Thank you Sous Etoiles and Tranquil Dreams for nominating Taking to the Open Road for the Versatile Blogger Award. I’m not sure if I’m truly deserving of this award, but am grateful for my nominations nonetheless.

Jade from Sous Etoiles is a “daydreaming, nocturnal semi-hipster with a dream to see the world.” She blogs about God, photography, music, current events, missions/humanitarian efforts, health, and other random musings. Kim of Tranquil Dreams on the other hand, writes about photography, baking, movies and often participates in weekly writing challenges. Please do check out their work!

The Versatile Blogger Award is a great way of sharing cool new blogs with readers, a kind of chainmail-(remember those?)-slash-meme. The rules are simple – provide a backlink to the blogger who nominated you, list seven facts about yourself and lastly, nominate a list of deserving bloggers. So here goes.

[one] I love writing and the written word, and the hundreds of books I have loved and lost through the years attest to that. I tend to collect favourite books and read them over and over – Tolkien’s LoTR, Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore and Dicken’s Tale of Two Cities are perennial favourites. My taste in books is diverse and eclectic.

[two] I speak three and a half languages: English, Cantonese, Malay and a little Spanish.

[three] My physical addresses have changed a lot over the years, but my e-mail has stayed the same since I was sixteen. It has been one of the only constant ways my friends and family use to get in touch with me.

[four] I hate airports, planes and flying. Unfortunately, I live on an island. A big island, but an island nonetheless, and cruising out from here to the rest of the world on a boat takes too much time, so flying it is. Blergh.

[five] Friends who know of my love for postcards never fail in sending me one from the far corners of the world – Malawi, China, India, South Africa – and my collection of posties are amongst my most treasured possessions.

[five] I never travel to a destination without booking accommodation in advance. I’m too OCD to fly by the seat of my pants when it comes to something like where I lay my precious little head for the night.

[six] Almost every detail of my life is recorded somewhere – in my daily organiser, in my travel diary, or on a blog. This is so I never forget. Anything.

[seven] My greatest fear in life is not living it to the fullest.

Whilst this is a travelblog, my own favourite versatile bloggers write about other topics that I am interested in, and I’d like to nominate them in turn:

From Russia with Love for Russian culture, history, lifestyle – a veritable gamut of subjects about the Motherland, including poetry and style. The author is funny, witty and full of life – a nineteen year old’s passion for writing and Russia shining through.

Campari and Sofa is a slick lifestyle blog from a pair of sophisticated world wanderers originally from Milan and Joburg. Campari and Sofa meanders through topics as diverse as love, life, loss, home decor, fashion, style, entertaining and health – a truly versatile blog.

Travel. Garden. Eat. is the home of Kat. B, who writes about traveling, gardening, epicurean delights and nature, though not necessarily in that order. The emphasis here is on things that are good for the soul – and her photos are pretty delicious too!

Happy trails.xx