This is the 1st week of the final project. I am so excited to start doing my Travel Blog as the final project.  Let’s start with studying this travel blog called Art of Backpacking.

The author of the blog is Kevin. He is a shy guy who doesn’t talk about himself much. He is 25 years old and has been on backpacking for 3 years. He shares his destination and backpacking guides in his blog.

On the home page of his blog, there is a map of the world showing where he has been. The green highlight part is the country he went already. According to this map, he has been traveled to Cannada, United States, Russa, China, India, Australia, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, and Namibia. I like this map. It is clearly telling the reader his footprint in the whole world. He divided his posts into five categories, there is Travel Blog, Backpacking, Travel Tips, Destinations, and Personal Growth, and each category has its own blog page, so it is so easy for the reader to switch between different categories and find the article to read.

By reading his posts, I noticed Kevin gave a lot of ideas for traveling, not only the things you can do in one place, but also tips for travel planning. For example, in his post 6 Great Things to Do in Niagara Falls, he gave readers six things to do in Niagara Falls, like experience the falls, hike the trials, cycles around, goes to extremes, does some wine tasting and takes in the nightlife. I went to Niagara Falls a long time ago, the only thing I did was the first on his list, experience the falls. After reading his blog, I felt terrible that I missed so many fun things there. I want to go back and do all the six things on his list. On his other post 4 Tips and Tricks For Travelling on a Budget, he taught readers how to save money on the trip, such as the search for cheaper flights, pack your food, be smart while shopping, and pack according to your need. I really like his idea of packing your food. That’s what I always do on my trip. Most of the time on our family trip, we stayed in the resort which has a kitchen in the suite, and we usually drove our own Van on the trip. So I packed all I need in a big box, like dry pasta, pasta source, pancake mix, cereals, chips, and beef jellies, and then I went to buy fresh groceries like fruit and vegetables, meat and milk when we got there. That way I could make my own breakfast and dinner. By doing this, I saved hundreds of dollars for a week trip, and also my kids didn’t feel homesick because they could have home-made food.

Except for the travel tips and experience, Kevin also has some posts in his Personal Growth categories. He posted some personal experiences of how he set up the travel blog and become a travel blogger and some tips for a healthy lifestyle.

His whole blog is clean and bright, and there are connections between each category. I like this blog because it is so unique!