forgot to add good post!
I love both of those blogs, congrats to them…and the travel community for more visibility on the web!
I was so excited to be in the room when the travel category was announced at SxSW. Our pals who were there did not win, but just to have travel as a category at all was a huge thrill. With the LP awards and the bloggies, well, it’s all good news for travelbloggers isn’t it?
I remember your article last year about the lack of travel blogger nominees–I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since then! I agree, Caitlin, it is really nice to see what a community has developed in the past year for travel bloggers, and I’m really honored to be a part of it. I can only imagine where we’ll be next year at this time!
Aww, thanks so much for the mention! I’m just now catching up on all my blog read, as fittingly, I was on the road in the South Pacific during SxSW! =)