When I’m in London I usually stay around the Earl’s Court/Gloucester Rd area. It’s in well to do leafy West London and has good transport connections. It is also home to one of my favourite cafe’s – the Troubadour.
Troubadour Cafe - London
The Troubadour has been around since 1954 and it was a famous music venue in the 60’s. Musicians who have played there include Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Sammy Davis jnr, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin.
The cafe is worth visiting just to see the collection of intruments hanging from the ceiling. For me, I like coming here knowing that Led Zeppelin once graced these rooms.
One of the best events during the World Travel Market week in 2008 was the Travel BlogCamp, which was started by Darren Cronian of Travel Rants.
Word had obviously got out what a great event it was as TBC 2009 was “sold out” within 18 hours.
The 2009 event was once again put on by Darren and moderated by Kevin May from Tnooz.com.
The event began with an introduction to the sponsors, followed by a Q&A session. The topic that was most prominent was Twitter. Kevin noted that at last years event Twitter wasn’t even mentioned.
The night featured five speakers with various backgrounds in social media and travel blogging.
Joel Brandon-Bravo from Frommer’s discussed Web 3.0 (real time web) and news sites possibly using a pay for content model.
Guillaume Thevenot spoke about his industry leading Hotel Blog that he writes in his spare time outside of his day job.
Eva Keogan from Lastminute.com covered company blogging and Twitter strategies.
Murray Harrold from Advantage Travel shared his experience as a travel agent going from a High St to online travel store.
Darren finished the night off with the good and ugly side of travel blogging. There was alot of ugly to talk about with the dangers of litigation travel bloggers face by publishing editorial and unmoderated comments left by the public.
It was a great night all round and if it wasn’t for Kevins moderation we’d still be there now debating the topics covered (there was enough free food to keep us going for another week).
I have been fortunate enough to attend the first two Travel BlogCamps, and if I can I will attend in 2010 as well.
If I could add my feedback I would like to see a bigger event. I have spoken to Darren about this and he wants to keep it as a small event. I can understand his point that the smaller event makes it more interactive. The current event is timed with the WTM so there is also the limition of time people have with their commitments at that event.
What I would like to see would be a weekend event held at another time of year (ahem, preferably in a warmer month). There is a travel bloggers weekend happening in the US in 2010. I would like to see a UK version.
Darren spoke about how he hasn’t taken Travel Rants full time as travel companies aren’t exactly lining up to offer sponsorship on a site that rants about travel. I wouldn’t expect Darren put on another event like this either, given the amount of unpaid time it takes up. I am sure though that there would be enough people willing to form a committee to put on a Travel Blogcamp Weekend in London (or elsewhere in the UK).
Would anyone else attend a Travel Blogcamp weekend?
More Travel BlogCamp Reviews
Travel Rants: Travel BlogCamp Review
Travelling Online: Social media tips at Travel Blog Camp
Heather on her travels: Travel Bloggers’ meet-up
Joobili: Travel BlogCamp 2009 review
Journeys Through Travel: Notebooks not needed: Travel Blog Camp review
iwannagothere.com blog: Travel BlogCamp 2009 review
Berkeley PR: PR’s view of Travel BlogCamp
Sam I Am’s Blog: Review of Travel BlogCamp
I never would have thought that a coffee from an airport Starbucks would make it as coffee of the day, but I didn’t want to leave the UK without mentioning the current exchange rate.
Coffee of the day: London Stansted Airport - UK
At the moment 1 AUD is around 53 pence. In my 10 years of coming to the UK the Australian dollar has never been so strong. At one point 1 AUD got just 33 pence. So this £2 coffee in 2009 is a bargain at $3.77 . In the darkest days of the weak Australian dollar this £2 coffee would have cost me $6.06 AUD.
I never thought that I would be saying that I came to London and had a cheap holiday.
Ahh London, it’s good to be back. This city feels like my second home, and for a while it was my home.
2009 marks 10 years since I first came to London. I arrived in 1999 on a 2 year working holiday visa, unaware at the time that I had the travel bug. I couldn’t have known then that I would be back to London at least once a year every year since.
I was here in 1999, 2000 and 2001 on the UK work visa, 2002 and 2003 passing through on the Irish work visa, then every year on the way to European destinations to create content for online travel articles.
I use London as the entry point for Europe as the cheapest fares from Australia are usually into London, though this might change with the increase in Air Passenger Duty.
I’m staying in Victoria, which is a handy transport hub if you are in London for a short time. I get the bus to Stansted Airport from here to my next destination.
London Victoria Station
