Journalism – Life Aboard the Traveling Circus

July 7, 2014July 7, 2014

Virtual Blog Tour Monday

Blogging is not a solitary effort or work that exists behind a glass, where writers watch in silence as audiences read, critique and praise their work. Instead, it is a community, and to be a successful blogger, you have to join the party – not just sit in the corner and wonder when someone will come and talk to you.

For this reason, I am participating in Virtual Blog Tour Monday, an effort which I was asked to participate in by a fellow blogger where we talk about what’s going on with our writing and give you some inside looks while introducing you to three other binge-worthy blogs to check out when you’re bored at work.

1. What am I working on? Although I enjoy being a part of the WordPress community and getting and giving feedback to writers and readers who love the process as much as I do, at this point, I want this blog to be the takeoff point to more travel writing work. By using clips and ideas that I have written for Circus, I want to do more freelance work for travel websites and magazines and get out so I can not only improve my craft, but I can circle it back and gain a larger following for Circus as well.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre? There’s a lot of stuff out there on luxury, high-class travel, travel for families, or travel for partying college kids. However, Circus is about the thrill of nomad travel – the joy of not knowing where you’re going to sleep tonight or what odd characters you’re going to come across on your journey. Dirty, backpacked kids deserve an intelligent guide too.

3. How does my writing process work? I think about travel pretty much all day long, everyday – so when the next week comes about and I know it’s time for a fresh post, it isn’t hard for me to scavenge my ideas together and craft a post that focuses on a particularly charming destination, wise travel tips, or interesting observations that I’ve picked up. I follow basic journalistic standards through my formal training at Monmouth University, but at the same time, I make an effort to use my human voice and let this be my own space.

4. Why do I create what I do? Back in the day when I came to the rather obvious conclusion that being a travel writer would be the best job in the world, I also quickly realized that National Geographic wasn’t going to instantly allow me to tell everyone about where to find the best cannolis in Florence. I needed my own outlet, and I found that here – a place to share work and ideas without the fear of failure while also enjoying a space to look back on how I’ve grown as a writer…. and all the sweet places I’ve been.

Check out these three other awesome blogs…

1. Fiona Andrews

Fiona is an itinerant barefoot yoga teacher who never manages to stay in one country for more than a few months at a time. Recently transplanted from southern India, she is still enjoying the novelty of amenities like electricity and indoor plumbing. When she’s not sleeping in an airport during an agonizing layover or helping her students into kickass headstands, she can be found growing her content marketing business or climbing a nearby tree.

A Day In the Life of a Yogi in India

10 Things To Get You Through 32 Hours of Travelling

2. Fabulously Disheveled

Amy Wray is a lifestyle and fashion editor, writer, and personal blogger. She’s hip to all things pop culture and loves champagne, chihuahuas, and reality tv.

Swimsuits in Every Size That Are Pool Party Perfect

Trend: Statement Ankle

3. Like I Said…

Tamara “T” Braunstein is a journalist and writer by training and passion, currently working for a PR firm in Chicago, IL. A native of Seattle, WA, she adores the West Coast and thrives on adventure, the outdoors, and contemplating and writing about life, in all of its shame and glory.

Death of a Friend

The Caveats of My Forgiveness

February 12, 2014February 21, 2014

A Life Of

I’ve always just wanted to travel.

This is a phrase I hear often, mostly from people who hold down full-time jobs and have a salaried income and are looking to settle down with a house and a dog and what could be considered a normal life, a real life. Even though I am all for the average person branching out and seeing the world; visiting new countries and meeting new people who live lives completely different from anything they have seen before, it still makes me a little nervous to hear this.

For some, travel is something they want to hit on the weekends, something that, for perfectly good and logical reasoning, is not worth giving up stability and a place to live for. They want to book a trip to the beach for two weeks a year, spending a couple well-earned days soaking up some sun with a fruity drink in their hand, or maybe even still visiting somewhere new and kind of scary and exciting.

However, when I hear this, I’m the one that gets scared because I know that is never going to be good enough for me. I know that two weeks a year, a measly 14-day break from my desktop computer and my coffee cup, is just not going to cut it, no matter if the destination is the Jersey Shore or New Zealand. To me, it’s not funny that some can’t wait to finally get to work just so they can begin counting the hours they can go home and do it all again the next day. It’s not ironic, it’s just very sad.

Right now, the seams-of-your-pants, no-strings-attached, washing-clothes-in-the-sink life doesn’t feel within my reach, which seems odd because in theory, this should be easy, at the least more fun, than nine-to-five cubicle life. However, it becomes remarkably easy to attach yourself to a detached normal life, one that involves a morning and evening commute and patent leather heels. You can really do it without even thinking and barely noticing, trust me.

But what I do know is that this isn’t the end for me, and the time I have spent trying to find my place in the big scary world and finding the perfect suitcase and crafting the perfect travel pitches has not been in vain, even if today, it all seems like another lifetime and the next chapter feels impossibly far away. People say that life is short and that they should enjoy it – I actually feel the opposite. Life is incredibly long and if you spend it being bored and complacent, it is a slow-moving dragging of the feet to nothingness.

For some, two weeks is fine (although four would be nicer). But for the rest of us, we would rather face a little uneasiness and a lot of fun instead of a lifetime of simplicity and typicality.

June 29, 2013June 29, 2013

Do It For Journalism

I don’t know my neighbors. I never have, and I probably never will. I never brought them brownies when they moved in, or volunteered to babysit their kids, or waved to them when I happened to be in the yard. However, in South Carolina, the neighbors don’t just wave at you from across the yard, but they have keys to your house and stroll in to say hi and leave their dogs there to hang out and best of all, they take you out on their boat.

My aunt’s neighbor, and his two 5-and-under sons, took us out tubing out on their boat on Palmetto Bluff in Bluffton, South Carolina, which is about 30 minutes away from Savannah, Georgia and Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Palmetto Bluff isn’t a lake or a collection of islands that’s just sitting next to the road, stuffed full of million-dollar mansions. Instead, it’s a homey, hidden paradise, stocked full of Southern glory and an almost eerie quiet. After driving down their driveway for ten minutes-literally, ten minutes-we arrived at the Bluff, tucked away behind weeping willows with birds, moss, and dolphins scouring the area.

I knew I was getting old when the neighbor asked if we wanted to go tubing first since his sons were nervous and I was actually the one who was scared, maybe more than these little kids were. Nervous of riding behind a boat in a tube. Puh-lease. However, as I climbed into this tube clearly made for children with a borrowed t-shirt on and hoping the thunderstorms didn’t come through, I just thought to myself, Do it for journalism.

Because that’s it, isn’t it? Today, I’m in South Carolina with my friend, hanging out at pools and shopping at the outlet mall, pretty standard stuff. But tomorrow? Tomorrow I’ll be zip lining in Belize, screaming for my life. Visiting psychics camped out in the forest in Cambodia. Wondering how the hell I’m gonna get down from a mountain in China. So for today, I’ll do every little scary thing I can, even if it’s probably not even that big of a deal. I’ll do it for journalism.