SUNSHINE BLOGGER AWARD 2020

An unexpected recognition

Booking my trips by myself, I have always searched informations in many travelers’ websites.
I often read that the author of the website participated in the “Blogger Award“.
When Selena, the adventurous woman of the site inviaggioconselena.it, named me, I thought that it could be an opportunity to promote my blog and to help some people who deserve more attention.

What’s the Sunshine Blogger Award?

The “Sunshine Blogger Award” is a virtual bloggers recognition, assigned by evaluating the blog importance and originality about contents, quality, passions, experiences, exchanges, etc.
It is an opportunity to know interesting people, with whom to join forces, ideas, passions, and make yourself known to your readers.

The rules of the Sunshine Blogger Award

Once you have been nominated and agree to participate, you have to follow very simple rules:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you and link back to their blog;
2. Answer the questions given to you;
3. Nominate 4 other bloggers for whom you have esteem and who you consider worthy of being known by other people;
4. Write them 10 new questions;
5. Write in your article the rules for participating and insert the Sunshine Blogger Award logo.

Who nominated me?

Selena has a huge passion for Asia and Oceania so we met talking about my travels in this part of the world.
She is a graduate of the Faculty of Tourism, Culture and Territory, and organizes trips to East and Southeast Asia.
In her blog inviaggioconselena.it she tells about her travels in authentic and uncontaminated places.
So don’t wait, read the articles on her website and follow Selena’s Instagram profile to keep you always updated.

The questions Selena asked me

Now, as the Sunshine Blogger Award requires, I answer Selena’s questions:

Why did you decide to start a travel blog?

Travelling thousands of kilometers I had incredible experiences, I went to places studied in history and geography books and I got to know people and cultures that made me better.
I often thought it would be awful to lose memories or forget something.

So I decided to open my blog using memories and notes, combining them with my passions for IT, photography and writing.

I’ve never been a great reader of books but, organizing my travels by myself, I spend endless days on my pc to study interesting destinations and ways to get there.

In my website I like to share experiences, useful to some other traveler.
I’d like to be a source of inspiration, to make known particular destinations and experiences so that your “list of destinations” is constantly updated.

What is your biggest dream?

For me traveling means making dreams come true. I travel to see places or animals, to meet people, to have special experiences.

Cosmorevas is perhaps my biggest dream, my most intense travel.
I’m aware that I can reach any place on Earth.
Cosmorevas is the dream (“revas” in Esperanto language) to travel in the cosmos.
When I started to travel seriously, I never thought I’d really go around the world but I did and continue to do so.
That’s why I know to be able to realize the dream of going into Space.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I’m not used to making long-term plans.
I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, the present is now and the future is soon.
I go back to 10 years ago, when I had a few trips behind me, only one of them alone. I didn’t have the passport…
In 10 years I’d like to do the same thing: go back 10 years, think about now and see how far I have come, both personally and around the world.

What’s your travel philosophy?

Follow my passions, my madness, my dreams.
I travel to see what interests me without thinking about the fashions of the moment or going to a place just because someone else went there.
I like to talk to local people supporting their economy and learning from their culture, I like to see places that are in danger of disappearing because climate change, I like to see free animals in their habitat, I want to see the world with my eyes.

Next trip planned?

Next question? Thinking of an answer hurts me and I feel a void inside.
I’ve never arrived at this time without a booked trip, I really can’t answer that.
I have not fear to do an intercontinental travel but unfortunately it’s not up to me.
I can’t risk that on my return they will force me to do 14 days or more quarantine (if they don’t wake up the day before, canceling the flight).
Maybe I’ll book a last second flight, otherwise I’ll travel around my Sardinia.

What are the 3 things that should never be missing in your trolley?

For various reasons I stopped using my trolley many years ago and now I only travel with my backpack. But I guess the question is still valid, so:
– Cameras (gopro and a Sony compact camera with 60x zoom and 4k video),
– Solar panel (you don’t know how many times it saved me when the various batteries were almost dead)
– Some t-shirts and sweatshirts (yes, I know that I should say passport, Lonely Planet or various documents, but I’m so attached to some t-shirts and sweatshirts that I wear them everywhere, in all my travels).

The best trip ever?

I’ve always chosen the destination of my travels so I can’t talk about one trip more beautiful than the other.
But certainly one was the most important trip ever: the Trans-Siberian is the trip that changed my life.

I realized the great dream of going to Russia and at the end of that trip by train, leaving the station in Beijing, I felt proud to have succeeded, I was aware that I could really go anywhere without problem.

The Trans-Siberian – Transmongolic Train taught me to dream and to make my dreams come true.

Do you prefer to plan your trip in detail or go on an adventure?

If I could make a one-way ticket, I would go on the adventure, doing everything slowly.
Now I have limited time to travel seeing everything that interests me so I have to organize everything in detail, leaving me time for unplanned experiences.

In 2016 in a month I saw Santiago de Chile, Chilean Patagonia, Argentine Tierra del Fuego to Ushuaia, Atacama Desert, Salar de Uyuni to La Paz, Lake Titicaca, Machu Picchu, Nasca Lines and Lima (with various excursions and cities along the way) …

In 2019, on my trip to Oceania, I took 18 planes to see Fiji, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Tonga, Cook Islands and Auckland…

Impossible to make certain trips without organization.

What are the emotions you feel about planning your next trip?

Mainly stress and tiredness ahahah
I spend whole days choosing the destination, looking for the best cost/duration ratio of flights, considering all the airports and possible stopovers (from Cagliari for me doesn’t change to go to Rome or Madrid, Paris, London, Berlin etc.).
Once chosen the destination and booked the round-trip ticket, I spend weeks studing which attractions interest me, which experience to do, where to go and how to get there.

When the day of departure arrives, I pack my backpack (it takes about one hour but I do everything at the last moment) and the trip begins.

Did a mishap happen during one trip?

Just one? Is better to say that I have at least one in every trip.
The worst maybe was when, the night before the return flight, I drank water from the tap in a hotel in Santiago, Chile.
I knew very well that I shouldn’t have done it, but I was thirsty and didn’t feel like going down to the hotel lobby, as there was no fridge bar in the room.
Result: at the airport I started to feel sick, I avoided that they would notice and deny me boarding but I spent 80% of the flight (about 12 hours) in the bathroom…
You pay for these mistakes.

Here are my nominations for the Sunshine Blogger Award 2020

Thanking Selena once again, I now introduce you to 4 people that I always follow with great interest, both in their sites and in their Instagram and Youtube profiles, and that you won’t regret to know:

A ZONZO CON ZAZZU

The Trans-Siberian Railway is an experience that unites the travellers who have lived it.
I met Gianluca, or rather Zazzu, thanks to his videos in the kilometers from St. Petersburg to Beijing.

Behind the nice and original name “A Zonzo con Zazzu” you will obviously find an adventure travel enthusiast and, as much as his computer work engages him full time, in his blog azonzoconzazzu.com and in the various social network you will find a lot of useful information.
And his videos on Youtube are spectacular.

CONTINENTANDO

Raquel and Giorgio are responsible travellers, aware that tourism, especially in the most disadvantaged countries, can become an engine of development but at the same time, if exercised unconsciously and irresponsibly, it can become a destructive and discriminating factor for the environment and the poorest communities.

Continentando was created to make you aware of the importance of community tourism and to help you travel in a conscious way, carrying out a direct and participatory exchange with rural communities, creating an alternative economy for the benefit of the most disadvantaged local populations, enhancing their cultural and natural resources.

Community tourism is an opportunity of enrichment for the traveller and an opportunity of self-determination for the local community, active protagonist of its own resources, territory and culture.

Take part Raquel and Giorgio’s choice to create a fairer and more beautiful world.

LA MOCHILA AL HOMBRO

I met Andrea talking about my experience of swimming with whales in Tonga and diving with sharks in Fiji.
Andrea, the girl behind the blog LA MOCHILA AL HOMBRO and her Safari Azulproject, was born in Venezuela but since she moved to Spain she started to travel around Europe alone, as backpacker, and then dedicated herself to raising awareness about the environment and taking care of animals through various direct experiences.

With Andrea’s sustainable toutism you can live great adventures, having close encounters with whales, dolphins, sharks, manatees and other marine animals, learning what bad practices we must avoid.
I’m not talking about zoos or water parks but about activities that, done correctly, allow to protect the environment and animals.

Join Andrea too, contributing with your grain of sand for a better world.

VIVA LA DOLCE VITA

Barry was born in Ireland but moved for love to Sardinia, land of his wife Claudia.
He was so fascinated by everything Sardinia has to offer that he wants to show it to as many people as possible thanks to their blog vivaladolcevita.com.

Beaches, excursions, mountains, trekking, countryside, cities… It’s always important to understand how your land is seen by those who were not born there and it’s exciting to hear about it with love..
In their website you will find curiosities and different destinations for your next holiday in the center of the Mediterranean Sea.

With Viva La Dolce Vita, Barry and Claudia show you the sweet life of Sardinia, the island that doesn’t exist only in summer.

My questions

Here are my questions for you:

1. Why did you decide to open your website/blog?
2. What’s your biggest dream?
3. Do you travel with a backpack or with a trolley Why?
4. What do you never forget to put in your luggage?
5. Which trip do you absolutely recommend to a traveler?
6. Local cuisine: which typical food have you tasted, would you like to taste and will never taste?
7. Which is the place that excited you the most?
8. Which destination disappointed you the most?
9. Do you share your trip live on social networks or tell the experience when you come back to home?
10. What’s your style of photography?

Now I’m waiting to see your answers, of course others will be happy to meet you.

Thanks again to Selena for involving me in the Sunshine Blogger Award 2020.