It’s always fun when you receive an award, right!? It’s our very first blogging award (the first of many, we hope!) and we were so excited to know that people are not only reading our blog but enjoying it too!
Recently, we were nominated for the Liebster award by the lovely Steven and Hayley at Four Dirty Feet.
The Liebster Award
The Liebster award isn’t a physical trophy, but a virtual nod towards a blog that someone feels deserves recognition. It’s a great way to spread the love between bloggers, and find more up-and-coming blogs to binge on!
The Rules
If you’re nominated, and you want to accept the nomination, you’ll be expected to keep the chain going! Here are the rules that we’re following:
Thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their site on your blog;
Display the award on your blog;
Answer their questions about yourself;
Nominate 5 – 10 other bloggers for the award and inform them via social media;
Create your own set of questions for your nominees;
Enjoy winning an award and passing this great feeling onto someone else!
Who Nominated Us
Hayley and Steven are a South African couple, currently teaching in South Korea! They actually met whilst in Korea and romance blossomed there! Check out their blog, which is full of stories, tips and advice from their time abroad. Don’t forget to check out their videos too!
Our Answers To Four Dirty Feet’s Questions
Who knew there was such a beautiful beach in the middle of Yala national park?
1. Describe yourself in 3 words
Is it cheating if we answer this one separately?!
Kev: Confident, logical, patient
Jade: Laid-back, optimistic, honest
2. How did you come up with the name of your blog?
Originally, we had a bit of a cringe blog name that we won’t remind anyone of here! It was because our blog was only really intended for friends and family so it didn’t seem that important.
Now that we are spending more time building our blog as a brand, we decided that we needed something that reflected us both and showed that we were travel bloggers.
We’re both over 6 feet tall so it made sense to include that! We also wanted to let people know there are two of us – we come as a very tall package!
3. What do you want to accomplish with your blog?
At the moment, we are working on building a connected audience and creating good content about the trips that we have enjoyed!
In the future though, we’d love to be able to take some time off from working full-time to travel the places we want to slowly. Becoming a digital nomad would be the dream!
Rafting in Bali was exceptionally fun, especially when we had to duck under bridges!
4. What keeps you motivated and drives you to keep writing blog posts?
We both enjoy the final result of a blog post. Sometimes it’s hard to get motivated to start writing a blog post because we just want to zone out after acting like a clown all day with the children!
But once we get started, and see that people are actually interested in what we have to say, it’s really exciting! It becomes kind of addictive – sometimes we need to tell ourselves to stop chatting about SEO over dinner because we’ll just become business partners rather than a couple haha.
5. What is the weirdest thing you have eaten while travelling and where did you eat it?
When we went to Guilin in China, we ate lunch in the mountains, which was amazing. We ordered ‘the chicken’ on a recommendation, and it arrived just like that – chicken. Chicken feet, chicken heart, chicken skull, chicken neck … every single part of the chicken was served either as a side dish or in a soup. Gross!
This dish literally had a perfectly sliced head of the chicken in the broth.
6. What country or experience is at the top of your travel bucket list? (i.e. if you were offered a free trip anywhere right now where or what would you choose?)
Kev: I went skiing a fair few times in Europe as a child, and I loved it. But I have always wanted to visit the Rockies!! Luckily, that’s in our plan – we are going to work a season in Canada at some point in the next few years so I’m looking forward to that!
Jade: Hawaii is definitely on the top of my list, but isn’t it up there for everyone!?
7. What is the most rewarding thing you have ever done?
We’ve rescued three kittens from the streets of Beijing (two we kept, one we fostered and helped find a new family). In China, animals are not given the same rights as they are back home and unfortunately that means some people don’t give them the same love either.
Our babies were lucky and now are big fat cats, lazing around and giving orders to their humans. If we hadn’t taken them in, they would have almost certainly died so it’s nice to know that we have given them a better life!
It might look cute but what am I supposed to do now?!
8. What is something people would be surprised to know about you?
Kev has a ridiculous tattoo, drawn in his conservatory by his unqualified mate … It’s a “smiley face” but it has ears because the guy slipped whilst doing it. 8 other people have the same tattoo, drawn by the same guy over a couple of months. I would show you a picture but let’s just say that it’s below the belly button but above the legs!?
9. Is there anywhere in the world that you don’t want to visit?
Jade: If I’m honest, China was never on my bucket list but I have lived here for the last two years now! So there are places that I haven’t thought of going but I don’t think I would limit myself by saying there is anywhere I wouldn’t go!
There are so many amazing places that we can’t wait to visit.
10. What are your top 3 travel gadgets that you can’t live without?
We would both definitely be lost without our external hard drive! We would hate to be limited in the number of photos and videos that we take, so we bought this hard drive that can hold 1TB of data!
That kind of leads us on to the next gadget … a laptop! When we’re at home, we both have a personal laptop but we take Jade’s when we’re travelling because it’s fairly small and light.
We tend to put all of our photos/videos from the day onto the hard drive via the laptop each night when we’re unwinding. There are also times when we find ourselves relaxing in a hotel room in the evening so it’s great to be able to pick a film we downloaded before we left, and relax!
Something that we didn’t realise we would use so much until we got it was our GoPro Hero 5. It’s perfect for silly selfies, and it’s great for attaching to your body when you’re riding a motorcycle or white water rafting to get some fun film footage!
11. What do you miss the most while travelling and being away from home?
Apart from the obvious friends and family, we both really miss just going to the pub for a burger and a pint!! If you’re British and you’re reading this, yes we mean Wetherspoons. If you’ve never heard of this fine establishment, don’t worry, you probably wouldn’t be that impressed haha! The taste of home is just something you can’t get anywhere else!
Once a year there is a huge burger festival in Beijing. I highly recommend it.
Who We Nominated
We chose the following bloggers to receive the Liebster Award!
Tamsin – Life Begins With Travel
Tamsin and her partner Alex are in an exciting position – about to sell all of their stuff and leave the UK on a one-way ticket! We can’t wait to hear about their travels – it will be great to be updated from the complete beginning of their trip!
Sam – My Blonde Bucket List
21-year-old Sam is doing what most of us do – working full time but packing in as much travel as possible! She’s got some great photos to share and an amazing Bucket List we’re sure you’ll want to complete yourselves!
Taiwo – Made in Nigeria
Nigerian-born Taiwo is lucky enough to be able to travel almost 3 weeks every month! Majorly jealous over here! She’s travelled to plenty of gorgeous places and is hilarious when recounting stories like questioning whether you’re eating horse-meat, or listening to lions ‘going at it’!! One to read when you need cheering up!
Miranda – Miranda Knudston
A Wisconsin girl, Miranda loves a thrilling adventure as much as travelling her own city! She has got some great travel tips and is a pro at being a tourist in her hometown. Keep up with her stories and inspirational advice!
Kristen and Francis – Two Broke Newly Weds
These guys are here to show you that you don’t have to have to be a millionaire to travel and enjoy amazing experiences! They’re all for adventure and trying to new things – from scuba diving to eating insects!
Alyse – The Invisible Tourist
Here’s a website with a twist – have you ever wanted to be ‘invisible’ whilst you travel? Taking photos without whacking someone in the head with your selfie stick? Learning a few local phrases so that you aren’t left asking twenty-five people how to get from A to B? Check out this site to see how much of an ‘invisible tourist’ you are, or could be, and get some great travel tips along the way!
Our Questions To Our Nominees!
- What piece of advice would you give a newbie traveller?
- Tell us your best culinary experience whilst travelling?
- What is the best view you have had on your travels?
- How long do you want to commit to traveling?
- What is one thing you couldn’t live without whilst travelling?
- Where is the next place you want to visit?
- Do you prefer slow travel or lots of shorter trips?
- Have you ever had a bad travel experience?
- Are you a budget traveller or do you like to save up and splurge?
- What first gave you the travel bug?
Comments
Thanks…
great post…
Hi Jade and Kev, congratulations on your Liebster Award and thanks so much for nominating me! Very exciting for me to be featured on your page. You, along with these bloggers have done some excellent work so be sure to keep it up. I’m looking forward to answering your questions shortly 😉 Well done everyone and thanks again!
Thanks! We’re looking forward to reading your answers!!
This was so much fun answering all the questions – thank you *so* much for the nomination! You can see our answers here: https://www.lifebeginswithtravel.com/liebster-award/
I like this. It’s a nice way to engage with other bloggers!
Yes definitely! We really enjoyed finding and reading these blogs!
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