13 lessons learnt from attending Traverse 16

As I have only been blogging for ten months I was apprehensive about attending Traverse 16, the UK’s biggest weekend travel blog conference.  My concern was that the event was more targeted to experienced and established travel bloggers.

My concerns vanished before even arriving at the official Traverse event.  Via social media I arranged to meet with Claire from Tin Box Traveller, Cathy from Mummy Travels, Maria from One Tiny Leap and Martha from Learning Escapes which leads on to my first lesson learnt from attending Traverse 16….

Images – Traverse 16 reception party at the Depot.  Cardiff Stadium where the conference took place. Claire and I entering the icelolly competition to win a holiday to Prague!

Practical lessons learnt from attending Traverse 16

1. Plan in advance to meet up with bloggers you are familiar with.  Our little group of five bonded quickly over a cocktail before attending the Traverse welcoming reception.  As a result when we arrived at the Depot we strode in confidently as a group, ready to mingle with others and network safe in the knowledge that there was a familiar face we could seek out if conversation with a stranger dried up!

2. Bloggers do not bite!  In the ten months I have blogged here on Travel Loving Family I have read many times that bloggers are a friendly supportive bunch.  This weekend I was delighted to find that this is not a myth!  Not only are bloggers friendly and supportive they are also confident, interesting people and with one big thing in common this weekend – a love of travel – there was always something to talk about!

3. Traverse offers something for all abilities.  This was the main practical lesson I learnt this weekend.  The conference is geared towards seasoned professional travel bloggers through to complete newbies.   The sessions were diverse and met the needs of different abilities and blogger development requirements.  I attended the workshops which I felt I need to improve as a beginner i.e. creative writing and SEO however the workshops on offer covered all aspects of travel blogging from creating YouTube videos to affiliate marketing and how to launch a digital product.

4. Traverse appeals to all types of travel bloggers. I was not sure what to expect however attendees ranged from family travel bloggers who blog about their family holidays, review local attractions etc, to avid young adventurous travel bloggers who looked like they had just dropped by en route from exploring deepest darkest Mongolia!  There were also bloggers of different specialist areas i.e food and parenting who have travel sections on their blogs.

Traverse also seemed to appeal to a range of ages.  There were 20-year-old backpackers who stayed at the reception party until the early hours dancing on the tables…. unlike our little group who retired to the tranquil Marriott hotel bar so that we could have a comfortable seat and chat freely without the noise of the (entertaining but rather loud!) live music.  During the conference on the Saturday the age range of attendees were 20 – 60 with everyone made to feel very welcome.

5. Traverse 16 provided exceptional value for money!  I purchased my ticket during the early bird booking period so my ticket was only £58.  This included –

* Friday night reception at the Depot including live music, food and drink
* Return coach trip from central Cardiff to the Stadium for the Saturday conference
* Refreshments throughout Saturday including lunch
* The choice of 17 workshops and mini sessions spread over four sessions hosted by industry experts and/or professional bloggers
* Opportunity to book ten minute pro bar slots to ask specific blog questions
* Saturday night after party with drinks
* Code for discounted GWR train fares to travel to the conference
* Goody bag from the sponsors Visit Wales
* AND incredibly up to two Sunday Experiences organised by the sponsor Visit Wales to select from a list of 22 options including playing golf at the 2010 Ryder Cup Course at Celtic Manor, bike tour and day trip to the Gower Peninsula.

Check back soon, I will be publishing posts featuring the two Sunday Experiences I selected – a visit to Cardiff Castle and white water rafting at Cardiff Sports Village.  They were both great fun and provided me with more opportunities to network with other bloggers and industry experts. Going back to my first point regarding exceptional value for money – White water rafting normally costs up to £55 and entrance to Cardiff Castle with a tour is £15… so the £58 for the entire weekend was pretty amazing eh?!

6. Best method is to divide and conquer.  Upon checking out the conference schedule I wanted to attend all 17 of the workshops and mini sessions! I knew all of them would be beneficial and it was difficult to know which ones would best meet my development needs as a new blogger.  After discussing with my fellow family travel bloggers it was apparent that we all felt the same way and so we decided the best approach was to divide and conquer!

We each selected workshops which best met our needs with the plan to write up notes and share among us all.  To fully make the most of the learning opportunities of a blog conference this seems to be a great approach.  (It also meant we had to spilt up and meet/network with other attendees and the bonus was the added pressure to take half decent notes as other people were relying on you!)

7.  Great networking opportunities.  Traverse 16 was generously supported by some major travel brands including Expedia, Visit Wales, Cathay Pacific, I Love NY, Sky Scanner, Costa Brava tourist board, Icelolly and Surprise Trips.  The partners and sponsors were heavily involved in the conference and clearly very supportive of bloggers.  They seemed to understand the time and dedication it takes to create a blog and develop a loyal following.

Many of the sponsors gave talks which provided a unique opportunity to hear about how blogs and brands can collaborate together.  I spoke to most of the sponsors over the weekend and swapped business cards.  My advice for other new bloggers considering attending a blog like Traverse would be to have a stack of business cards to hand and not be afraid to hand them out! The networking does not just take place at the conference either it continues over the entire weekend especially during the Sunday Experiences.

8. Enter all the competitions!  Many of the sponsors also provided exclusive prizes for competitions including flights to Myanmar, a holiday to Prague and a place on a once in a lifetime blogger trip to New York State.  To be honest I was a little overwhelmed by all the networking, workshops etc during the conference and did not make the most of all the competitions on offer. For future conferences however I will be sure to dedicate some time to entering every one!

** Update – Since publishing this post I have found out that I won the Expedia #Europeonaplate competition!  I look forward to using my Expedia virtual credit card for a future holiday:) 

Blog lessons learnt from attending Traverse 16

In addition to learning from talking to other travel bloggers this weekend I also picked up many theoretical tips from attending the workshops during the Saturday conference at Cardiff Stadium. I have pages and pages of notes from attending the workshops, too much to include here but these are some of the tips I hope to put into practice immediately –

9. Tips from ‘Write Better, Right Now’ by Abigail King.  Abi from Inside the Travel Lab crammed a lot into her one hour session.  She covered avoiding the use of bland words (I am very guilty of this sorry Abi I will try to avoid – lovely, awesome, gorgeous!), delivering satisfaction to your reader i.e making sure your article covers what it states in the title and ensuring your blog has a unique voice and does read like Wikipedia.

Abi recommended writing the first draft of a post as if no one will ever read it and then to return and ‘bash’ it into something presentable.  She also recommended a book I intend to buy – ‘Write to Sell’ by Andy Maslen and a useful website for checking writing styles – www.economist.com/styleguide/   A quick tip she briefly mentioned was to use an odd number for list posts as they have been found to attract more readers…. hence ’13 lessons learnt from attending Traverse 16!’

10. Tips from ‘How to Improve Photography’ by Kim Leuenberger.  I am a novice photographer and I know my limits (it is difficult to find the time to take great photos whilst also running around after two young children when on holiday/visiting attractions!)  I picked up some quick easy photography tips during Kim‘s photography workshop, she explained the rule of thirds and recommended selecting the cameras grid to help.  She also provided tips for symmetry including placing objects on the lines and also placing slightly to one side to give a new perspective and dynamic.

When using a smart phone Kim suggested always moving to capture a good image rather than relying on the zoom.  Other quick tips included using a similar background i.e blue skies, blue sea to give a uniform look to groups of photos and to try for a colour match to really make photos stand out easily.  The example she showed was a yellow NYC taxi against a yellow background which really made it pop!

11. Tips from ‘Sexy Strategic SEO’ by Judith Lewis.  This was the session I was most looking forward to as I am aware of the importance of SEO for gaining readers.  Judith’s workshop from Mostly About Chocolate was fast paced and fun (with lots of chocolate flying through the air!) She advised not to use Yoast blindly and not to get hung up on gaining the green light.  She explained that it was ok to use keywords just once and Google can penalise bloggers who do not write naturally but instead focus on the keywords.

I took away a HUGE to do list from Judith’s session the main ones being to submit a sitemap to Bing and Yahoo and also research my keywords before writing an article.  I am also not going to get hung up in the future on external broken links as Judith explained it is the internal broken links (404’s) which we should correct to improve SEO.

12. Tips from ‘Travel Filmmaking’ by Greg Brand.  The main lesson I learnt from attending the Travizeo workshop was that although I am not yet ready for travel film making when I am it is ok to start with my fairly inexpensive Panasonic Lumix camera.  Greg showed examples of videos taken with just hand-held cameras including Brandon Lu’s which were truly inspirational.

He explained that coverage is the absolute key to a great movie with angles being of particular importance.  He also highlighted the importance of crediting music sources and shared websites which are useful for obtaining music to accompany videos including Freesound a collaborative database of Creative Commons Licensed sounds.

13. How to order a wine via a tweet!  During the closing panel with Hannah Witton & Laura Bubble attendees were encouraged to tweet in with #Traverse16 to order wine and beer.  I am not sure many people were concentrating on the panel discussing life as a vlogger and how to run a successful You Tube channel but it was an enjoyable end to a thoroughly informative day. I can now say I am able to order a wine via a tweet…. an invaluable life skill!

So that’s it… 13 lessons learnt from attending Traverse 16.  Unlucky for some maybe but I had no idea how many practical and theory/blog lessons I had learnt before I started writing this article!  I definitely intend to return to Traverse next year and I hope this article has convinced you, whether you are a newbie or seasoned pro, to attend too.

Many thanks to the family travel bloggers who took me under their wings and patiently answered my countless questions this weekend:)  Particular thanks go to the ladies featured in the photo above – Claire at Tin Box Traveller, Cathy at Mummy Travels, Jen at Jenography, Martha at Learning Escapes and the two lovely ladies who somehow managed to escape being included in the photo! – Gretta at Mums Do Travel and Maria at One Tiny Leap. I look forward to seeing you all at BritMums!