Archive for: Press and Bloggers

Andrew Sykes is the writer and cyclist behind CyclingEurope.org, a top 10 UK cycling blog. Covering the best routes and cycling tips, Andrew has also published three books about his travels across Europe.

We spoke to Andrew about being part of the cycling blogger community, his new bike Wanda and the best way to get in touch if you’re a PR or brand.

How do you describe what you do to other people?
I am, above all, a cyclist. Combined with a love to explore this wonderful continent that we called Europe (as well as the other six!) and the skills to express my experiences in words, I suppose I’m also a traveller and writer.

How did you discover your love of cycling?
I have always been a cyclist or at least from the point when I learned to ride a bicycle when I was very young. It remains, in my opinion, the most practical way to get from A to B and, after crossing Europe for the first time in 2010, I discovered that the combination of cycling, long-distance travelling and writing was a very good one indeed.

What’s the best bike you’ve ever ridden?
The one that I have just invested in! It’s a wonderful Koga Signature WorldTraveller bike from the Netherlands. With its hub gears, carbon belt and sturdy build, it should hopefully have me crossing more continents in the years to come. It’s also got a name: Wanda.

What’s the best cycle route in the world?
The best cycle route is the one that you abandon your car to make on two wheels instead. That could be across the country, to work or just to the end of the street.

The next big thing in cycling – what are your predictions?
I’ve mentioned my new bicycle already and some of its features; the hub gears and carbon belt are not new but, now that hub brakes have almost become standard, surely advanced drive systems are next. Time will tell. Efficient power generation when cycling has also come a long way in recent years, especially as everyone wants to keep their high-tech devices topped up on the go. Expect to see big advances in that area too.

What’s the cycling blogging community like to be a part of?
It’s great to be at the heart of it. Most cyclists are very down to earth people; we reflect the machines that we ride; humble, inconspicuous, environmentally friendly… and I’m proud to be part of that group of people.

Do you accept press releases?
Yes, as long as the general topic is in line with the themes of CyclingEurope.org, namely cycling, travel and/or adventure. And I don’t turn things away simply because they are not about Europe!

What are the best campaigns you’ve collaborated on?
I’ve worked with many groups over the years helping to promote a range of services and products that I think may be of use to the readers of the website: clothing manufacturers, travel specialists and transport companies. I’m also increasingly working with tourist authorities writing bespoke content for the site about their particular corner of the world.

What advice would you give to PRs/brands reaching out to you?
Be honest in your approach. Avoid telling me that you’ve always been a fan of the site, that seems unlikely. And if you are offering sponsored content, be up front about the financial side of things. Most long-term relationships kick off with everyone knowing where they stand.

What other blogs do you read?
I’m familiar with most of the sites on the current Vuelio top ten list of cycling blogs but I have to admit that Brian Palmer’s thewashingmachinepost is hard to beat in terms of his shear depth of knowledge and attention to detail. Impressive stuff!

Claire Hall is the author of Tin Box Traveller, a top 10 family travel blog. Covering family adventures both at home and abroad, Claire writes about tips and tricks to keep both young and old(er) happy on holiday. We spoke to Claire the mechanics of her blog, the joys of holidaying in the UK and how she likes to measure the success of campaigns with PRs and brands over long periods of time.

How do you describe what you do to other people?
Ha! This is always an interesting one. I tell people I’m a writer because ‘blogger’ either draws blank looks or smirks (sad but true).

But actually, I’ve always been a writer. I started my career in journalism. I’m now a blogger, video-maker, freelance writer and social media manager. My background in writing is the foundation for everything I do today, which amounts to a career I love.

How do different social channels feed into your blog?
I am on all the big social media channels and try to use each of them daily. Facebook and Pinterest are the ones that generate the most traffic to my blog but they don’t necessarily take the most work to manage.

Instagram is where I spend most of my time. However, I have a love-hate relationship with it. It’s like a mini-blog for me. I see very little traffic coming from Instagram to Tin Box Traveller when compared to Facebook or Pinterest, but I enjoy writing for it and curating my images. Maybe that will change if I go over the golden 10k follower threshold.

It will be interesting to see how the visibility of likes on Instagram changes this platform in the year ahead.

How easy is it to get into family travel? Did you have any major concerns?
It’s simple really. If you want to travel with your kids, do it. Don’t let anyone tell you it can’t be done. We took our first trip with our eldest when she was six weeks old and haven’t looked back.

As long as you plan for things to be a bit different to your pre-kid travels, give yourselves plenty of time, and research the places that you are staying, it can be done. There are so many great family travel blogs now – if you have a question, tap it into Google and the answer will be there.

What’s the best family destination in the world?
We love holidaying in the UK. Cornwall is an amazing destination for families. The beaches, family attractions and scope for outdoor activities are endless.

However, if you are looking for somewhere abroad, I’m a big fan of Italy. The Italian Lakes have so much for families to do. And if you enjoy a city break then Tuscany has plenty to choose from and two easily accessible airports from the UK: Pisa and Florence.

What are your top tips for long distance travel with young children?
We haven’t flown long haul with the kids yet, but we have done plenty of long road trips. My top tip for car journeys is to break the trip up with regular stops so that you can all get a break. I took my girls on a few solo road trips last year and we would have all been totally frazzled without pit stops and overnight breaks.

How restrictive are term times for the perfect family travel experience?
I know they are a major issue for lots of families. We have the extra restriction of my husband being in the armed forces and did take the girls out of school for three days last academic year. My husband was deployed over Christmas and New Year, so the Armed Forces Covenant allowed us to get some family time back when his next leave period didn’t synchronise with the school holidays.

Do you accept press releases?
I receive lots of press releases but rarely use them. Some might spark an idea and there are some seasonal events that I want to know about. However, press releases about research rarely capture my attention.

What are the best collaborations you’ve worked on?
This year I’ve worked on some great collaborations with brands that have really got to know Tin Box Traveller before they’ve approached me. Bailey of Bristol, who manufacture touring caravans, asked me to work with them on promoting caravan holidays to my audience.

This is a brilliant brand match for me as I started out as caravan blogger. Since then Tin Box Traveller has evolved to cover all kinds of family travel, but this collaboration made me feel like I had come full circle with the blog. We still love caravan holidays so it’s been great to share this with followers who may not have been with us from the start.

I’ve also worked with Parkdean Resorts and Al Fresco Holidays on campaigns and holiday reviews over several years. It’s great to track the success of these long-term relationships.

What advice would you give to PRs looking to get in touch?
Have a read of my blog and take a look at my social media channels. If our audiences have similar interests then let’s chat.

What other blogs do you read?
I read so many other family travel blogs. The adventures of Mini Travellers, Mummytravels, My Travel Monkey and Travelynn Family always inspire me.

Brian Palmer is the author of thewashingmachinepost, a top 10 cycling blog. Covering reviews of cycling gear and equipment, as well as ride routes in Scotland and the Hebrides, Brian’s blog has a loyal following of cycling enthusiasts. We caught up with Brian to find out about the best bicycles, his favourite collaborations and the fear that stops him reading other blogs.

How do you describe what you do to other people?
I write incessantly about road bike culture, hopefully with a soupçon of humour along the way.

How did you discover your love of cycling?
I don’t like driving, so I’ve always ridden my bike to get about, even in atrocious Scottish weather, and it keeps me fit.

What’s the best bike you’ve ever ridden?
It almost seems unfair to single one out, so I’ll mention my Specialized CruX cross bike and my Campagnolo equipped Ritchey Logic. Mind you, the Basso Diamante I’m reviewing at present looks very promising.

What’s the best cycle route in the world?
Anywhere on Islay, but I did enjoy Hot Chillee’s annual ‘London-Paris’ ride.

What will be the next big thing in cycling?
Honestly I dread to think as a confirmed luddite. I’d be quite content if they simply left things alone.

What’s the cycling blogging community like to be a part of?
To be honest I really don’t know. I’m too scared to read other blogs in case they’re much better than mine!

Do you accept press releases?
Yes. Always. But they’re only the starting point. I always rewrite everything in what little style I might have. I never just publish the original.

What are the best campaigns you’ve collaborated on?
I did some work with Daniel Pasley in Portland in the very early days of the North American ‘Rapha Continental’. That was fun.

What advice would you give to PRs/brands reaching out to you?
Please don’t offer me pre-written content. I write thewashingmachinepost because I enjoy writing, so I’m never going to use somebody else’s work.

Along Dusty Roads was created by Andrew and Emily back in 2014. Now a top 10 travel blog, Along Dusty Roads covers slow travel; living, breathing and falling in love with every destination they visit. We caught up with the travel couple to find out about their lives as bloggers, use of social, the best places in the world and how they work with brands and PRs.

How do you describe what you do to other people?
With great difficulty.

We wear many hats in this job, literally and metaphorically. There’s a bunch of creative stuff (writing, photography, design), lots of admin, lots of logistics and planning, lots of website and tech things, areas that are akin to marketing and advertising, and then all the day-to-day jobs that come with running our own digital business.

It’s the travelling that’s the easy part, but most people perhaps don’t realise everything else we have to do to keep Along Dusty Roads ticking over.

However, the golden thread running through absolutely everything we do, and motivating everything we do, is trying to help people to travel more, and travel better.

That can take many forms, but primarily it’s about writing personal guides and tales based only on our own experiences and adventures so that others can read reliable, realistic, and relatable writing to inspire or plan their next trip. And taking pretty pictures along the way while trying to raise awareness of a travel style that’s more responsible, considerate and curious!

How do different social channels work with your blog?
We try to maintain a consistent voice across them, but it’s difficult as each social media channel lends itself to a different type of content and a different type of attention. Simply cross-posting the same things or pushing out old blog posts each day isn’t what our social media is there for – instead it’s somewhere to show our personality a little more, build a community outside the more static medium of the blog and share different stories of our travels or a destination.

There’s no doubt that Instagram takes up more of our time and attention than we’d like, but it’s also the social media that most clients care most about. We were slow starters to Stories, but absolutely love it as a creative space and way to interact better with our followers. We struggle with Twitter as a forum for travel, but recently have found our audience actually really enjoy images, which we previously thought weren’t a good fit for the medium. Facebook is comfortable and we have a lot of people there who have been with us since the beginning, but sometimes being a bit more personal or longform on that platform doesn’t feel right.

Do you think travel blogging will be your job forever?
We certainly hope so.

The dream is to grow Along Dusty Roads while always keeping it true to our core principles and travel philosophy. There are various projects, improvements and innovations we’d like to do based around the blog, but the trouble is finding the time to develop these.

Where’s the best place for street food in the world?
Based on our own experience of the world (there are so many places we haven’t visited), we’d go for Mexico.

Which country has the friendliest locals?
Every country has friendly locals who go out of their way to make you feel welcome, but every country also has people who may not. Thankfully, we’ve experienced more of the former rather than the latter on our own travels.

What’s your favourite mode of transport?
Due to our travels across Latin America, we’ve probably spent about two months in the last five years solely travelling on buses (which usually had a Fast and Furious movie on, or anything else from The Rock’s back catalogue).

When it isn’t packed or ridiculously expensive though, there’s a gentle romanticism to train travel – and as a traveller it is the sort of environment where conversations different to the ordinary with a new person are possible. It’s also less stressful and more sustainable than many other modes of transport.

Do you accept press releases?
We write everything on Along Dusty Roads, and we only write about places that we have personally visited and experienced. We think that’s something core to what distinguishes a travel blog from any other travel-oriented website out there – and readers value that. This means that we don’t accept or publish press releases.

What are the best collaborations you’ve worked on?
We’re very selective on collaborations.

That travellers trust us, and respect our opinions, which means the absolute world to us, and we take that responsibility incredibly seriously. We would never jeopardise it or take it for granted. This means that any collaboration has to be a great fit for our audience and our travel style, and something or somewhere that we can genuinely and wholeheartedly support or recommend.

Thankfully, this focus on suitability and quality means that the campaigns and collaborations we do work on are pretty great. For example, we’re Wanderers for G Adventures, a small-group adventure company that does great things to lead the conversation on responsible and sustainable travel.

What advice would you give to PRs/brands reaching out to you?
The main advice is to start conversations about working together as early as possible. We have to plan out our travels months in advance, and having things sorted earlier rather than last-minute helps massively.

Also, taking the time to look into who we are and what we do at Along Dusty Roads before getting in touch makes a world of difference. Generic queries waste everyone’s time, but we love discussing how we can work together when it’s clear that somebody has taken the time to actually think about whether we’re a good fit for them (and vice versa) and contacts us with a clear idea about what they want to do together.

We only really work on bespoke campaigns now, so the final thing would be  to trust our experience as travellers and bloggers so that we can create a campaign together that doesn’t simply visit the same places mentioned in every single other article about a destination, and understanding that free time on an itinerary is a good thing, not a bad thing, when it comes to travel writing.

What other blogs do you read?
We like to get our travel inspiration and travel journalism from a really diverse set of traditional and modern media, rather than only reading blogs, but we are big fans of The Common Wanderer, This Battered Suitcase, Jungles in Paris, Budget Traveller and Flora the Explorer (to name just a few).

MenswearStyle has once again been named the number one blog in the top 10 Men’s Fashion Blogs. The creation of editor Craig Landale, MenswearStyle is multi-award-winning, including two Vuelio Blog Awards and Best UK Blog. We spoke to Craig about the biggest issues in men’s fashion, his love of New Balance, how he works with PRs and the blogs he loves to read.

How do you describe what you do?
The simplest way to describe what I do is probably what I tell my parents; I write blog posts about menswear and men’s grooming, but in reality it’s much more than that.

How do different social channels work with your blog?
Pinterest and Twitter drive the most traffic to my blog posts, whereas Instagram is more of a branding medium that shows our fans a little more going on behind the scenes day-to-day. Facebook is quite useless unless you’re willing to spend money.

What’s the biggest issue in men’s fashion at the moment?
Men have come a long way in educating themselves on men’s fashion rules, dress codes and trends. However, I still see guys in suits going into the city on the London Underground wearing horrendous shoes such as loafers, which should have been thrown in the bin a few years ago.

How significant is waste and sustainability in the fashion world?
It’s so important right now and it has been a real eye opener. Britain alone is expected to send 235m items of clothing to landfill this year, the majority of which could have been re-worn, reused or recycled. I blame the large companies making throwaway fashion more than the people though. This is where true rapid change can happen.

Who is the best fashion designer we haven’t heard of yet?
Have you heard of Oliver Spencer? I’m sure some of you will have but he’s British and he’s pivoting his brand towards the sustainable route this year. He started out selling second hand clothes on London’s Portobello Road. Today he sells his own brand of clothing made up of high quality relaxed and modern style basics and classics.

What’s your favourite item of clothing?
I love my New Balance sneakers. I’ll wear them with almost everything, even a suit.

What are the best campaigns/collaborations you’ve worked on?
A recent standout collaboration I’ve worked on is with a new Northampton-made goodyear welt shoe company called Artisan Revolution. I showcased their four styles of shoes in a photoshoot and video shoot located around King’s Cross.

How important are press events for you, compared with releases or being sent product?
I find press trips have a big impact on the way I feel about a brand. I often come back from a few days away with a brand as a true advocate with a full understanding of a brand’s ambition.

What advice would you give PRs looking to work with you?
Just get in touch via email and we can discuss some ideas. I do like it when a project is already set with clear tasks and I’m invited to take part but I can also be flexible too.

What other blogs do you read?
I ready Glossy, Lean Luxe, Courier Magazine and Business of Fashion.

Queer Little Family has once again been ranked in the top 10 LGBT+ blogs. Written by Bread, the blog shares a personal journey about being queer and raising their child, Snappy. Known for being honest and direct, Bread told us about society getting worse for the LGBTQIA+ community, brands working with the community and their favourite blogs.

How do you describe what you do?
I write. I write about being a queer parent, I write about mental health, I write about being queer. I write because I love writing. It’s the only way to describe what I do, why I blog, accurately. It started and continues as a writing project more than anything else.

How do you use different social media channels with your blog?
I don’t use Twitter much for my blog, I think I need to have a bit of clean up, but I do use Facebook to post articles I find interesting or are relevant, as well as memes. I can’t resist a good meme. I use Instagram a lot too with pictures of my kid and stuff we’re doing. I was a late comer to Instagram and dead against it, and I’m still not a big fan of filters but I love it now!

Is society getting better or worse for the LGBTQIA+ community?
Worse. If you asked me six months ago I wouldn’t be saying that – but homophobic and transphobic attacks are on the increase, by 90% in some areas. People are protesting outside of schools, and disrupting the lives of kids over the fact LGBTQIA+ people exist and a book that depicts two male penguins raising a chick together, and transphobic ‘feminists’ are taking over the media with lies and scaremongering that is definitely affecting the entire community. I am pretty isolated here on the edge of nowhere, but I’ve never felt this unsafe, never felt this anxious about leaving my safe haven.

Have you ever experienced online trolling?
I dislike the word trolling, because I think it minimises what these people are doing and the effects they have on people like me. It doesn’t matter what their intention is, they are harassing people online, spreading hate and bullying people. And yes, I have been subject to that, but I’m pretty tough and don’t let it stand. I fight back. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequence.

Why are Pride events important?
For the reasons above. The increase of hate crimes on the LGBTQIA+ community, the online bullies, the media lies about transgender people. Pride is a protest and more important than ever. It’s important to stand united against hate, to show the next generation that they can be themselves, and be happy and healthy and loved.

What’s the best ways for brands to get involved without them just woke-washing?
Include LGBTQIA+ people in campaigns outside of June. Involve them in campaigns outside of one marketed to LGBTQIA+. I find not drawing attention to it, just LGBTQIA+ people just existing in campaigns without it being Pride month, or having anything to do with being queer makes all the difference. Include us on lists of blogs that aren’t just LGBTQIA+ blogs, include us in campaigns with cishet people.

What are the best campaigns/collaborations you’ve worked on?
I don’t really have anything this year. I stepped back from blogging for a little while and am only just getting back into it over the last six months.

What advice would you give PRs looking to work with you?
Actually read the blog. Actually know who you’re talking to. Know what the blog is about before trying to sell your business that is so far removed from any of the topics on my blog. Stop sending me emails that are gendered. Hell, at least change your template to reflect who you’re emailing – I can’t tell you how many lazy PRs have done that recently. I will call you out and block your emails.

And be very aware that I do charge. I don’t work for free but I do donate half of everything to different LGBTQIA+ charities and Domestic Abuse charities.

Do you accept press releases?
Yes, but usually you have to tell me what you want me to do with them. Do you want me to tweet about it? Link to it somewhere? I get too many emails that tell me about something I may or may not be interested in without asking me what they want. I find it much easier if people specifically send me tweets or Facebook posts to repost/retweet.

What other blogs do you read?
LesBeMums, Papa, Eden and Me, The Milky Gay and TwoDads.U.K..