Travel Blogging 101 Archives - Don't Forget To Move

5 Marketable Blogging Skills To Put On Your Resume

Blogs. Nowadays it seems like everyone has one. Whether you’re looking to go pro or just blogging to keep your friends and family up to date on your life, blogging has become the way to express ourselves in this age of ubiquitous technology. At times it can be a frustrating process considering the sheer number of blogs out in the inter webs. Sometimes it can feel like those hours slaving away over the computer after work or on the weekends is a waste of time. Maybe your stats aren’t reflecting all the hard work you’ve been putting in or it seems like your blog is being drowned out by the saturation of your niche.

But! There is a silver lining. Even if your page views have been stagnant or your social media presence just doesn’t seem to expand, you are still honing valuable skills that will be applicable to other areas of life. All of those hours you’re devoting to improve your blog are refining these skills that can be used on future projects or to appeal to future employers.

One of the best selling points about blogging is the idea that you’ve created something out of absolutely nothing. You’ve committed to a personal project, developed those skills on your own and devoted your personal time to growing this project. That’s pretty damn cool, right? Not only does this show dedication, creativity and passion for a specific niche, but you’re bound to develop some super useful skills along the way.

Here are 5 marketable blogging skills to put on your resume:

1. Photoshop

What’s a blog without good photos these days? Unless you have adequate pictures to accompany your written content, you better kiss your readers goodbye. Learning photo editing is a super useful skill to have. Not only to improve the quality of your blog photos, but also to learn all those little tricks like text overlays, filters and creating images for you banner and sidebar. If you’re going into a creative career, knowledge of design programs like Photoshop is a must have. And even if you’re not, adding photo editing skills to your resume is a handy skill to boost you ahead of the competition.

2. Web design

These days everyone has a website. Even if you’re not planning on going into programming or a career in tech, having at least a basic knowledge of web design is definitely a plus. You don’t need to be a back-end development wizard creating code for your whole blog. Just knowing your way around WordPress or a similar platform will show employers that you’re tech savvy.

3. Writing

This is a skill that is used in just about any profession. Whether you’re pursuing a career writing copy in advertising or simply drafting company emails, written communication is crucial. Even if you think your writing is crummy, over time continuing to create content for you blog will inevitably improve it. Whether you’re blogging about “light” topics like beauty and fashion or getting into meaty political opinion pieces, writing for your blog will help develop your personal voice and style. If practice makes perfect then creating post after post will strengthen your writing skills. The bonus is that because you’re writing about something you feel passionate about (hopefully!), your practice will feel less like work and more like honest expression.

4. Social Media

Social media is another attention-grabbing skill to throw on your resume. Every blogger knows that half the time you spend blogging is really on social media (one quarter is content creation and the other quarter is staring at your Google Analytics for hours). No matter what industry you’re in, social media is king. Getting your company/brand/organization out into the world requires some serious social media skills. Without realizing it, your blog will teach you tips like which times are best to post on Twitter, how large an image should be for Pinterest and how to maximize your reach on Facebook. Those little pointers you pick up almost subconsciously all contribute to social media skills that employers now love.

5. Branding + Marketing

Now that everyone and their mother has a blog, it’s crucial to strategically decide how you’re going to stand out. This requires actually sitting down and deciding who you are as a blogger and what makes you different. Creating a unique brand can push your blog ahead of the game, so deciding what themes, colors, fonts, etc. are part of your vision is critical. Being able to think creatively about developing a brand and then creating a marketing strategy for that brand is a skill that will set you apart in the job market. To an employer these skills translate to the ability to fully grasp who a company is and how to show that to the world.

What blogging skills have you developed that could be used on your resume? Drop us a comment below or find us on Facebook and Twitter!

A Beginners Guide to Editing Travel Photos

The first time I ever opened Photoshop to edit some photos I stared blankly at the screen for five minutes, tried to click a few buttons and then closed my laptop in defeat. Having never been particularly tech savvy I just didn’t know where to start! To me it looked more like a space station command center than a photo editing program, and my initial reaction was ‘it’s just too difficult’.

But like all things in life, you have to at least give it a crack before you can give up. So I sat myself down one afternoon with a beer and some new found confidence, and tried again.

Editing travel photos in Photoshop doesn’t have to be a massive mission. Instead it should be a fun and exciting journey to watch your great travel photos become even greater. Editing travel photos for publication is something everyone does, or at least they should do. There’s no shame in admitting that your photos look better once edited, so as a budding photographer or blogger this should be high on your agenda of things to learn about.

Before You Start Editing

Before I talk about editing travel photos in Photoshop, there’s just one golden rule! Don’t ever your new photos edits over your original photo. NEVER CLICK SAVE! There might be no turning back and you could be stuck with those changes.

Once you’re done with any edits always be sure to click ‘Save As’ or ‘Save As Web’. You want to leave the original photo file as it is, and you don’t want to save any permanent edits that can’t be undone. You never know when you might want to go back and make some changes. Specifically once your Photoshop skills improve.

An even better alternative is to make a duplicate copy of the file, and tinker around on that. Once you’ve opened your photo file go to Image–>Duplicate. A pop-up box gives you the option of naming it something different, or just calling it ‘copy’. Now you can play around with the duplicate without the worry of accidentally saving over your file.

Another handy function that might come in use, especially if you make a lot of edits that you’re not happy with is Revert. Found in File–>Revert, this function takes your picture back to its original state. If you’ve made a million and one changes and just want to get back to the start without going step by step, just hit Revert to take you back. Now you can start again!

An unedited raw shot of the beach. Notice the faded sky, bland colors and lack of pop!

Same photo using the ‘Color Balance’ function and a few other edits, Contrast and Vibrance. (Over exaggerated color used for example).

Same photo once again with a Black & White adjustment layer, some Smart Sharpen, a bit of Contrast and Levels work and a Color Balance adjustment layer.

Hit Up The Forums and YouTube

If you’re a newbie like I was, get ready to utilize the extensive range of resources on the internet. I can’t tell you how many YouTube videos I’ve watched over the last year that taught me how to create awesome black and white portrait pictures, or how to use functions like Levels, Curves, Layers, Smart Sharpen, Color Balance just to name a few.

It might seem like a stupid Google search request to ask ‘how to make photos black and white in Photoshop’, but let’s face it, there are much worse search responses than that. I mean just start to type ‘how to make…’ into Google and see what you get. A tutu, French toast, a paper plane and money are some of the top results! No question is too embarrassing for the internet.

Experiment!

Once you get familiar with the layout of Photoshop you’ll naturally start to spread out and experiment with more editing functions. Just sample everything! As long as you’ve made a copy you can go to town on your picture. Open up a couple of different styles of photo (portrait, landscape, beach, colorful, etc) and see how each change looks on each particular photo.

You’ll find that certain pictures work better with some changes than others. Some good beginner ones to check out under Image–>Adjustments are Vibrance, Brightness/Contrast, Color Balance, Hue/Saturation, Black & White and Shadows/Highlights.

A couple of easy edits using Vibrance, Contrast, Smart Sharpen and Saturation.

Using a Black & White adjustment layer first, then altering the Levels on the Background Layer. Next is Smart Sharpen and Highlights.

Stick With It

Photoshop can be incredibly complicated. As overwhelming as this feels for beginners it leaves a lot of room to grow and continue to develop your skills. When you’re just starting out, it can be frustrating to go into Photoshop with a vision, but not understand the steps it takes to achieve that vision. With a bit of persistence, however, you’ll soon learn the capabilities of each tool. As you continue you’ll find your Photoshop skills rapidly improving and your photos becoming better and better.

Your photos are often the most tangible memories you have from your travels. It’s an easy way to show your experiences to family and friends and a reminder for yourself just how incredible your adventures were. With a bit of Photoshop editing, your photos can turn into beautiful pieces of art and accurate reflections of the visuals of your journey.

Did you find our beginners guide to editing travel photos helpful? What tips and tricks would you like to learn next? Drop us a comment below or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter!

Don’t Forget To Move Celebrates a One Year Blog Anniversary

Yay it’s our birthday! Well technically we’re a little late, but there’s a good reason. The anniversary of Don’t Forget To Move also falls on my birthday, so the celebrations of last weekend had me temporarily sidetracked. I must be getting old, because I certainly don’t recover as well as I used to. But I’m back on track now after a small break.

As we sit back (within our respective countries) and reflect on the year that has been, there are a couple of really great accomplishments we’re proud of. Our stats are improving, our numbers are growing and our awesome readers keep coming back and showing us love.

Back in July 2013 Don’t Forget to Move was born out of our attempts to make something more of our own personal blogs. We both enjoyed writing, photography, collecting stories and of course we loved travel (I guess sharing our insights, tips and recommendations through a travel blog was inevitable in the end).

But many of you probably don’t know that the travel blog wasn’t the first thing we attempted. In October 2012 we had a crack at filming a travel show focussing on backpacker travel in Northern Colombia. We collected hours of video to cut and edit, but in the end it still sits in our archives for another day (although probably not because we’re slightly embarrassed by it).

In 2013, after months of discussing what to do, we finally decided on a travel blog. In the early days of June, working off an iPad and a super old netbook, we started putting together our site and writing our first articles. After 6 weeks of research, planning, trial, error and somewhat success we launched on July 12^th 2013 from a funky little café in San Pedro, Guatemala over a couple of birthday beers. Since that time we haven’t looked back on our quest to inspire the traveling world.

For the next 6 months, while we were still traveling Central America, we learned a lot along the way. I mean A LOT.

Analytics, social media, SEO, marketing, HTML and web design. At this stage our focus was mainly on building up engaging content, and we didn’t worry as much about networking. We wanted to make sure that if somebody did happen to land on our site, they wanted to stick around and read through.

When we entered the second half of our one-year plan our focus shifted to networking and expanding our social media avenues. We had a little experience with a sponsored post from within the travel industry and successfully secured our first product review. We started collaborating with other travel bloggers and in February we started a Facebook group called The Under 1000 Club for new and aspiring travel bloggers. The aim was to connect travel bloggers with each other to help network and to learn how to grow. Today that group stands at around 700 members (and growing), with travel bloggers from all over the world participating in weekly interaction threads and promotional activities.

We’ve also significantly grown our social media in the last six months. At the end of our first year we have over 6000 followers across a range of different social media sites.

On top of our social media presence we’ve also developed a strong readership and improved our site traffic. It still fluctuates more than we’d like, but slowly it’s becoming more consistent and stable.

Google Analytics Monthly Stats

Visitors: 3500

Unique Visitors: 3000

Page Views: 6000

In other Internet jargon;

Google Page Rank: 2

Alexa Ranking: 294,000 (140,000 in the US)

Page Authority: 40

Domain Authority: 29

MozRank: 3

Overall it’s been a very rewarding, challenging and exciting learning curve. We’re rapt to have the first year under our belt, and we have no plans on stopping just yet. Over the next couple of months look out for our brand new tales from Australia!

We’ll also drop a big announcement very soon! We’re planning our next trip and have just about finalized our next destination!

How’s your travel blog shaping up? What’s been your proudest or hardest moment?

6 Tips For Taking Better Travel Portraits

Traveling can be an amazing opportunity to take beautiful photos. The picturesque landscapes, exotic food and, of course, the people. But photographing people can be tricky. With so many different elements coming into play, how do you get the most authentic and appealing portrait without forcing your subject to sit for a photoshoot? Here are our tips for taking better travel portraits:

*For the sake of example, I haven’t edited any of the photos below.

Lead Into It

Taking a portrait is all about making your subject feel comfortable. I’ve taken awkward portraits of some really interesting looking people and that awkwardness translates to the viewer. If time and situation permit, sit down and have a conversation with something before asking to take their photo. In my experience, Latin Americans tend not to smile in photos. Having a joke at the ready is always helpful to lighten the mood.

{ what a difference a smile makes! }

Be Quick

Unless this person has agreed to sit down with you for an allotted amount of time, you really want to get in and get out. In my experience there is a brief opportunity for a really authentic moment before the subject gets uncomfortable. If someone has agreed to have their photo taken, be gracious and take a couple of quick snaps. Bonus tip: Have your settings ready before you approach someone. No one wants to sit there while you fiddle with your shutter speed.

Background

This simple factor is absolutely key. The background of your photo can make or break an amazing portrait. Even the best portraits can be ruined if you have something distracting in the background. These days photoshop can be handy for removing or altering parts of the image, but unless you’re an editing wiz this can be a bit tricky. Save time in post-processing and take a few seconds to think about your background before snapping. Perhaps your subject is in a location that will add interest or give context to your photo like a market or inside their own home? Sometimes an interesting background can turn an average portrait into something special. Other times, an overly busy background can be distracting. We tend to go for simpler backgrounds, such as the side of a church, and time the shot when no one is walking behind.

{taken with my fixed 50mm lens at 1.4 }

Shallow Depth of Field

Unless your subject happens to have an interesting attribute, say a hardcore scar or National Geographic eyes, a portrait can be a bit boring. I’ve taken photos of people who were interesting to me because I got to speak with them first hand. But then I’ve shown the photo to friends back home and they just see another person. One sure-fire way to add some visual interest to a portrait is to try to get a shallow depth of field (when the subject is in sharp focus with a blurry background.) If you’re using an SLR you can achieve this by opening up your aperture, ie. lowering your “f stop” number. If you’re using a point & shoot, portrait mode usually does this for you. If you really want to get fancy, consider investing in a fixed lens that lets you get down to 1.8, 1.4 or even 1.2.

{ example of harsh lighting }

Lighting

Lighting is key for photography. Actually lighting is key for looking good in general ( I think most women would agree with this). Harsh lighting can lead to shadows and awkward squinting. A nice even lighting will reduce unwanted contrast. Try to aim for morning and evening shoots as opposed to in the middle of the afternoon. If you have to go midday, aim to shoot in the shade.

Don’t Give Up

The most important thing is to not get discouraged. Some people who have the most interesting faces will not want their photo taken. Sometimes you’ll get an amazing opportunity and you’ll find out later the shot is just a bit blurry. Don’t give up and don’t be afraid to ask to take someone’s photo. Your next great portrait is waiting just around the corner.

Why Facebook is Dead for Bloggers

Let’s face it. The world is addicted to Facebook. And for us bloggers, or really anyone with a page they want to promote, it can be a useful tool for publicity. So, exactly why Facebook is dead for bloggers? Up until now Facebook has been giving free advertising space to businesses and organizations, allowing groups to connect with users and update them regularly. But the free ride might be over. Facebook admits they are lowering the reach of organic posts to “weed out spammy or non-engaging content.”

I can appreciate the idea that Facebook wants the user experience to be more enjoyable, and for the user to be able to see more things they actually care about with less advertisements. But how will my user experience be better when I see more ads that Pepsi has paid for and less updates on groups that I have purposefully liked? Maybe I want to see updates from those groups that I have liked because I, well, like them.

This transition isn’t hurting huge companies who can afford to pay Facebook for advertising. It’s hurting small businesses, organizations and yes, blogs, who got used to the comfort of free publicity through Facebook and have spent time and resources in building their Like base only to see their reach drop to 1 to 2% of that audience. This is hurting mom & pop shops, local nonprofits, creative groups and anyone using Facebook to promote themselves even if they aren’t making money.

When we first started our blog Facebook was our main source of promotion for our posts. Our Like base grew rapidly and our organic reach was high. In the past few months we’ve noticed our reach has dropped significantly and subsequently the number of readers coming to our blog from Facebook has dropped as well. Even though everyday we continue to get more and more Likes.

Do we really have a right to be complaining?

Not really. Luckily, and I suppose unluckily, our blog is young and we’ve kind of come at the end of the Facebook free ride. We didn’t get too cozy with Facebook and will be able to evolve out of it as we grow. But I feel for groups that have been on FB for years and relied on it as their main source of publicity. But at least they had the free advertising for a while. Better that than nothing, right?

So what next?

Where do we go from here? Well Facebook isn’t completely dead. The good news is that the more love a post gets, the more people will see it. So you have to really crunch your analytics and find the best stuff to post, and when. It’s kind of a catch-22, but if you can develop a small group of active and loyal followers who participate through Likes and discussions, their participation will lead to a larger reach for your posts.

There’s been speculation that Facebook is slowly being fazed out anyway. It’s pretty hard to think of a time where the world’s biggest networking site, and something that is so universal in our world today, will ever become irrelevant or obsolete. There has been a slew of recent studies that show that young people are losing interest in Facebook. As one of the first generations to use Facebook, back when only college students could use it, I find the backlash pretty ironic. High-schoolers were dying to get on, but opening the site up to kids means opening it up to parents as well. And who wants to be on the same networking site as their parents? Facebook is in the decline and cooler networks like Snapchat, WhatsApp, Kik and Instagram are replacing it.

So what does this mean for travel bloggers or those looking to promote their pages? Should we get in touch with some hackers to sneak in ads on Snapchat? I don’t think this blog is ready to stoop to that level. It’s hard to tell what the next big networking thing is going to be, but we’re starting to put a little more time into Pinterest. We also haven’t given up hope on Twitter and Instagram, who aren’t too shabby either. For now we’ll be squeezing the last drops out of Facebook and then testing out new possibilities.

What do you think? Is Facebook out the door or is it just having a brief dip? Drop us a comment below or find us on Facebook and Twitter!

Six Things We Learned After Six Months of Blogging

Ever think about starting a blog? These days, it seems like everyone’s got one. But just how difficult is it to create and manage a successful blog? Well, it takes a lot more than just sitting around in your PJ’s writing down whatever comes to mind. Blogging creates a lot of challenges. Some of which we anticipated and some of which we didn’t. But we can say that blogging for the past six months has been an amazingly fun experience. Not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but rewarding nonetheless. For any would-be bloggers out there, or anyone interested in the process, here’s a few things we’ve learned along the way:

1) It’s A LOT of work

If you read any article out there explaining how to start a blog, the author will most likely give warning about how it is WAY more work than you think. We read this countless times and thought “okay, we get it! Maintaining a blog is very time consuming, blah blah blah.” Deep down I knew it was true, but secretly hoped all the top bloggers were just saying that to deter others from starting their own. Then they were left to sip margaritas on the beach, laughing manically while big bucks rolled in. This is not how it works. Starting a blog is a lot of work. Maintaining a blog is a lot of work. Hell, I’m sure even shutting down a blog is a lot of work.

{ if only life was always this easy }

2) There’s a lot more to it than just writing stuff down

If blogging were as easy as just writing down your thoughts, then every 15 year old with a Xanga (does that still exist?) would blog forever. But unless you want your audience to be limited to your mom and your tech savvy grandma, then you need to put in a lot more work. I’d say half of our time spent working on the blog is spent writing. The other half is drawing in new readers, promoting our articles, working on moving our posts higher up Google search results, answering questions on travel forums, connecting with other bloggers, updating social media, etc. It takes a lot of time, but it’s super gratifying to see our stats build up.

3) People can be mean

This is almost a life lesson. Whenever you put your work out in the public sphere, you have to be ready for negative feedback. Not everyone is going to like your work and you have to accept that. The great thing about the Internet is that your writing can reach a mass amount of people instantly. The terrible thing about the Internet is that readers can bash your work while hiding behind the protection of their computer screen. Some bloggers embrace it and publicly mock the ridiculousness of cruel comments. Still, no matter how many positive things readers say about your blog, it’s the negative ones that stick with you. We’ve learned the best way is to just ignore it and continue with a thicker skin.

4) It takes a long time to build up

It’s no secret that every blogger wants more readers. That’s why we choose to put our writing on the internet instead of scrawled in our journals.

But gaining readership is not going to happen over night. It’s a slow process and sometimes we bang our heads against the wall, wondering why we should even post if no one is reading? But with consistent work, our numbers are growing. And there’s nothing more thrilling than knowing that someone, somewhere in the world is reading our article. And that just maybe it will inspire them to travel.

5) Brush up on your photography skills

You can be the best writer in the world, but people are visual creatures. We want to see pretty places, mouth-watering food, adorable puppy photos! No? Just me? Just because you bought your first DSLR, doesn’t mean you’re a photographer. Having quality photos, especially on a travel blog, is super important. To work on our photo skills, we’ve both done a lot of reading, as well as studied the work of other travel photographers that we like. But the most important thing? Take thousands of photos! Of everything! Especially the mundane, seemingly unimportant things. We took a TON of photos, but still look back on our trip and wish we had photographed every meal, hostel room and grungy local bus. Those are the things we end up writing about, so having a photo to go along with them is essential.

6) It’s all about who you know

Just like pretty much anything in life- it’s all about contacts. Sometimes while checking out other travel blogs, a bit of instinctual competition kicks in. Are we better writers? Why is their lay-out so awesome? How did they do that Facebook like box pop?? But we’ve learned that these aren’t necessarily our competition, they are our colleagues. And they can be damn helpful. From suggesting helpful blogging tips to exchanging guest articles, networking with other bloggers is HUGE.

There you have it. A sneak behind the scenes peek at the world of blogging.

Are you a blogger? What have you learned in the process that was surprising to you? Thinking of starting a blog? Does this list seem daunting or exciting? We want to hear from you!