Christine Bedenis, Author at Blogging Abroad

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5 Things You Should Do to Find Your Voice

There is an overabundance of travel blogs. It's true. And because readers have a limited amount of time to engage with blogs, there must be something unique about yours to captivate readers. One of the key elements of blogging is to find your own, distinctive writing voice. An author’s writing voice has many ingredients, such as writing style, tone, syntax and humor. However, at its heart, writing voice is a reflection of an individual’s singular lens of viewing the world. The journey to find your blog voice can be a difficult one. I started my blog, Running with Elands, soon after I received all of my Peace Corps clearances. When I sat down to write my first few posts, I felt stymied by my lack of experience blogging. What did people who were reading Peace Corps blogs want to hear about? Was a kitschy title more important or rich cultural detail? I took a break from writing and researched the Peace Corps Blog It Home winners for inspiration. I pored over their topics, stories, blog design and photos for inspiration. I decided to keep my writing light and somewhat whimsical. My posts were often banal, sugar-coating my Peace Corps South Africa experience. I was too concerned with how my posts might be received to do the hard work of translating my lived reality into words. Sometimes, I began to break out of that habit. I found myself grappling with more serious issues in my village, making my formerly light tone seem inappropriate. I slowed...

15 November, 2017 / 1 Comment

Lessons in Sharing While Living Abroad

It was a Sunday afternoon as I sat outside watching my host brother, Mengela, carve a key chain for me from makalani nut. His schoolmate, Shiluumbu, sat between Mengela and I as we watched him attempt to carve “NAMIBIA” on it. Shiluumbu, then reached into his front pocket and retrieved a small sweet wrapped in shiny gold paper. The sound of the wrapper crinkling drew all of my and Mengela's attention away from his carving. Shiluumbu unwrapped the outer gold wrapper next the wax paper, he raised the small, nickel-sized sweet to his lips, bit it in half and offered the remaining half to my host brother. This small gesture spoke volumes to me.

15 October, 2017 / 0 Comments

3 Simple Post Topics to Keep You Going

You've been living your life overseas for a while now. You've settled into a routine and it seems nothing can surprise you anymore. Not only that, but you feel like you've covered all the big cultural difference on your blog already. What else is there to write about now? If you're struggling to come up with some topics to write about, think about the nouns in your life. Nouns? You know, the people, places and things that you come across regularly. Here are some ideas to creatively write about some of these everyday parts of your life, and maybe help you to start seeing some things with fresh eyes.

15 September, 2017 / 0 Comments

Exploring Blog Platforms to Hit Your Stride

A traveler’s blog is, perhaps first and foremost, a way to inform the world about their experiences and to connect with people near and far. Blogging while abroad can be a productive way to let off creative steam and reflect on all the adventures you’re having and can be the start of a business or a way to showcase your expertise. I’ve used blogging for a combination of these reasons across multiple platforms—Wordpress and Tumblr in particular. Finding the right platform and motivation that work for you is both part of the journey and the ultimate goal. Wordpress Wordpress has quickly risen to be the top choice for bloggers. It’s simple enough that even a total newbie can use it, but it’s complex enough to customize in sophisticated ways for those with the time and know-how. Wordpress.com is completely free and has many ready-to-go themes—careful, or you’ll spend your whole day perusing themes. Wordpress.org refers to the Wordpress back-end of a self-hosted site. If you started out using a free Wordpress.com site, and you want to level up your game by monetizing and gain more creative control for customizing, it's relatively easy to move your free blog onto a self-hosted site. Wordpress even has a mobile app for both iOS and Android. It can be hooked up with either kind of Wordpress site and is very useful for drafting posts from mobile devices and uploading media content from your device into your media library. However, many people complain that it is difficult to get...

15 May, 2017 / 0 Comments

3 Simple Steps to Prepare to Blog Abroad

In the world we live in today, where quotes about traveling by any means necessary laid over-top of dreamy pictures make daily appearances in you social media feeds, where you can’t do a Google search about a place without coming across the travel blog with a rundown of travel tips, where announcing your past and future travel plans are met with statements of jealousy, it can be easy for your blog to fall into a cycle and habit of being a bit of a travel diary. But, your blog can provide so much more. It can act as a bridge of cultural connection, especially in a time when people seems to want to isolate themselves more. Taking the time to seek out cross-cultural experiences and subsequently sharing these observations may take a little more effort than a restaurant review, however, it will enrich your writing and your audience's experience.

With these three simple steps, you'll be on your way to writing more meaningful blog posts focused on cross-cultural understanding. They're perfect for thinking about in between packing, or for reflecting on when you've returned. With a bit of foresight, incorporating culture into your travel and increasing your own understanding of the host culture is easy.

01 May, 2017 / 0 Comments