Blog Name & Start Date: Jordan Campbell launched Global Debauchery in November 16, 2015.
Bio: I am on a mission to complete the 40×40 Challenge, 40 countries by age 40. Sadly… I am a part-time. I love traveling, but I also love coming home to my two rescue kitties, Esmeralda and Ophelia, every now and then. As a day job, I’m a Web and graphic design director. It’s fun, but intense. It allows me to go big (and then go home) on my travels. It also helps me with my blogging craft. I consider myself a travel blogger right now. I enjoy travel photography, but as a professional designer, I actually spend more time Photoshopping my shots after the fact than taking the perfect photo the first time around. And maybe if my blog is really successful one day, I’ll be both a travel blogger and a travel writer.
The Global debauchery blog (the original) was actually started several years ago, but it only lasted three months and fizzled out. There were only like three articles. A few years wiser, I brought it back with a new design, new content, and renewed ambition. I’ve been pretty relentless with it since its launch in November. The #AdventurePartnerForLife and I always plan our own trips. I love, love, love planning itineraries. Helps me pass the time between trips. We also like to do our own thing on our own time.
Where do you call home? I grew up a military brat and lived all over. I was born and raised abroad and came to the United States for good when I was 15. Moved a couple of times since then, and now I live in the DC Metro area with the #AdventurePartnerForLife.
Countries visited: 37. Hopefully, seven more by the end of this year!
Continents visited: 4. I don’t know if you’d consider New Zealand and Fiji continents, but it’s at least Oceania. Other than that, North America, South America, and Europe. I hope to check Asia off the list in August.
Top 5 destinations on my travel to do list: Chile, Antarctica, Nepal, Azores, Namibia
Earliest travel memory: During one of our military moves from Colorado to Belgium, I remember road-tripping cross-country to New York in our tiny Toyota Celica. My parents sat up front and I sat squished in back with the dog and cat kennels next to me.
Favorite Travel Writer: Ooh. This is a tough one. I imagine most people might select journalist types, but I really like Jon Krakauer and Cheryl Strayed. (Is Jon Krakauer too obvious?)
Favorite Travel Blogger: I really enjoy Aileen Adalid’s blog IAmAileen.com. It’s just gorgeous and so successful. I also really like Shane from SeaSaltSecrets.com. She’s been so supportive and collaborative to a new blogger like myself. I’ve worked with her a couple times and it’s been such a pleasure.
Favorite Travel Photographer: I’m not sure that I’m all that familiar with photographers in general, but I do enjoy Dan James’ travel photography on DanFlyingSolo.com I actually just wrote an article about some of my recent favorite bloggers.
Favorite Travel Blogs & Websites: Ha. See above. I love Rough Guides’ galleries and, of course, Lonely Planet is, well… Lonely Planet, the all-knowing travel oracle. And how can you live without Trip Advisor and TravelZoo?
The trip that turned me from a vacationer to a traveler: I pretty much grew up traveling. I literally moved from England to Virginia when I was two months old. We moved every three years, if not sooner. Vacations were weekends in other countries or entire cross-country road trips for me. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have grown up this way and I enjoyed it immensely. I’m absolutely certain that this fed my insatiable wanderlust appetite as an adult. Despite the fact that I’m all grown up and own a home now, I still have the “moving itch” every three years. My husband will attest to this (though he is also a career military brat.)
The trip that turned me into a travel blogger/photographer: I think it started shortly after Iceland. I just loved it there and it’s the one place I can say for certain I would like to go back to. (You know how going back somewhere means forgoing somewhere new? Yeah…) After that, I started recording my adventures in an app every night before heading to bed on my vacations. I shared my entries on social media and folks really seemed to respond well to them. After that, a blog was born.
My first steps to become a travel blogger/photographer: Well, it’s true. I wrote a couple entries on a completely different Global Debauchery blog several years ago and, I have no sound rationale why I stopped writing for it, other than to say I sometimes have a short attention span. Also, work was crazy at the time and I was crawling up the corporate ladder. After a lot of investment in my career and feeling like I still couldn’t get enough travel in my life and was working way too much, etc. I started blogging again (for real this time). It makes me feel inspired and fulfilled and it helps me separate the grind and what I really love to do. Anyhow, I redesigned it and wrote a ton of new content. I created rotating articles and continue to incorporate more and more reader feedback to make it better. I moved into social with it and have been working on those numbers. Some blogging groups, collaborations, directories… I’d like to think that Global Debauchery will be truly successful one day, but there are a lot of great blogs out there and it really is a full-time job. If nothing else, I’m really happy with what it is right now. And it makes me happy.
The social media platform driving the most traffic to my site is: StumbleUpon! My top tip to use StumbleUpon is Word of mouth. I drummed up a lot of excitement and really built my blog up before its launch, both personally and at work. I think I actually got over 100 subscribers on my first day! Maybe it was the first week… but it was still a lot. And these folks are probably my most engaged readers.
My favorite tool/app for social media: So far, I’m still doing everything for free (except my domain). WordPress, hel-lo! It’s the very foundation of my blog and it’s easy to network with other WordPress bloggers. But I also find CrowdFire to be helpful. It let’s me keep track of my social following and automate messages.
My favorite WordPress plugin: I’m still on a .com! Lol. I told myself if Global Debauchery gained traction, I’d do a redesign myself and .org it at that time. I design all day every day as is, so it would be a big time investment in my off-time and it’s hard enough to keep up as is right now! I’m kind of a perfectionist and designers are always their own worst critics, so… that could be a painful (but awesome and rewarding!) experience for me.
Favorite Travel Blogger Facebook Group: Oh, there’s a few that I’m in. I like Drifters Unite, because they have a lot of social networking opportunities and collaborations.
If only I had the time, I’d…… : Well, probably get involved with some organizations! I’d also actually love to do a redesign of my blog so it’s 100% my design and aaallllll Global Debauchery. An entire brand.
My top tip for aspiring travel writers and bloggers! A blog template that makes photography its main feature begins to get a little bogged down on load time when you’re optimizing for retina displays! Argh.
My best travel tip for travelers: Someone I just interviewed for my blog said it best—keep an open mind and expect the unexpected. The most beautiful memories and some of the greatest people you’ll meet in your life are right around the corner in some new place you haven’t been before!
Connect with Jordan Campbell
Website: http://globaldebauchery.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GlobalDebauch
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GlobalDebauchery/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/globaldebauchery/
Jordan Campbell’s article A Perfect Day in Brasov, Romania was just featured on 52PerfectDays. Please check it out here: http://52perfectdays.com/articles/perfect-day-brasov-romania/
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So inspiring! Best of luck with your 40×40, Jordan.
Yes, go for it. See and experience all you can.