In late December, I came across a post in a travel blogger Facebook group that I belong to. The post mentioned a press trip that the Kerala Tourism Bureau was putting on called the Kerala Blog Express. Envisioned as a social media press tour, the tourism bureau asked bloggers to get their followers to vote in order to be considered for the trip. The votes, along with other factors were then used to decide who was finally chosen.
Initially I had mixed feelings and many bloggers were downright dismissive of the trip. The main reason people complained was that the tourism bureau was only going to be paying for a portion of the airfare. (Not a problem for me since I used airline miles.) The second complaint was that many bloggers didn’t want to harass their readers for votes. To be honest, that second point was the reason I almost decided not to join.
In the end I simply couldn’t resist though. I entered the contest, but decided not to mention it on the website. Instead of harassing my loyal readers to vote for me, I started asking my friends. While I did spam my personal Facebook quite a bit, most people were happy to support me and ultimately I was chosen.
While I have known for a few weeks that I will be going to India for the Kerala Blog Express, the winners were officially announced today. I leave for India in seven days and will spend just about three weeks over there. During the trip I will be blogging quite a bit about what I am experiencing. I fully expect to have unique and wonderful experiences that I want to share with everyone.
I also want to make clear that I will continue with my normal posts here during this time. Alongside my posts about the Kerala Blog Express, I will continue with my normal miles/points posts. Double to content and the best of both worlds.
While I write mostly about miles and points today, my roots as a blogger are in sharing my on the ground travel experiences. As some may know, this site first started as Family ‘Round The World in 2007 to document my family’s 18 month around the world adventure. You can still find those posts on the site if you are interested. I am excited to get back to that style of writing while continuing to provide more content about traveling for pennies on the dollar.
As you can see, I am excited for this trip. Not only will I get to experience a completely new country, but I will get to share my experiences with 24 other bloggers who are seemingly as passionate about travel as I am. I highly recommend bookmarking the tour website KeralaBlogExpress.com. It still hasn’t been updated with a list of the winners as of this writing, but you can find the route we are going to take along with more information about the Indian State of Kerala.
In closing, the next few weeks will be full of unique and inspired travel posts. I will be flying to/from India in Business Class on Singapore Air, Air China, Qatar Airways & Etihad, so I should have some wonderful experiences to share from those flights. Additionally I will be stopping in Beijing & Singapore on the way and Abu Dhabi on the way back! One of the reasons that I simply love the miles & points game!
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