One of the topics to post on your travel blog when you haven’t traveled in forever is to make up an imaginary trip. Creating a series of posts on a place that you haven’t visited and writing as you have in an ‘imaginary post’ can be a source of interesting content for your travel blog readers if done well.

Imaginary posts can sound silly but with a bit of good planning and a touch of added personality they can refresh your travel blog and enhance your next trip.

1. Pick Somewhere You Haven’t Been

Pick a city or place they you haven’t been, know little about, or haven’t even thought about visiting. That’s why my recent whimsical 48 hours was in St. Petersburg – I knew little about it to start. This makes the process of researching what to do, where to eat, and where to stay more interesting for you. It also sets you up to rely more on your preconceptions and stereotypes. The mistakes you’ll inevitably make can help generate a discussion on your imaginary post and ultimately find out more about a place you knew little about before you began.

2. Research and Connect

Do some Google hacking and search the Internet, read travel forums, and get in touch with other travel bloggers specializing in the area or city for your imaginary trip. You’ll connect with other travelers and get some insight with a personal touch. These connections will inspire you to travel and are important to building a successful travel blog.

3. Write In a Personal Tone

Most travel bloggers don’t have much trouble with this one but you really want to put your imaginary feet in the city you’ll be ‘visiting’. Chose a journal-like tone but anchor it with some information about real landmarks, restaurants, and other sights to keep you on topic.

4. Find A Partner

Think you’re the only one who hasn’t traveled in a while? There plenty of other travel bloggers who are experiencing a travel drought at any given time. Get in touch with one of them and do an imaginary post exchange. Pick a city you haven’t been to and the other has and visa-versa.

I did this with Final Transit a few weeks back. I wrote an imaginary trip to St. Petersburg and he wrote one on Manila (we split them up in 2 parts). The following week we wrote posts comparing the others’ perceptions with the realities (again in two parts) as guest posts. This worked out very well and at the same time provided both of us with 4 days worth of posts, a chance to write for new audiences, and certainly inspired me to visit St. Petersburg and have some plain (not mixed) vodka.

(Priyank also is an excellent writer who takes amazing pictures which really made the exchange a success.)

5. Explain It Well

It’s important to let your readers know that a given post about a trip to a city is imaginary. You can play around with where you’ll disclose this (I prefer right at the top). Also make sure you explain the premise, especially if you’re exchanging posts, which can be tricky. (Looking back, I probably could have done a better job of it myself.)

Making It Work

Putting together an imaginary trip is easy and gives you a bit more creative latitude but is more ‘research intensive’, especially if your travel blog is more of a personal diary or log of your trips. Provide yourself with a very basic plan and structure to build your imaginary post around to make it work.

You can take this imaginary post concept in many directions and the keys to making it work don’t differ too much from any other travel blog post. Use the upside down pyramid and these 6 ways to keep a travel blog post  interesting and have fun with it.

If you end up doing an imaginary post, send me a link or share it in the comments below – I’d love to read your take on them.

[photos by: MikeOliveri, bending light, Mrs.Maze]

A number of you are planning to travel the world one day, which won’t happen unless you can overcome these 7 obstacles. It takes some effort to get your life and mind in order to make traveling the world a reality, but once you lay out a good plan it’s much easier than most people think.

Most of you who responded to my poll said you were planning on traveling the world one day. This series will help you identify the 7 major obstacles you’ll face and how to overcome them one by one.

#1 You Are Comfortable At Your Job

Putting off or neglecting your traveling dreams because of your job is really a symptom of a bigger issue. That being comfort and stability, with the daily routine you’ve carved out for yourself. Many people take the plunge and travel around the world yet there are many sitting on the sidelines who hesitate because of the uncertainty.

It’s that uncertainty that lures you to travel around the world from behind your desk but it’s the certainty that keeps you there. The trick is to bring some of your routines along with you and remember that jobs and job skills are highly portable.

How It Keeps You From Traveling

It is extremely difficult for most human beings to break their routines. Whether you love your job or hate it, the routine ties your life to it and helps your brain to ease anxiety. As Dan commented, you may be concerned that sabbatical might hurt your career by keeping you out of the loop or concerned about losing a reliable source of income.

Why It Shouldn’t

If it’s money you’re worried about, remember once you quit your job, you don’t leave your skills and what you’ve learned behind. You can take them with you anywhere and that’s what you can use to find employment elsewhere – and anywhere in the world. For those of you with office jobs, get yourself a good laptop and load this essential software for digital nomads and check out my amateur’s guide to location independence.

Keep in contact with your colleagues and load up an RSS reader with blogs, websites, and magazines that cover your field so you can stay on top of the latest developments in your industry and maintain your career edge.

Get Prepared To Reduce Anxiety

I’ll get into this more in Part 2, but you need to save enough money to actually get by without a job for at least 3 months. Having this buffer makes it easier to go through with the decision and leave your job or ask your boss for the opportunity to work from the road. (You could of course save enough money for a year or more of travel but if you can learn to make money on the road you can extend most trips indefinitely.)

Things to Consider:

• Ask your boss if they’d consider letting you work from the road, even if it’s part time.
• Don’t burn your bridges or lessen the quality of your work, especially during that tough countdown to your big trip.
• Consider extending your trip and staying in each place for a longer period of time. This lets you find work, get work done (even if you’re working remotely), and let’s you immerse in each culture and place along your travels.

Creating New Routines

Waking up, getting ready, heading to work, and coming home in the evening is a fairly standard routine for millions of people. You may imagine that once your travels begin each day will descend into disarray, making it difficult to find a quite moment or develop a sense of quasi-normalcy we crave at some level.

When you are preparing and planning for your trip hone the stress to improve your travels and jot down a few routines that give you comfort which you can incorporate into your trip. For me that’s making time for breakfast, no matter where I am – for you it can be anything that you’d miss (like morning coffee at the office without the office).

Once you have that list I’m willing to bet that going to work for 9 hours a day and doing the same thing over and over with limited vacation time won’t be on it. Next Thursday in Part 2 I’ll get into how to save, spend, and overcome your anxieties about money so you can travel around the world.

[photos by: Pablo Baslini, connerdowney]