Biggest Travel Blog in the World

Move Over Nomadic Matt, The Torch Has Passed: How I’m Going to Have the Biggest Travel Blog in the World

It takes an almighty fool to make such aggrandized statements. And I’ve been called a lot worse.

What you’re reading now is something new. Something fresh in the world of travel blogging. Something that only someone like me, with absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain, has the watermelon-sized cojones to say.

Remember those old egos? The bloggers you contacted in your desperate attempts to learn from them, be like them and work your sycophantic way to the top. They won’t have shit on me. I’m the man you’re going to want to talk to. The man you’re going to want to throw your soiled panties and knickers at. The man you’re going to want to take home to your parents, have them bow before me and have them pay for us both to have a round the world trip (which will be my fifty-fifth by the way) while showering me in champagne, expensive bouquets and all the rest.

Yes. Make no mistake about it, this travel blog – and the pure hunk of rippling white muscle behind it, is going to be very huge indeed.

The question is: do you want to com e along for the ride?

My 8-Step Plan to Having the Biggest Travel Blog in the World

This isn’t just an overnight dream. Fools are incapable of that. No. This has all been in the pipeline for a very long time. Probably while most of you were still on self-hosted WordPress blogs, or, even worse, Blogger.

Since starting out from very humble beginnings uploading Saigon-based events onto a Drupal-hosted website, to beavering away in a London office as site editor at gap year travel web resource Gap Daemon, I have wanted this. Wanted absolute dominance in the field of the travel blog.

And so when I started out, threatened by my sheer creativity, superhuman productivity and dashing good looks, what did the big boys do? The Nomadic Matt’s, the Rolf Pott’s and the (shit did I even go there?) Rick Steves of this world?

They pissed their khaki pants in fear. Ruining their flashy Nikon penis extensions in the process.

“Holy shit. How can anyone be any more adventurous than Adventurous Kate?”, they whispered.

“Holy Christ. How can anyone be any more foxier than Foxy Nomad?”, they muttered.

“Holy Bejesus. How can anyone go backpacking more than Go Backpacking?”, they shrieked.

Except they didn’t. Because nobody could see it coming. Nobody figured that this dude, this southern Englishman with his rural Westcountry lilt, would be so damn talented at travelling the world and entertaining everyone on his travel blog in the process.

And to those who doubt the inevitable? Those who look at my paltry PR, 10 Twitter followers (thanks sis!) and complete lack of comments? Those who stifle a laugh at the thought of me rocking it on Kilimanjaro, sunning myself in Siem Reap and fucking in the favelas?

Well I’ve got one answer for you.

I’ll be at the top whether it kills me or not. Because I’m that damn hungry for it.

Not Going to Climb Any Greasy Travel Blog Pole

So how exactly am I going to reach this pinnacle you ask? Well I’m not going to climb no greasy pole. I’m not going to get on my knees and beg that Dave Lee takes me under his milky bosom either. Nor am I going to pose as one of Caz and Craig’s kids, nullify myself and join The Wandering Trader harem, shrink myself to the size of an acorn and hide in one of Nomadic Samuel’s wide and colourful hat collection.

No sir. I’m not going to do any of that. I’m not even going to dare attempt it (despite some of them actually sounding quite fun).

No. Here’s how I’m going to do it, plain and simple, in 8 easy-to-follow steps.

Because lists are the bread and butter of any top travel blogger afterall right?

Step 1: By Being A Travel Blog Anti-Brand

WillPeach.com ain’t no Nomadic Will, Adventurous Will, Adventures With Will or Wanderlust Will uncreative blog title. It’s my frickin’ name.

I don’t have to attach fancy travel tags to my blog to add a few extra inches to my girth. I don’t have to throw in some alliteration to alleviate my acrid travel writing. I don’t have to litter my blog title with some bend-me-over-backwards buzzword.

I’ll just have my normal name thanks.

Because that’s the one I’ll be travelling with.

Because that’s the one you’re going to call me by when I come knocking on your hostel door, prophylactics at the ready.

Step 2: Because I’ll Actually Go Anywhere

Gary Arndt calls himself Mr Everything Everywhere but the man has never been tested. Put him in a dorm-room with 14 undersexed Canadian girls and no doubt he’d crumble. Put him in the beating heart of the Saigon underground scene, in a full on gimp suit with jock strap, and I bet you wouldn’t hear that on his travel blog either. No. The man’s a fraud. He’ll only go where the top luxury hotels and high-end tours take him. Only to where he’s speaking next, his expensive technology and Time Magazine recommendations in tow.

Stick with me however and you’ll get all that and more. Unafraid and unwavering (hell I’m even a little bit turned on at the prospect), I’ll travel to the ass-ends of the world, the most unholiest of holies, the most impoverished places on the planet, just to let you know what it’s all really about.

With a taste for danger and an unhealthy habit of wearing my pants over my trousers, I’m primed and ready for action. There ain’t no hostel big or small, no party tame or wild, no conquest intimidating enough to shake me.

I’ll go anywhere and the world will know thy name and thy blog.

Step 3: By Having An Unbeatable Travel Blog Network

Let’s face it. Most travel bloggers concentrate on only one thing (apart from Tourist2Townie’s honed physique of course): making their one (and only) blog as generic and boring as possible.

That’s why, with my ever-expanding suite of sites under The Gonzo Traveller network, I won’t just be hitting you with one insanely informative and interesting travel blog, but a whole host of them.

So whether the intersection of travel and sex abroad tickles your fancy, or whether you’re into things slightly more vanilla (like hotfooting it around Spain and Spanish-speaking countries for example), I’ve got you covered.

Hell I’ve even got an overland travel site and an interview travel site to throw into the mixer. I’m that versatile.

There’s something to be said for strength in numbers. Be sure of that.

Step 4: By Having Insanely Talented and Sexy Travel Blog Friends

My determination and my desire is, in part, largely down to those who who’ve gone before me. Counting some of the most buxom, most bald, most bravest travel bloggers in my close circle of friends, I’ve got the network of like-minded people to help push me to the pinnacle.

Jumping on Skype to talk travel and the world of the blogger, these are the guys who test me day-in day-out, teach me and bestow their gifts. Sharing, caring and minding each other’s backs, this is the network that will one day rise and supersede them all.

Our blogs? Will grow bigger than any Conde Naste publishing empire, Lonely Planet brand chain or Contiki world tour. We’ll be the new kings. The constant innovators. The measuring stick of success.

Lucky that they aren’t too bad for eye-candy either. Even if the webcam on a MacBook really does tend to dull their skin tones into ghostly white proportions.

Step 5: By Being Open to Having New Insanely Talented and Sexy Travel Blog Friends

The one thing I’ve noticed about those at the top? They’ve got no time for those at the bottom.

When I shoot to blogging superstardom I won’t forget where I came from. I won’t forget those cold hostel nights, that pensive time spent waiting under the top bunk  of those two copulating teenagers, that incessant wearing of Beer Lao string-vests and brightly decorated bandanas. Not me.

So whether you choose to shoot me an email, a Tweet or just friend me on Facebook, you can type away with a little smile on your face and press at your iPad buttons with glee. Why? Because you can be safe in the knowledge that I’ll be happy you called.  And a response will be winging it’s way back to you in less than 72 hours.

Because, all this ego aside, I’m just a boy, standing in front of a reader, asking her to love him.

Anna Scott for the win.

Step 6: By Going Gonzo

If I want to read practical travel advice I’ve got a gazillion blogs to go. If I want to read personal inflections I can find a travel blog from every walk of life. If I want to read travel stories that play with the truth for the sake of style and a few cheap laughs? Hmm. I’m stuck.

The Gonzo Traveller network does exactly what it says on the tin. It goes gonzo.

Subjugating the banality of truth and focusing on the tearing up of facts, my travel stories won’t focus on the onanistic, self-gratifying posts of the Chang Mai circle, nor will they tell you the ins and outs of my travelling coin purse either.

None of that matters. None of that interests. None of that is new.

To get to the top you’ve got to shake things up. To get to the top you have to question old ways of doing things. To get to the top you’ve got to give people something they’re not likely to forget.

This is it people.

Step 7: By Living for Life Not Just My Travel Blog

Hands up. How many of us have met with a famous travel blogging name in person only to be bored half silly with their incessant talk about “their blog” and “their travels”? Quite a few of you yeah?

It’s a sad truth. Many a blogger forgets the real world outside, the fact you have a beating pulse in your body and the story behind your years. Getting sucked in by the platform, the constant unfurling of their lives, they often forget to ask anything about you. Perhaps they don’t even care.

Well I will remember you my precious human. I will pull you in close, thrust you into my barrel-like chest and have you cry on my shoulder.

I will hear your woes, listen to your dreams and accept your advances.

We are the same you and I. Even if I do have one hideously big travel blog and you don’t.

Step 8: By Being Disgustingly Handsome

Travel the world and you’ll be destined to come face to face with some damn attractive people. And that’s always pretty nice right?

But what happens if you can’t travel the world? What happens if instead you have to put up with being stuck in your office cubicle, twiddling your thumbs and occasionally touching yourself?

Well, dear reader, fear not. I can offer you some much-needed recompense in that area.

All you need to do is follow along, take the occasional glance at my handsome visage, imagine yourself travelling there next to me then swiftly head to the bathroom to cool off.

It’s going to be one bumpy ride.

Will You Make Me As Big As I Want to Be?

Of course I can talk and talk but I’m not going to get there without you.

If I want to have the biggest travel blog in the universe I’m going to need some help.

That’s why I need you, oh so lovely reader, to tell the world about what you read here today.

So when you go home tonight don’t forget to pull your dear old girl up close to you and whisper my name during those inimitable first steps of foreplay.

Those golden four-syllables of WillPeach.com?

Probably the most sensual thing your bedmate will have heard yet…

 

Marina says: