Hypermobility

Hey, check it out, over there on the sidebar: I’ve finally gone and got myself a blogroll!

I don’t think it’s mere coincidence that when my friend Marcia went and got herself a pop culture blog (yes, I am the same Jess who does Beverly Hills 90210 recaps over there; what can I say, my interests are diverse and, often, very shallow indeed), whereas it’s taken me a good four months to take the trouble to go and seek out other travel blogs that I should be reading. We backpackers and budget-travellers-by-choice are a snobbish lot, often adhering to strong views about the traveller/tourist divide, turning up our noses at destinations that have been “ruined” by mass tourism, liking nothing better than to turn up to a famous site and find no other foreigners there. (This is why travelling through Egypt, Jordan and Syria during the Lebanon war in 2006 was such a great idea.) While I try to rein in my own riskier-than-though, travel-snob tendencies as much as I can (which, erm, is probably not really that much), there is a large part of me that likes to believe I am the only person who has ever climbed a Meroe Pyramid, herded yaks on horseback, or, indeed, started a travel blog, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I am glad that I have finally got over myself a little, though, because there are some excellent travel blogs and travel sites out there. Vagabondish is possibly my favourite find so far; I may not agree with all of the articles posted there, it’s the sort of informative, interesting, varied and detailed travel-related ezine that I would have liked to create myself, were I not such a giant procrastinator. I’ve spent less time perusing Brave New Traveler (oh, how I long to add an extra ‘l’ in there; I am such an imperialist), but their feature on how to survive third world border crossings  is right up my alley, and so I have high hopes for the rest of the site. Start Backpacking has some interesting stories and good advice, as does Go Budget Travel, despite the slightly offputting design (though that may be the fault of my browser).

There are a couple of personal travel blogs included in my blogroll, though in general I’m avoiding trip-specific travel logs, unless they’re amazingly well-written, or written by someone I know; otherwise, they tend to spark off my travel-jealousy, much to my shame.

So: what else should I be reading? Where are the best travel stories, articles and tips to be found?