My Seven Links

The goal of Tripbase’s My 7 Links initiative is “to unite bloggers (from all sectors) in a joint endeavor to share lessons learned and create a bank of long but not forgotten blog posts that deserve to see the light of day again.”

The rules are pretty simple – a blogger is nominated to take part and then publishes their 7  links on their blog – one in each of 7 categories.  The blogger then nominates 5 more bloggers to take part and on it goes…

Many thanks to Cailin O’Neal from Travel Yourself for nominating me – and without further ado, here are my 7 links:

My most beautiful post

Having the Time of My Life – this post is the most beautiful to me because of the wonderful memories it brought back as I was writing it.  It made me really appreciate everything I have been able to experience while traveling so far.

My most popular post

A Guide to Completing Your Career Grand Slam (as a spectator) – this post was about one-third travel and two-thirds sports – my other great passion. I owe its popularity to the fact that SportsIllustrated.com tennis writer Jon Wertheim included a link to it in one of his posts during the Australian Open in January.

My most controversial post

Confessions of a Guidebook Junkie – I’ve avoided getting too controversial about anything in my first year of blogging – this post is about as close as I came to stirring up controversy – it seems people either love guidebooks or they hate ‘em.

My most helpful post

How to Save Money on European Train Travel – this is probably the most practical post I’ve written.  I took a couple possible scenarios and compared the cost of buying individual tickets versus using a rail pass, as well as purchasing through Rail Europe versus national rail companies.

A post whose success surprised me

Lessons I’ve Learned From My Passport – I wrote this on a whim as I was getting ready to send my passport in for renewal and I really didn’t think it would garner much of a response.  Instead, it has been my second-most read post.

A post I feel didn’t get the attention it deserved

Life is a Journey, Not a Destination – this was such a hard, very personal post for me to write, I guess I hoped deep down it might reach more people.  It wasn’t about travel, but about my experience challenging myself and going way outside of my comfort zone – by performing improv comedy in front of 700 people.

The post that I am most proud of

Reflections on Egypt in a Time of Turmoil – I wrote this post about a week after the revolution started in Egypt in late January.  Rather than simply sharing my reflections about a country I came to adore when I visited in 2008, I wove in quotes from my tour manager, who was in Switzerland at the time, posting frequent Facebook updates about what he was hearing from his friends and family in Cairo. I thought the result was quite moving and I was very proud to have it highlighted in several “best blogs of the week” round-ups.  I still get chills when I re-read it.

If you missed any of these the first time around, I hope you’ll check them out!

And now, for my nominations:

Lisa from  LLWorldTour

Kim from So Many Places

Nancy from  Family on Bikes

Kristin from Take Your Big Trip

Torre from The Fearful Adventurer