Checking In Week 5: Home For Just 5 Days!

Today I’ve mostly been doing 5 loads of washing, collecting parcels from the post office and buying more food from Woolworths than I can carry. Oh how the jet set fall 😉

It was back to reality with a bump yesterday after my 36 hour journey from Male (thank goodness for free and fast wifi on my 7 hour layover in Doha Airport!). But I have just 5 (well, 4 now) days at home before my next jaunt overseas. No rest for the travel addict!

Blog Lyfe

There was a lot of self-timer action in the Maldives!

Aside from the fact it was held in one of the most dreamiest destinations in the world, I loved my time at the World Travel Writers’ Conference in the Maldives because of the people I met there. I’m definitely my most motivated when surrounded by others who are as passionate about travel and blogging as I am and it was great to catch up with faces I’d last seen in Sri Lanka as well as meet in human form a lot of people I follow on Instagram. I also reconnected with the lovely Cacinda from Points and Travel who we worked out had seen me present at a conference in Genoa way back in 2012 – we totally feel like veterans now! Drinking cool beers on an idyllic beach is one of my favourite ways to brainstorm and by chatting all things blogging and social media with my peers I’ve definitely come back with a few new ideas.

I met too many cool people to shout out them all out individually but if you check out the hashtag #WTWC2017 on Instagram you’ll see some of the gorgeous content the attendees are putting out there.

Dreamy Insta pics from World Travels Writers’ Conference Maldives

From speaking to and observing the other attendees work it’s made me realise how much I desperately need to delegate some of my admin, particularly on the social media side. I feel my strengths and passion definitely lie with writing but focusing on this alone is not enough these days – we bloggers need to make sure said writing actually gets read. So I’m on the hunt for a Pinterest Assistant (know any good ones?) and am hopefully securing a consultant to work on my Insta with me over the coming weeks too.

Great news for my blogger buds is that the organizers have announced they will be running this event in April 2018 and they want it to be even bigger and better next time. All this year’s attendees have been formally invited but they want to be introduced to lots more bloggers too. So who’s up for some networking in paradise next year?

No time for jetlag

I literally have zero hours to acclimatise to the Aussie time zone before I’m off again next Tuesday to London. Well, sort of. I’m actually just passing through (if we can call it that!) Heathrow next week before heading to Canada for a project with Travel Alberta. We’re just firming up the itinerary at the moment but my brief is to sniff out all the coolest food, shopping and culture in Edmonton and Calgary – a task I plan to tackle with gusto! Next week’s diary will be live from Alberta so tune in then to see how that’s going!

Where to next

One of my island homes – I stayed in 3 hotels/5 different rooms during my 5 night stay in the Maldives

After that I will have some time at home catching up with family – my nephews are growing far too fast and they need regular reminders of my face so they don’t cry when I hold them because I’m a stranger who looks weirdly like their mother. (My sister and I look alike, except I’m bigger and scarier, especially to her children!)

From London I head back to Melbourne and have 1 whole day to wash all the things before Justin and I head to Bali. Yup, we booked ourselves a holiday a few months ago because we had no travel plans on the horizon. Why haven’t I learned that things never end up that way in this line of work? At least this is a fully legit, we’ve booked and paid for it all ourselves type of holiday, so I can chillaxe a little on this trip (while documenting every moment on social media – coz that’s what I do!).

Then it’s looking like I will fly to Sydney the same day I get back from Bali because I got some news yesterday….

I’m nominated for an award!

Some wonderful people in the travel industry have shortlisted me for Favourite Travel Blogger in the Cheapflights Awards! I’m 1 of 6 finalists and to be honest I’m up against some of the best in the industry. I don’t rate my chances coz these guys are like huge/ massive/ awesome but it’s worth a shot right? If you would like to sling a vote my way you can do so here. You go in the draw to win a $7k holiday for 2 to California for doing so, so we could potentially both be winners 😀

How YOU make travel work

I love, love, loved @pegsontheline story of how she created a life of travel with a job in journalism. Share your story with the hashtag #HowIMakeTravelWork.

I loved @jayneytravels recent post about how she has built a life of travel. Here’s a snapshot of my journey and #HowIMakeTravelWork When I was young, still in primary school I think, I wanted to be a traveller. Unfortunately that wasn’t really a career choice, so journalism entered the picture. Balancing my love of travel with my career – first while I was studying and then once I got my first full-time job – has always been a battle between heart and head. It was also difficult living in Tasmania – it’s so far away from everything! When I was 26 I kicked the career into the backseat for a few years while I lived and travelled in North America and Europe. I loved travelling for months at a time, often turning up to towns with no bookings and no plans, but opportunity and twists of fate eventually brought me back to Australia where I met my now husband. We are both focused on our careers and living a life of travel has involved redefining what travel means to me – it isn’t just about grand adventures overseas. We try to explore at every opportunity, even if it’s close to home. At the moment we’re using our annual leave to road trip through the Northern Territory and it’s just as exciting and eye-opening as my travels on the other side of the world. ✈️🌏⛰

A post shared by Megan Dingwall (@pegsontheline) on Sep 8, 2017 at 10:17pm PDT

Don’t forget to check out my interview with Vicky Flip Flop on her life as a full-time travel blogger too.

Thanks so much for reading. See you next week in Alberta!