Recently, a survey was conducted by Out of Town Blog to bloggers listing their top 15 Philippine travel blogs. A number of bloggers joined in the said survey and after tallying it, I was surprised to see that soloflightEd is among the top travel blogs in the country. Below is the list of top blogs … Read more
I haven’t published a blog post lately. Been busy the past month because of a new change which I’ll probably talk about in the next few weeks. Anyway, I just wanted to share a great surprise when I opened my mail the other day. soloflightEd.com won the Philippine’s Best Male Travel Blogger in Skyscanner’s Bloscars 2013!
SkyScanner presents Travel Bloscars 2013 – Philippines
I booked a ticket for Manila out of the blue. I didn’t have any trips as I’ve been saving for a travel fund I’m preparing for next year. But then this unexpected opportunity came up and I didn’t want to miss out on it. Or probably I was just looking for an excuse to go out and travel. Whatever the reason, I’m glad I pushed through with it.
In the middle of September, I spent my days attending travel talks, conducting podcast interviews and meeting travel bloggers.
I attended two travel talk events by the Sole Sisters. The first time I was a spectator and the second time I got to participate by sharing my ‘crazy travel story’ which was my bungy jumping experience at the Macau Tower.
photo by Lauren
It’s been a long while since I talked in front of a crowd so my nerves really got me. I think I did okay in relaying my adventure to the audience (I hope).
I was also surprised that a few people had introduced themselves saying that they read my blog. I’m honored and humbled by these readers who said that they found my blog useful – made me feel good that somehow, it has found its worth.
Thanks for saying “Hi” guys!
I bring my laptop with me in most of my trips. Although it consumes a lot of space in my backpack, I have online obligations that I need to fulfill in order to help fund my travels. I can’t really work on my rest days at home as most of my days off are also spent on the road. That’s why in order to maximize my time, I go online to work on freelance tasks. I know I talked about how to save money for your trips and extreme saving tips and one of the tips was to earn extra income by pursuing your passion. Blogging has paved way to other opportunities for me to do so.
Here are some areas where you can earn income online while you’re on the road.
If you have a site that has a lot of traffic and has established a bit of authority online, companies will contact you to review their products and all you have to do is share your thoughts. Once you write a blog entry about it, you’ll be compensated depending on your online presence as well as your agreement between the advertiser.
You can also get invited to events and company marketing promotions. I was luckily chosen for a Cebu to Hong Kong flight courtesy of Airphil Express and all I was tasked to do was blog about my experience there. So these sponsored posts don’t have to come in the form of cash.
Still the same concept with traffic, you can place an ‘Advertise’ space in your site to attract companies to place banner ads on your page at an agreed fee. You may also opt to place Google Adsense instead, wherein you’ll be able to earn if somebody clicks on those Ads. Adsense is another whole topic to discuss though as they say this is the most effective and high revenue-generating source for publishers/website owners.
I have a couch surfing account and it’s been with me for over a year. I seldom log in because of having less opportunities to use it. To those who are new to the term, couch surfing is an online community that gathers members/travelers from around the globe to share a space or time for other members. You get to interact with fellow travellers or to people who want to socialize and rent or lend a spare room in another country even when you haven’t met the person face to face.
couchsurfing can beat sleeping at the Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok
This is a free membership site and you can search for a space to stay for a night when you’ll be dropping by a particular place in one of your travels. If you already have a place to stay, you can just spend time with another couch surfer for coffee or to tour you around.
couchsurfing.org site
I received a letter of invitation one morning from the dean of College of Arts and Sciences of University of San Jose Recoletos in Cebu. They asked if I was available on a Sunday for the Cebu Archdiocesan Mass Media Awards 2011. It turns out that this site: soloflightEd.com, has been chosen as a Finalist in the CAMMA 2011.
15th Cebu Archdiocesan Mass Media Awards
Venue: SM Cinema 1
August 28, 2011 @ 5pm
The award-giving body recognizes content that’s been shared by different forms of media: whether it be in television, radio, newspaper, advertising or online.
CAMMA aims to recognize “local media practitioners across all media platforms” who help promote Christian values. The awards will be given in six categories: website, advertising, radio, television, Cebuano newspaper and English newspaper.
Let me turn into a little nerd (if I’m not yet one) and share a blog update just to inform my readers what’s going on with this site. Work has been taking much of my time these days and I figured I’d write something random before I proceed with my travelogue series; I still have a lot of posts to publish in this blog.
Inspired by FlipNomad’s ‘Ask The Nomads’ interviews, I’ve been planning to set up my own sessions with fellow travel bloggers. I’m still a bit shy with the medium but let’s see how this will pan 
out. This is another venture and I should’ve started this a long time ago but it took me awhile to muster enough confidence to pursue the idea. I’ll post an interview session with a famous travel blogger soon and I hope to receive constructive feedback along the way.
I’m looking forward to migrating all my entries to a new blog host to save more money. Maintaining multiple blogs in multiple hosting providers is a tedious task but this is how I started it so I should also learn how to manage everything in one account.
I’m thinking of placing banners to highlight blog posts that deem worthy to be shared. It’s still in the works but I’ll experiment how effective these will be to attract more traffic in each of these articles.
banners and lots more in the works.
I received another email from the Philippine Blog Awards team saying that I was chosen as a finalist of the Travel Category for the Main Division. I was surprised again because I did not expect to be part of a list of very notable bloggers. I mean this blog used to be just a personal one, I never knew it would evolve into a Travel Blog. But when it did, I started embracing it which now got me hooked!
It’s nice when you get to help out other people by sharing your experiences of the places you’ve been to. In my own way, I hope to inspire people to get out of that comfort zone and start travelling! I am also honored to be lined up with very good travel bloggers. There are also other travel bloggers not listed but are great and these are people I admire. I’ll probably join the wagon and create my own series of interviews of them so I can learn more about the people behind these blogs.
I’ve been a regular reader of Flipnomad’s blog because I find his posts very engaging especially when he talks about traveling and finding purpose in general.
“Meet The Nomads” is a weekly feature wherein the blogger interviews other travelers to hear their side of their story on why and how they started traveling. I thought that this was such a nice concept so we can get to know more about other travel bloggers/backpackers and understand them better.
Today, I was surprised that my interview was published.
Read article here: Meet The Nomads: Edcel of SoloflightEd
I am bound for Iloilo! I already plotted my schedule at work and I was initially wondering how I was going to file for leave. But I’m glad that it’s all set and I’ll be flying on Thursday. I was able to visit Iloilo 10 years ago but that wouldn’t label it as a vacation. We boarded a plane for Iloilo and went straight to the pier to ride a ferry going to Bacolod.
I’m not also sure what to expect because of the budget – I haven’t allocated any funds for this trip and I’m still paying off some dues because of my recent trips abroad. Oh well, bahala na.
This Saturday, I will be joining the Visayas Blog Summit and the Philippine Blog Awards 2010 – Visayas Leg. This is pretty exciting because I’ll be able to meet other bloggers again from around the country.
Visayas Blogging Summit 2010 and The Philippine Blog Awards Visayas 2010
I already registered and paid my contribution for the WordCamp Philippines 2010. I submitted my information and scheduled the Breakaway Talks that I’ll be attending. I’ve chosen my t-shirt size and also provided my food preferences. All I have to do now is print out the ticket and then I’m all set!
The Word Camp Philippines 2010 is a good opportunity for me to meet other bloggers and WordPress users and expand my network as I seldom attend these types of activities. I would like to get to know more people and exchange ideas on blogging and social media as a whole.
This will be my first time to attend the Word Camp in the Philippines and I’m excited that I’ll be flying to Manila and participate in discussions with speakers who already know a lot about their craft. I’ll be able to take part in an important event that I’ll be able to take pride in as it’s only a few times that I take part in these occasions.
Yesterday, Doi and I met up with Enrico Dee of Byahilo.com as he stayed in Cebu for 6 hours, waiting for a connecting flight back to Manila. After a few Facebook chats, we decided on joining him for a late lunch around the city. Doi brought her FX and we fetched the visitor at the … Read more
I submitted an entry to 88db’s Trip Ko, Kakaiba! Travelog Contest. I only had to create a write up of a travel experience that was beyond the usual and post it on their site. It’s one of the contests that they’re promoting and it’s directly related to my blog which is all about traveling. What’s … Read more
Yes, I am busy, busy, busy. There are so many things that are happening right now and I’m having difficulty with my priorities. I’ll be moving again to another place; a bigger apartment with my brothers — it will be cheaper that way but I’m preparing myself for more expenses. Work, as usual, is filling … Read more