By: Ben Cooper
Why do people blog?
The internet is an amazing thing: It gives people the ability to share resources, information, thoughts, hopes and dreams with millions of others out there in the ether. Web 2.0 phenomena such as Facebook, MySpace and Youtube, all in their different ways, clearly illustrate the empowering function of communication with others.
But it's the blog (or ‘web log' as it's no longer ever called) that's perhaps the purest illustration of this shift in the way that people react to, and use, the internet. And it's also a very real form of empowerment: Political bloggers can affect the course of elections.
As such, the power of travelers communicating on the forums and blogging whilst on the road is enormous, and really only just beginning to be harnessed. There's a sense of people having become sick of being told what to do all the time. ‘Now', the call rings out, ‘it's time for us to have our say'.
The travel blogging community has a great deal of influence and it's made some of the larger more complacent elements within the travel industry really sit up and listen.
What do travel blogs actually do?
Many travel blogs (or travelogues) simply serve a function as an online diary, and the bloggers do it as much to archive their own thoughts (and photos) as anything else.
Other travel bloggers use it as a way of keeping their family and friends up to scratch with where they are in the world, and what they're up to. It's nice if other people read it, but not essential. Either way, when they get home, they'll have a well-ordered chronological account from their travels.
More and more people are ‘technological travelers', taking laptops, blackberries and a whole assortment of gadgets and gizmos on the road with them. After a hard day padding round the temples of Karnak, say, or an evening out sampling the gastronomic delights of Madrid, the first thing the travel blogger does is gets on the computer.
And this has the knock-on effect that the information they blog is immediate, fresh and hence more relevant. Some ‘professional bloggers' are effectively a new breed of roving travel writer, their writing authoritative and dependable. Others less so.
The whole point of a blog (and indeed a conventional diary or log) is that it reflects the blogger's personality as much as it conveys their thoughts and opinions. And it takes all sorts of travel bloggers to make a travel blogging community!
But you do invariably get a very personal account. The best travel blogs are well written, evocative travel writing, and even the less articulate accounts are generally pretty useful sources of information, containing vital, and crucially, objective tips and advice.
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