For most of my life, I felt like I didn’t belong. In elementary school, I was chubby, had crooked teeth and crossed eyes, and my mother, God bless her, permed my hair into a ridiculous frizzy mass. They called me four eyes and probably lots of other names I never knew about. In high school I was nearly two years younger than everyone else because I’d been moved ahead twice – being one of the “eggheads” certainly didn’t help my popularity. Throughout my adult life I had great business success, but never liked what I did for a living. Certainly, I had friends, but I always felt like there was a huge, gaping hole in my life. It wasn’t until I left the corporate life to pursue my true passions of world travel, writing, and photography that I found my true calling. I finally found my “tribe.”
About a year ago, that tribe grew exponentially when Lonely Planet invited me to join its Blogsherpa program, which imports content from member blogs to the Lonely Planet website. When visitors to the LP website search for information on a particular travel destination, they can now also read posts from Blogsherpa bloggers that refer to that destination. It was a great concept – tie a commercial site to people who are actually out there on the road, traveling the world.
Then something miraculous started to happen. Lonely Planet bloggers began to band together. A simple proposal to exchange links quickly evolved into plans to interview one another on our various blogs and publish a book about our collective world travel experiences. In the midst of all these wonderfully creative ideas, one Blogsherpa member created a special website – a Squidoo lens – where the content from all of our blogs is imported. Finally, I feel like I belong. I’ve found my tribe and I’m thrilled to be able to share it with all my readers.
Great post. Being a part of the LP bloggers community has been great. Didn’t know about the squidoo page, I’ll have to look at that.
When you were a kid I’m sure that you dreamed of being a sherpa!!! Hell, I didn’t even know what sherpa meant until a few years ago! 🙂 Glad to be in your company!
I’m still trying to get caught up with all of this – but at least the squidoo stuff now makes sense! Thanks for keeping me in the loop – looks like I better go join the ‘tribe’!
Very moving post. I know what you mean about feeling as if you don’t belong. I’ve been through periods like that in my life – but the internet has made them so much more bearable, being able to contact people more easily, and not to mention make new friends and enjoy wonderful adventures vicariously – especially yours!
Hey, you’ve always got other people who share your passions out there somewhere…just have to find them! Congrats!
Amazing! You and I must have been twins early on. Chubby, crooked teeth, glasses, smart — check, check, check, check. I even had to wear an eyepatch for a while. No wonder we’re friends. How wonderful we survived childhood.
Oh my gosh – I had the eye patch, too! How weird is that?
Great post Barbara. It’s always nice to find a place to “belong”
Hi Nancy: Yes, it really is. Never felt like this before and I really hope it stays this way.But, one day at a time, eh?
Congratulations. You seem to be going from strength to strength.
Hi Duchess! Long time no hear. Sorry I haven’t been by to read your blog lately, but this long term traveling with limited Internet access is challenging to say the least, especially when I am trying to meet all my writing commitments. Hope all is well with you and I’ll catch up when I get back to the States for 2 months in July.
Congraulations, Barbara. It sounds like Lonely Planet BlogSherpa program has really paid off for you in more ways than you could have imagined.
Nice post Barbara. It has been a fantastic chance to meet a whole new groups of travelers and bloggers, the combination of which equals some super friendly people.