The Bloghouse was a pre-TBEX event where five senior travel bloggers (Stephanie Yoder of Twenty-Some

The Bloghouse was a pre-TBEX event where five senior travel bloggers (Stephanie Yoder of Twenty-Something Travel , Michael Tieso of Art of Backpacking , Michael Hodson of Go, See, Write , Cailin O Neil of Travel Yourself and The Taste of Travel, and myself) invited ten up-and-coming travel bloggers for 2.5 days of work, teaching, and networking.
We rented a beautiful villa in the town of Besalù, Spain, called Casa Marcial , with the gracious assistance of Charming Villas .  Casa Marcial was a gorgeous house filled with meeting rooms, work rooms, a gorgeous backyard, and enough bedrooms for the 15 of us, plus some special guests!
We shared as much of our knowledge as we could with each other everything from working with PR and sponsors to SEO copywriting to social media to photo editing with Lightroom to video editing techniques to WordPress, plugins, and tech issues.
We had a private chef!  Chef Lee Pennington came to cook for the house and serves us some absolutely paul mccartney tour delicious paella, paul mccartney tour shrimp in this fantastic sauce, calamari stuffed with sausage, and little paul mccartney tour cups filled with chocolate and raspberries.
Not to be outdone paul mccartney tour by our previous dinner, we also had a meal at the outstanding Restaurant Pont Vell , with the best view in town, right on the bridge.  I m still dreaming of their fresh Catalan dishes.
Another one of our surprises? paul mccartney tour  We invited half a dozen representatives from PR agencies, travel companies, paul mccartney tour and tourism boards and DMOs to come for an evening paul mccartney tour and socialize with everyone, getting to know the new bloggers.
Want to visit Besalù for yourself?  It s about one hour and forty-five paul mccartney tour minutes from Barcelona and one hour from Girona.  Bus lines connect Besalù from both cities.  Looking for a hotel?   Els Jardins de la Martana paul mccartney tour  is an excellent hotel with a great view of the bridge, and they offered me a comped stay the night before the bloghouse.
We had quite a few applicants to the bloghouse, and though we were sad to turn down many excellent bloggers, we were very happy with those we ultimately invited.  We chose to invite those who we believe have the potential to become the next big players in the travel blogging industry.
But fr me, the single greatest takeaway took place at TBEX a few days later.  I looked across the room and saw one of our bloghouse attendees chattering away with an industry person at the conference, a huge smile on her face, the very picture of confidence.  A few days ago, she had told me that she had felt too intimidated to approach any industry people.  The bloghouse changed all that.
My time at the blog house, in the end, was crazy inspiring not only because we were around people who are so enamored with what they do, but who also equally believed in what we do. We were around people who knew they had something to offer, turned their passions into a lifestyle, and felt we could do the same.
Getting to work with these seasoned bloggers individually, ask all the questions that have been on our minds, getting advice and tips that would normally have taken years of trial and error made for a truly unforgettable experience. Not to mention working with a good group of newer bloggers just like me. Everyone brought something different to the table and through casual conversation, impromptu sessions and loads and loads of questions, paul mccartney tour   we learned a ton from each other.
I was educated in how to write a pitch, the absolute necessity of a good media kit, instructed to never undersell myself and to always ask, because 'you never know until you do'. I learned a huge amount about how to create and maintain a successful paul mccartney tour blog.
It is these sorts of opportunities that experienced travel bloggers provide to us, that make me love the decision to throw away a very successful career and pursue our dreams and passions full time.
A special thanks to Richard from Charming Villas , who helped us immeasurably every step of the way, as well as our sponsors, our PR guests, and all the bloggers paul mccartney tour who took a chance on us.  You made this an amazing adventure!
Posted by Kate McCulley on Monday, October 22, 2012 at 11:36 am Filed under Besalu , Blog , Costa Brava , Destinations , Europe , Featured , Spain Tagged with besalu , bloghouse paul mccartney tour , costa brava , europe , spain
Sounds brilliant! That part of Spain is so beautiful, and the food looks amazing! (You can tell where my priorities are, haha.) I m so envious of the experience for all of you and thank you for the connection to new bloggers to read!
It gives me hope for my future as a blogger and the future of the travel blogging industry in general to see this sort of mentorship happening. I think it points to the fact that the travel blogging industry paul mccartney tour is maturing a little bit and that it will be here for the long haul.
Wow, this sounds like an absolutely wonderful opportunity! Props to you guys for organizing it, and thanks for sharing the sites of the attendees! paul mccartney tour Now you left me super hungry with the photos of all those tantalizing dishes!
Who is Adventurous Kate? At age 26, I quit my job to travel the world alone. I spent six fantastic months in Southeast Asia and turned my travel blog into a full-time business. Today, I travel full-time, going anywhere that sounds wacky or beautiful or interesting. My goal is to show YOU how you can travel the world on your own -- easily, safely, and adventurously. Read more here.
Europe: Austria , Belgium paul mccartney tour , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Croatia , Czech Republic, Faroe Islands (Denmark), France , Germany , Hungary , Iceland , Ireland, Italy , Liechtenstein , Monaco , Montenegro , Portugal , Spain , Switzerland , Turkey , United Kingdom ( England , Scotland , Wales ), Vatican City