I want to give thanks to Travel with G for the nomination of Liebster Award to let me share a little more about myself. đ  Wait, how does this award work?
This is an award being pass around the blogging community, think of it as a pay-it-forward award like Versatile Blogger Award which I did a few days back. Basically it is a get-to-know you session so that your readers can understand you better. Once nominated, you will have to answer questions posted to you by your nominator and create your own and pass it on to your nominees.
Here are my answers to Travel with Gâs questions!
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What made you decide to blog about travel & how did you come up with the name of your blog?
I used to have a blog where I blog about my personal life for many years. It started where I blog on an almost daily basis to updates of monthly affairs. Slowly, it moves into just updates of my travels.
In 2013, I decided to step up into a more serious platform and started Pam goes travelling, a simple and straight to the point blog name because I love travelling. I document my travel experiences, share them, hopefully it bring some travel ideas and inspires others to travel as well.
How often do you update your blog with a post â and how much time, on the average, does it take you to create & complete the post?
It is challenging to maintain a travel blog with a demanding full time job. Certainly require some high level of discipline because usually by the end of the day, my energy will be sucked dry and all I want to do is to catch up on beauty sleep and have a social life on weekend. The commitment is higher than owning a personal blog because you gonna keep up with the readership ya know?
Usually I try to update my blog at least once every two to three weeks and it will mostly take me just as long to complete a post.
What sort of things do you do to prepare for your next travel destination?
Typically visa is the last thing on my mind all thanks to my precious red passport. I am not trying to sound arrogant but I tend to take it for granted that I am exempted from applying visas to most countries.
I will do some research, mainly on the weather, transport system and the safety of the destination is an important factor if I am preparing to travel alone.
Of course, reading up on travel blogs of the destination helps me get prepared and hyped for the trip!
How do you choose your next travel destination? Is it a well though-out decision, or are you the kind of traveler that just picks a place randomly?
I would love to play an adventure roulette one day, randomly going somewhere! However I am more of a person who will do some research of the place before booking air tickets.
I have a looooong list of places to visit so it is not difficult choosing somewhere to travel to but when I have 14 days of annual leaves, I have to be selective to make rationale decisions.
What are the 3 things you MUST have in your travel bag?
1) Working mobile phone with an activated local sim card – Google Map/ Apple Map is my best friend when I travel. Plus, I need to check into social media to let my friends and family at home know I am safe (especially if I am travelling alone). Furthermore, it double as my secondary camera when I need to capture a quick shot.
2) Dental Floss – I hate it when I get food stuck between my teeth
3) Tissue – You never know when you really need to use one to clean up, especially I can be such a klutz most of the time.
What is one of your top travel memories?
It has got to be the time I was travelling with 5 other friend in Hua Lien, Taiwan during winter. Winter in Taiwan does not snow however if we were lucky, we may experience snow on the mountain top. We were on our way through Taroko National Park making our way to ĺ揢幹 (Hehuanshan). The left tyre got punctured by a nail as we were driving along narrow and windy road and visibility was terrible. The temperature dropped to 2 degree celsius. We had to stop random cars which passed by for help. It took us a while until our saviour passed by! A friendly expat who has been living n Taiwan for ten over years. While all of the guys including the driver were changing the tyre under extreme weather, us girls took the initiative to slowdown oncoming cars and direct the sparse traffic.
Eventually we made it to the top of the mountain but it was not snowing and still very foggy so not much scened. The incident was certainly the highlight of the trip, a memorable one indeed.
Multiple choice: I usually stay at: (a) Hostel, (b) Bed & Breakfast, (c) airbnb, or (d) hotel?
Now, this is a tough question! It usually depends on who I am travelling with.
If I am alone, I tend to stay in hostels to save cost. However if i am with friends, I will opt for annoy of the other three options depending on the cost and what kind of holiday am I looking at, a more luxurious one, or one with a more local touch.
Travel binging â yes or no? (Would you rather see a ton of cities in one trip, or do you prefer to stay longer in one place and move around less?)
Although I would love to stay longer in travel slow but time is the essence and due to my job nature, I cannot afford to take long leaves to travel so I always end up packing my trips with plenty of things to do and see. The FOMO syndrome is real!
List 3 books (or movies) that have inspired you to travel.
1) Before Sunrise (Movie)
2) To Rome with Love (Movie)
I cannot think of the third one currently….
Do you prefer to travel solo, with a partner, or in groups?
It actually depends on where I am going and such. I kind of like a balance but I had to admit I am more skewed towards solo travelling recently.
Although I like to hang out in big groups, but it is not always easy. Big groups mean a lot of waiting for one another and also no one wants to make decision. If one decision is make, surely there bound to be other comments.
Having one or two travelling partners take off a little responsibility off the shoulder with everyone chipping in on their expertise and I tend to be reliant on my travel partner(s).
My target is to travel solo at least once a year, to spend some quality me-time, it helps me to build up on that confident and independence. I like for the fact that I can recreate myself, forget about acting or behaving a certain way with group of friends. Just being me, even if I commit stupid mistakes, at least no one is judging and my senses are awaken at all times.
What advice would you give someone who has never left their own country but wants to travel?
Be courages, take the first step and it will open your eyes. It is not something you will regret.
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At this point, I am suppose to nominate another list of bloggers with my own questions but I reckon this gonna stop somewhere right? Â So I hope you guys enjoy and tell me one thing about you from the questions above!
