The Art of Travel Blogging

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As a relative newbie to travel blogging, having only written the posts for The Rough Guide to a Lonely Planet (TRGTALP) for just over a year, I am truly fascinated by the different styles of blogs that exists and what piques the interest of those who love to read about travel.  I am also confused at what some travel bloggers constitute of interest to the reading public.  The aim of TRGTALP has always, and always will be, a blog aimed at inspiring people to travel as well as offering advice to the hearty (mostly budget) traveller.

As a traveller myself, I really enjoy reading blogs and websites that provide their readers with useful hints on where to travel, how to travel and information on successfully navigating the tricky elements of soon to be explored destinations.  I am therefore, confused to find a large section of travel blogging community offering their readers posts that merely act as an extended, detailed itinerary-based report of their trip to a particular destination.  These self-indulgent 'trip report' style posts often follow a particular theme such as an experience of the writer's morning watching a local folk dance in Turkey or a mundane day-to-day run through of every aspect of their year exploring the world.  They are also usually accompanied by the writer posting several photos, on Twitter and Instagram, of their latest cocktail or a glass of vino in their said destination.  I am led to believe, from reading the comments attached to such posts and seeing the following many of these bloggers receive on Twitter and Facebook that they are very popular with readers.

Personally, I do not get it!  What benefit is this kind of travel literature to the readers other than a chance to ram it in their face by saying, 'I travel lots!  My life is fabulous!'  Do the readers perhaps enjoy travelling vicariously with the writer?  For me, it borders on insulting.  Harsh, I know.  But to assume that people want to read about YOUR holiday is just odd!  The bland minutiae found within these 'trip report' posts, I find mind-numbingly dull; bringing me to the key point of this post...I DO NOT WANT TO READ ABOUT YOUR HOLIDAY!  I am thrilled you had a fabulous trip to Munich, but I could not care less about all the things you visited, the copious beer steins you drunk and the amount of sausage you ate on your visit.  Aside from the literary merits of these banal posts and blogs, I do not get the point of them.  As a traveller, I believe people want help and advice to allow them to create their own experiences and I enjoy my travel largely for my own sake; not because it will make an 'interesting' blog post.  In addition to this, reading about someone else's trip acts as a spoiler to your own visit there and could possibly ruin any surprises you might have otherwise enjoyed.  The trips I take are often referred to in blog posts, here at TRGTALP, but only to root any help, advice and inspiration I want to offer my readers, not help them to create a carbon copy of my trip.

Of course, from time to time, I (or my wonderful guest posters) may write about destinations that have impressed, but I can assure you I will not be boring you with my 3 day blow-by-blow trip to Valencia or with posts that write at great length about days 1-6, 7-12 and 13-15 of my backpacking adventure around Vietnam.  What The Rough Guide to a Lonely Planet will provide you with is inspiration and help to give YOU the opportunity to explore destinations YOURSELF as part of YOUR own adventure.

One thing, before I go...just remember to include @TRGTALP in your Tweeted picture of that holiday cocktail!

Happy and safe travels!

Shoestring Munich (A Guest Post by towelintherain)

Continuing the theme of allowing you, the readers of TRGTALP to contribute, I present to you our third guest post from seasoned traveller towelintherain.  towelintherain is someone I met in the same Krakow hostel as previous guest poster, AllanaD; so you can be assured you are in good company and reading the work of a fine pedigree.  An entertaining and engaging guy, towelintherain offers the readers of TRGTALP tips and advice on negotiating the Bavarian city of Munich on a budget.  This is a city I am yet to visit and so I would like to thank him for this post as I am definitely going to nick some of his ideas to help make the most of my stay in what is supposed to be an incredibly fun German city to visit!  Enjoy!

towelintherain's Tumblr can be found here - http://towelintherain.tumblr.com/

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Munich can be a very expensive place. Exactly how expensive depends on who you ask, but there are some things you can do to push down that cost quite significantly and perhaps even add to your experience.

Sights and Sounds
- Free Walking Tour - You can get an excellent value and fascinating insight into the history of Munich by going on the free walking tour by www.newmunichtours.com. Just rock up to the Mari statue in the middle of Marienplatz at 10:45am or 1pm and you’ll get hours of rich history and culture you might never otherwise discover. Feel free to give your tour guide a little tip at the end, depending on how much you enjoyed it.

Mari statue with the Rathaus in the background © towelintherain

- The Glockenspiel: Voted the second worst tourist attraction in Europe (behind a Czech pencil museum I believe), this is a 100 year old free show that happens at 11am, midday and 5pm in the Rathaus in Marienplatz. It doesn’t last long, but the square fills up to watch it and it’s quite entertaining.

Glockenspiel show © towelintherain

- View over the city: You can also go up to the top of the Rathaus. Two and a half Euros buys you a nice view over the city, a welcome breeze in summer and some excellent photo opportunities.

City views © towelintherain

- Endless green spaces: Munich has an almost infinite supply of parks and gardens. In particular, the Schloss Nymphenburg is a huge palace, museum and landscape garden with entry fees starting at 6 Eur 50 (more expensive entry fees are available but the basic one gets you access to all the key areas).
The Englischer Garten, the largest city park in Europe, is completely free and you could lose yourself for days in there. It has everything from miles of tranquil empty space to crystal clear babbling streams to biergartens (I personally recommend the Seehaus) to a Chinese pagoda. It even has surfing by the Koniginstrasse.

towelintherain at the Schloss Nymphenburg © towelintherain

Prost! at the Seehaus (they weren’t both for me) © towelintherain

Surfing in Englischer Garten © towelintherain

Food and Alcohol Free Liquid
Like most cities, good local food is in abundance from markets and street vendors. You can get a quick sugar hit for 30 or 40 cents or munch your way through the different kinds of wurst for a couple of Euros a go. You can even top up your water from a drinking fountain in Marienplatz. The Viktualienmarkt just south of Petersplatz caters for just about everything if you really can’t decide.

Viktualienmarkt © towelintherain

Boozing
Yes, the Munich beer is *that* good. But you don’t have to spend all your time drinking in the expensive bars and bierkellers. The people of Munich drink everywhere except for the public transport.

A good place is on the River Iser, just by Fraunhoferstrasse station on the U2 line. It’s been turned into a sort of beach and stacks of locals go to hang out there on a nice evening. You put your bottles in the river to keep them cool, maybe get a barbecue going and definitely set about having some good times. It’s the same tasty beer but it costs you about a Euro a bottle from the local shop.

Chilling by the Iser © towelintherain

Beers (chilling) in the Iser © towelintherain

Even better, included in the price of each bottle is a 25 cent deposit to encourage recycling. So if you make the effort to recycle your bottles then 25% of your beer is essentially free. There are recycling points dotted all over the city and in many of the supermarkets.

Public Transport
As you’d expect from a major city, tickets are valid on all U bahn, S bahn, bus and tram services. There are a bewildering number of options available, from single fares, 3 day passes, 7 day passes, specific inner or outer zones, tickets for individuals, couples, families etc. With a bit of digging you should find the cost to be not too unreasonable. A 3 day individual ticket for the main districts will cost you 21 Euros, for example.

The public transport is cheaper than hiring a bike, but hiring a bike would be more fun. Munich is known as the 'City of Bikes'.

Accommodation
Luckily a friend of mine lives in Munich, so I stayed with him, but if you need to pay for accommodation then consider The Tent hostel (http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/The-Tent-Munich/Munich/3787) located near the Schloss Nymphenburg and about a 20 minute tram ride to the city centre. This is just about the cheapest accommodation in Munich and was personally recommended to me by several people while I was there.

Don’t Get Fined!
There are a couple of random rules to be aware of.
- Don’t cross at crossings unless the green man is showing, otherwise you might get slapped with a 40 Euro fine. This law is actually enforced :-/
- Remember to validate your ticket. After you buy your travel ticket you have to put it in a machine located on the platform to get it validated. As a Brit, this is very much an alien concept to me but remember to do it or you may also get fined.

Munich very quickly became one of my favourite places. That may have happened/ happen to you too!

German Journeys (A Guest Post by Allana D)

After several posts from yours truly, I can only imagine that regular readers of TRGTALP are growing tired of hearing my thoughts on travel by now.  I therefore, had a brainwave.  I am lucky enough to have met and know so many people that are as passionate as me about travel that I thought I should hand over the reins to them so that they can offer you something fresh, a change from the norm and a different perspective on their travels and how they get the most from their journeys.  To kick us off, I have enlisted the help of Allana D, a wonderful Aussie I met in a hostel last October in Krakow.  I hope you enjoy reading about and are inspired, as much as I am, by her travels through Germany.

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Germany has been a favourite country of mine since I first travelled there in 2008.  From the first time, this beautiful country captivated me with its vast and interesting history and beautiful cities.  In March 2013, after having lived in Germany for 6 months, I organised and planned a 3 week solo trip in and around Germany to see more of the places I had been dreaming of since my first visit.

View of River Neckar and Heidelberg Old Town from Heidelberg Castle (source - Allana D)

I chose to travel around Germany using their fabulous (and sometimes, not so fabulous) train system, Deutsche Bahn (DB).  I figured out pretty quickly that the trains are extremely expensive when I started to ‘budget’ on how much my transport would cost me.  However, DB has a great ‘Savings Fare’ ticket – all you need to do is make an online account (it’s free!) and you can book all your tickets online using a credit card and the tickets are emailed to you.  Take into account that DB is notoriously known for their delays and last minute changes! If you can help it, try to book a direct train to any or all your destinations.

My first destination was Heidelberg and due to a delay and track change, I almost missed my 1^st connection as I was frantically looking for my next train…which happened to be only on the other side of the same platform.  One of the cities I visited was Munich (a given when planning a trip around Germany, I think J).  I had 5 nights there and it still wasn’t enough for me. It is such a great city to explore for history (both modern and ancient) as well as culture. I did a Sandemans New Munich free walking tour one morning and our guide told us an interesting fact: Germany is the 3^rd largest beer drinking nation in the world behind the Czech Republic and Ireland; however, if you were to only focus on Bavaria (the state and region in which Munich is located), it has the largest amount of beer drinkers in the world...astonishing!

One of the most memorable days on my trip was my day trip from Munich to see the Linderhof Palace and Neuschwanstein Castle, both built by King Ludwig II. It was a pre-booked and fully organised tour which, for me, took out the stress of organising every detail myself.  Another thing that made it a great day was to see the Bavarian Alps and cross them off my ‘To Do’ list.

 Neuschwanstein Castle (source - Allana D)

The Bavarian Alps (source - Allana D) 

If you are looking for somewhere different to go in Germany, rather than the main cities like Berlin and Munich, check out Bamberg.  Only an hour train ride from Nuremberg in Upper Bavaria, this UNESCO historic town is a great day trip.  After walking around for about an hour, I finally found the city centre.  My pathetic sense of direction clearly won that day! The River Regnitz runs through the town and the Cathedral and Castle sit on top of the hill which you can do tours in and around.

 Bamberg (source - Allana D)

Allana D with Bamberg in the background (source - Allana D)

Just a few tips which I could have used for my trip...

• Keep your city maps - Usually if you stay at hostels, their city maps are awesome! I can guarantee you will not remember every church name or building in your photos!
• Invest in ear plugs when bunking in a dormitory - They will be a Godsend! I cannot count how many sleepless nights I had due to people who snore like bears!
• Bring your own towel - All of the hostels I stayed in charged me for a towel! I could have saved a bit of money if I had brought my own. (Other places I have stayed in in Europe were free).
• Check out a city’s events before arrival - I was in Munich for the ‘Strong Beer Festival’ and also some major football games and didn’t even realise it!