Please read about my approach to Twitter’s Follow Friday.
Recommendations for Friday 18 December, 2009
Travel
@katejb: Kate Joynes-Burgess is a British writer and photographer specialising in Latin America and the Caribbean. She is the author of Belize: Great Destinations, to be published by Countryman Press in 2011. She is generous with her knowledge on Twitter.
Food
@sulineats: London food blogger Su-Lin tweets as @sulineats. She is conversational on Twitter, talking mainly about food and her life in London. I also recommend her lovely food blog Tamarind and Thyme about “cooking and eating well in London without going broke”.
Previous Recommendations
Travel
@travelprgirl Miami-based PR Caitlin Murphy not only has a cool name, she is also very hooked up with great travel clients and clued up about social media. She was able to procure generous sponsorships from Coconut Bay Beach Resort & Spa in St Lucia and Tranquility Bay Resort in Belize for Roaming Tales to offer in the Passports with Purpose raffle.
@marcygordon: I met Marcy at the Book Passage Travel Writing and Photography Conference. Both on Twitter and offline, she is vibrant and fun. She also knows how to wear a hat! She is a contributing editor on guide books to Italy and has a blog about food, wine and travel called Come for the Wine.
@wandermom: Irish-born Michelle Duffy is a Seattle-based travel blogger and mother of two children. She is co-author of Wanderlust and Lipstick: Traveling with Kids. Her site on independent family travel is also called WanderMom but her Twitter account is more than an RSS feed for the site – she tweets her thoughts and feelings, has interesting conversations with other tweeters, and shares links to other content.
@travelsavvykayt: Kayt Sukel is a prolific travel writer, blogging for TravelSavvyMom, and reporting for in-flight magazines and the Washington Post, no less. She travels with her young son, mostly around Europe. On Twitter, she is friendly and personable and generous with her time.
@deliciousbaby: Seattle-based Debbie Dubrow is a blogging dynamo and the mother of three young children. I don’t know how she does it! She’s a great person to get to know on Twitter for her friendliness and insights about travel. If you have a family (or just a blog) you should check out her blog on travelling with young children, DeliciousBaby Journal.
@amalchik: Antonia Malchik is a writer based in up-state New York and one of the contributors to the Perceptive Travel Blog. She writes about travel but more widely considers herself a ‘writer of place’. Her tweets veer towards the literary with an occasional dose of motherhood. I always enjoy our chats.
@jenleo: Jen Leo is the lead blogger for the LA Times Travel Blog and the LAT Web Buzz column writer. She is also editor of the award-winning Sand in My Bra series, published by Travelers’ Tales. We met in person at the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference in August and I can also attest she is super-nice and helpful with advice and contacts.
@travelrants: Darren Cronian is the blogging dynamo behind consumer travel issues blog Travel Rants and Leeds destination blog My Life in Leeds. He is very active on Twitter and starts interesting debate, shares useful links, and is generous about promoting other bloggers. He is the organiser of the Travel Blog Camp in London (see my write-up of the inaugural event last year).
@kevinlukemay: Kevin May is the former editor of Travolution, a UK business magazine about the online travel industry. As you can imagine he has great contacts and knows all the industry gossip before anyone else. He is also a smart guy (we used to work together) so his insights are generally interesting. He has now left to launch a media startup Tnooz – I don’t know much about the details yet, but it’s focusing on travel tech.
@melissashales: Melissa Shales is new to Twitter but she is certainly not new to travel or travel writing. Please make her feel welcome! She is an experienced travel writer in the UK and the current chair of the British Guild of Travel Writers. She has recently set up her own site at www.melissashales.co.uk and her own blog World@Large.
@lonelyplanet: Although I generally prefer to follow people than brands, travel publisher Lonely Planet is using Twitter in a very interesting way. The account is devoted to retweeting the best travel-related content. It’s worth following for two reasons. Firstly because the content is invariably interesting and secondly because it makes you eligible to have your tweets retweeted. The tweets need to be tagged #lp to qualify.
@wendmagazine: The Twitter account for Wend Magazine, which focuses on adventure travel with an environmental theme. There’s a print magazine (with a digital version), a website and a blog. I wrote about Wend and its strong environmental credentials (both in the content it covers and in its own production) for EcoSalon a while back. Some publications make the mistake of using Twitter as just another RSS feed – doing nothing but tweeting out lists of its own posts or articles. Happily, @wendmagazine is one of the few that “gets” Twitter – they link to their own stuff but they also link to other interesting content and they engage in conversation with their followers.
@wendyperrin: Wendy Perrin is the consumer news editor at Condé Nast Traveler and the person behind the Perrin Post, which is currently publishing a personally vetted travel deal every day. She is a true expert about the service side of travel after two decades at the magazine and so passionate about the value of travel that she has designated someone in her will to take her children travelling. She’s super-nice and friendly and although she works a 12-hour day, she still finds time for Twitter (she tweets instead of watching TV).
@ourman: Steve Jackson is a VSO volunteer in Cameroon and has previously volunteered in Vietnam and Nicaragua. He provides interesting insights and honest commentary on life in Cameroon (he has a well-developed sense of cynicism) via Twitter and his blog Our Man in Cameroon. His service in Africa is almost at an end and he has a trip to Hanoi planned – what next? [Update: He is now in Hanoi and is now blogging at Our Man in Hanoi]. Steve “gets” the conversation side of Twitter and is pretty engaging and opinionated.
@nerdseyeview: Pam Mandel from Seattle tweets about travel, blogging, playing her ukelele. I’ve followed her since my early days on Twitter and find that her links are usually interesting, she has a good sense of humour, and she is quite interactive – meaning she’ll often have @reply conversations on Twitter. She runs travel blog Nerd’s Eye View and is the contributing editor on travel at BlogHer.
Food
@kristainlondon: An American in London, Krista reviews restaurants (mostly but not exclusively in London) on her popular Londonelicous blog. She also gives good tweet.
@hollowlegs: Lizzie has one the most popular food blogs in London, Hollow Legs, jam-packed with recipes and restaurant reviews. She is very active on Twitter, always up for a chat about food, life in London, or anything else that sparks her interest.
@frombecca: Rebecca Varidel is a chef and a food writer. A passionate Sydneysider, she is an advocate for slow and regional cusisine and extremely knowledgeable about food and the Sydney dining scene. She blogs at Thoughts from Becca and publishes Inside Cuisine. Oh and her Twitter profile page has pretty Jacaranda blossoms – a classic feature of Sydney streets and parks at this time of year – and matching purple font!
@browners: Jonathan Brown is half (more like nine-tenths) of food blog Around Britain with a Paunch. I’ve met Jonathan in person and there was no sign of a paunch, though he assures me he is working on it. His posts vary between London, particularly his patch in south-west London, and the rest of the UK, most recently Cornwall and Devon. He tweets mostly about food and London but he’s not one-dimensional and will happily make general conversation.
@sophiemostly: The delightful Sophie is a nutritionist from Oxford, England. As well as being knowledgeable about nutrition and food issues and generous with her expertise, she is also a keen cook. She has a blog called Mostly Eating with wonderful recipes such as this one on damson, pear and walnut muffins.
@anissahelou: Anissa Helou is an established cookery writer specialising in Middle Eastern cuisine. She grew up in Beirut to a Lebanese mother and Syrian father but has lived in London since she was 21. She has expertise in art and antiques as well as food. She is very interactive on Twitter.
@figandcherry: Christie Connelly is a Sydney-born writer with a lovely food blog Fig and Cherry. She is an adventurous spirit with a great sense of fun and is currently travelling in Europe and North America with her husband.
@foodieguide: Londoner Helen Yuet Ling Pang writes one of my favourite food blogs World Foodie Guide. Her particular passion is for ‘traveleating’ – exploring the cuisines and food cultures of the world as she travels. Her parents are Hong Kong Chinese and Helen is very knowledgeable about Chinese food, but she doesn’t limit herself to any one region. Her next destination is Japan and recently she published her five-year travel plan. She is very active on Twitter and always up for a chat about food.
@msgourmet: Nanette Johnson is the self-styled Ms Gourmet of the blog Gourmet Worrier. She has a terrific blog about ‘food, family, travel and life’ and is quite prolific. She is normally based in Melbourne, Australia but right now she is travelling in Europe so we are getting lots of tweets and posts about markets in Malta and butchers in Rome. On Twitter, she is generous with her time and links.
@blogwelldone: Kansas-based Chris Perrin blogs at Blog Well Done, which has great recipes and is vegetarian friendly. He is very active on Twitter, especially with one-on-one conversations. He is very helpful with cooking advice if you ever need it.
@lulugrimes: Lulu is the deputy editor on British glossy food magazine Olive. She’s warm and funny, and a true authority on food, especially cookery. Keen home cooks needing the odd spot of advice should definitely follow Lulu. She has great restaurant recommendations in London too.
@eatlikeagirl: Niamh, an Irish expat living in London, is the brains (or the stomach) behind food blog Eat Like a Girl. It’s one of my favourite food blogs for both recipes and the occasional London restaurant review. On Twitter, she’s chatty and engaging.
@fooderati: Melissa Leong is a Sydney food writer, food marketing consultant and radio host. Her passion for food shines through in her tweets and she is not afraid to have strong opinions. She also has a blog, Put It In Your Mouth.
@ruthreichl: Ruth Reichl is the editor of Gourmet and the former restaurant reviewer for the New York Times. Her memoirs are wonderful – I especially enjoyed Garlic and Sapphires about her years as the NYT reviewer. She doesn’t follow many people (currently about 70, versus over 15,000 who are following her) but I can forgive that as she is wonderful. Oh and she’s not just a foodie – she’s a traveller too! (She’s currently on her way to Laos). [Update 5 October: Conde Nast has announced the pending closure of Gourmet but @ruthreichl is still tweeting].
@kathrynelliott: Another person I’ve followed since joining Twitter, Kathryn Elliott is a Sydney-based nutritionist and a keen home cook. Her bio describes her as “nutritionist, food blogger, beetroot fiend” and she is always up for chat about food and health. She has a food and nutrition blog called Limes & Lycopene.
A new approach to Follow Friday
I have decided to take a new approach to Follow Friday on Twitter. (Don’t know what that is?).
The problem I have with Follow Friday is that it’s very often just a list of names, with no context or explanation of why that person is interesting to follow. Also, Twitter does not work very well as an archive so it can be difficult to judge how often to repeat the same recommendation.
I came across this idea for Follow Friday from another Twitter user but unfortunately I cannot remember who it was to give the correct credit.
Instead of tweeting a list of names, I am going to make my recommendations here on the blog. I’ll highlight a food and travel tweeter each week and share the link on Twitter. Outside the constraint of the 140-word tweet, I hope to be able to give more useful information.
I may still make non-travel and non-food Follow Friday recommendations on Twitter but I won’t be publishing them here.
What is Follow Friday?
Follow Friday is a popular meme on micro-blogging site Twitter. The idea is that every Friday, Twitter users dedicate a tweet or two to recommend interesting people to follow on Twitter. The tweets are marked with the #followfriday hashtag to mark the tweet and make search easier.
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