There is something about being in the travel blogging community that is so fulfilling. We’ve met quite a few incredible and like-minded people during this process and it’s always so inspiring to hear other people’s stories, struggles, and moments of growth while traveling.

Another wonderful part about being in this community are the blogger-to-blogger awards. These are awards that are given from one blogger to another (like the Liebster Award) — commending each other for great writing, awesome story-telling, and helpful tips and insights to the travel world.  And now? We’re excited to announce that we were nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award by our friends at Road Unraveled!

Road Unraveled is a travel blog by Adam and Stephanie Hubka — they work full-time jobs in the States but utilize their free time by traveling to some incredible places (most recently Portugal) and doing some awesome tours. Definitely check them out when you can!

What Is The Versatile Blogger Award?

Although there’s no certificate or trophy that’s earned — the Versatile Blogger Award is about sharing information about yourself and making your favorite travel blogs a bit more well-known in the community by spreading the love through nominations.

There are just a few simple “rules” on how to participate:

• Share 7 interesting things about yourself that your readers might not already know. Whatever goes!
• Thank the person that nominated you (and again…mad thanks to Adam & Steph at Road Unraveled.)
• Nominate other travel bloggers to participate and provide links so people can learn more about them!

So, there you have it! Let’s get started!

1

KILE: My first car was a 1984 Toyota Camry. It was a hand-me-down and probably drove it for about a year. I jumped it off a major city street and sad to say that was the end of the car.

ASHLEY: My first car was a 1971 VW Super Beetle. I absolutely loved it, it was orange and I named it “Mango.” One day my high school boyfriend at the time was following me to my house after school in his car — he wasn’t paying attention, rear-ended me, and given that the engine’s in these cars in the back…that was the end of Mango.

2

KILE: I was 19 cruising around the streets of Manhattan with my friend. Someone stopped us and asked us if we’d like to be on MTV’s TRL (Total Request Live) with Carson Daly the next day. Of course, we said yes! We were part of the live audience in the iconic MTV building.

ASHLEY: I was 18 and entered a contest to be on an episode of MTV’s Road Rules: Campus Crawl season. I ended up winning and was flown out to Atlanta, Georgia for a week to compete against the Road Rules cast (I was part of the MTV.com team.) We did a step-routine in front of the students of Clark Atlanta University. We lost. But we did get to meet Outkast!

3

KILE: I love playing music and as I travel I always look for a guitar or random instrument to play with. I started learning guitar when I was 14 and eventually started playing bass in a band called Kaddisfly in 2001. We ended up touring across the country a few times between 2001-2008 before we all went separate ways — although we do still play for fun on the side whenever we can.

ASHLEY: My favorite hobby would have to be reading. I was reading entire books by the age of 4 and pretty much haven’t stopped since. My favorite genre of book is probably some sort of crime, mystery, thriller-type. I absolutely love finding little bookstores across the world — you can usually find gems no matter where you are in the world.

4

KILE: I can trace the urge of wanting to travel back to when I was looking at pictures of the South Pacific with my dad when I was younger. He would say how he wanted to take a sailboat and just go —  ever since then I’ve always wanted to get out and see the world.

ASHLEY: Traveling is something that I was always interested in. My dad would constantly take my brother and I on road trips when we were little and we’d usually have a yearly family vacation to Hawaii or something like that. I’d always loved going someplace new and “exploring.” From there I started obsessing over places like Paris or Greece and knew I’d make it a goal to get up and go!

5

KILE: My first pet was Marble the cat. He was a tabby and was part of a bunch of feral cats and we caught him and kept him — moved him from the countryside to our house in the city. He lived til he was about 16 or 17.

ASHLEY: One of my first pets that I can remember was a black and white cat that we named Shamu. I was about 5-years old and always hanging out at my Grandma and Grandpa’s house; a little tiny kitten would constantly climb on their screen door. It would come by almost every single day. Finally my Grandpa took him in and gave it to my brother and I. We had Shamu for about 13 years before he got super sick and we had to put him down.

6

KILE: My favorite album in high school was Stone Temple Pilots “Purple” They were the first band that made rock “cool” to me — prior to that I was always listening to hip hop or rap. I had started playing guitar at the same time so it was super influential.

ASHLEY: Hands down my favorite album in high school was Third Eye’s Blind self-titled album. I was pretty much obsessed. Everything about it was perfection to me — the music, the melodies, the lyrics. I would lay in my room almost every night and just dissect each song over and over. Still one of my favorites to this day.

7

KILE: Goonies was by far my favorite movie growing up. It was a bunch of kids my age, going on a huge adventure, trying to find treasure — it was so exciting to me. That’s why I’m also a big fan of “Stranger Things.”

ASHLEY: No doubt — Labyrinth was my ultimate fave movie growing up. It was slightly terrifying as a kid but also super awesome and you just wished you could be inside the movie. I can pretty much recite every line to the movie to this day. And the soundtrack! SO good! And, of course, David Bowie is the man.

Our Versatile Blogger Award Nominees:

• Mike & Emma – Wandering Me
• Amy & Andrew – Our Big Fat Travel Adventure
• Amy & Adam – The Wright Route
• Kristina & Sora – The Nerdventurists
• Jen & Rudolph – The Married Wanderers

We love all your blogs and hope you have fun!