My 7 links: The pick of the litter
Until last night, I didn’t know I was going to write this post. I wasn’t aware that Tripbase, a traveler’s resource site, had started a — well, a movement, really — called “My 7 links,” designed to get travel bloggers to highlight their best posts and their most interesting colleagues. I certainly had no idea that lovely Chris Faust, who writes a really outstanding travel blog called Chris Around the World, would nominate me to participate (here is her “My 7 links” post).
What a fun way to spend the evening, though — looking back through the posts on Dog Jaunt, and really thinking about which posts have worked, or sort-of worked, or, alas, didn’t work. How fun, too, to think about the travel bloggers I know, and to choose five of them to ask for their thoughts on their writing (my five picks are at the end of this post!).
Thanks so much, Chris, and here are my seven links.
1. My most beautiful post
Here’s the problem: I don’t actually write “beautiful” posts — I’m a how-to blogger, and my best posts are likely to be described instead as “thorough,” “well-researched” or “useful.” I also take terrible pictures — I use my phone camera, generally, and Chloe’s made a habit of tugging on the leash just when I click the button — so I can’t even give you a picture of a Big Sur sunset.
For me, then, my most beautiful post is a report from our first trip with Chloe to Paris, last September, because it describes an ambitious trip (for a traveling dog owner) that worked perfectly. Having Chloe with us added a remarkable new dimension to our enjoyment of a favorite city, and I hope the post, and the others from that trip, encourage other people to make similar plans.
2. My most popular post
Oh, this one’s easy. My collection of actual measurements of airplane under-seat spaces is crucially important for people planning to travel with an in-cabin dog, but I suspect that a substantial number of the people who find the page aren’t dog owners at all. How surprised they must be to end up at Dog Jaunt!
3. My most controversial post
I wrote a post last June about Chloe’s “stealth bag,” and my thoughts on when I will, and will not, choose to sneak Chloe into a place where she’s not allowed. It generated a lot of comments, and rightly so — I’m certain, of course, that the lines I draw are sensible and appropriate, but so is a person whose behavior I deplore. I think it’s helpful to have the discussion every so often, so that the arguments from all directions can be aired.
4. My most helpful post
It has to be the post I wrote about choosing a microchip for your dog. You cannot — you simply cannot — imagine how Byzantine the story of microchipping is, and how tricky it is to understand the differences between the available chips, and decide which makes the most sense for a traveling dog. I think this post does a good job of sorting through the issues — “I tore my hair out, so you don’t have to,” is Dog Jaunt’s motto.
5. A post whose success surprised me
I cannot account for the crazy success of a recent post reviewing the new Timbuk2 “Muttmover” dog backpack. My best guess is that a corporate directive went out, requiring every employee of Timbuk2, plus all their relatives, to Stumble it. Either that, or people were enchanted by the Pre-Raphaelite beauty of Chloe’s ears.
6. A post I feel didn’t get the attention it deserved
I was reading through a week’s crop of dog travel links about a year ago, and came across an article by a guy who questioned why anyone would bring their dog to Oaxaca with them. It struck a nerve, and I wrote what was, for me, an impassioned response. Some good friends commented on it, at the time, but it soon disappeared from view, and I’m not sure why.
7. The post I’m most proud of
Last year, a reader wrote and asked how her car-less aunt might travel up the East Coast with a dog, and it prompted me to pull together a bunch of work I’d done about taking a small dog on various East Coast transit systems and see if they could be linked up to create a workable journey between Washington, D.C. and NYC using just public transit. It turns out that you can’t…quite…do it, because SEPTA and MTA Maryland don’t overlap. I love transit maps, and logistics, and it was a joy to dig into the various systems involved and see how they could work together. Remember? “I tear my hair out, so you don’t have to.”
Here are five travel bloggers that I’d love to see a “My 7 links” post from: