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And the award for best travel blog goes to …

January 25, 2008

Travel blogs are a lot like animated feature films before 2001, or for that matter, mathematics today. When it comes to the most prestigious awards, they get no respect.

That’s right, the Oscars didn’t have a category for “best animated feature film” until seven years ago, and there are still no Nobel prizes in mathematics.

The most high-profile of the blogging awards, the Bloggies — nominees were announced yesterday — don’t have a travel category (although they spend an awful lot of bandwidth on a clever but navel-gazing blog called Dooce). Neither do the other big-time blogging awards.

That needs to change.

There have been several notable efforts to correct that oversight. Perhaps the best known is Mark Ashley’s Travvies. (I’m told that a call for nominations for his second annual awards will go out in the next few days.) But there are obvious limits to an award sponsored by a single travel blogger.

A Web site called Performancing handed out a travel blogging award last year that appeared to be a knock-off of the Travvies (pretty much the same nominees and same winners). There’s also the Blogger’s Choice Awards, but it’s unclear where they got their list of contestants.

Another site, Travelnotes, sponsored a best travel blog award last year, but again, there are serious problems with a travel blog giving out awards for best travel blog.

What’s the solution? Well, I’ve approached several high-profile organizations who would be universally recognized as impartial outsiders to find out if they would be interested in sponsoring a travel blogging award. It would be great to have the Society of American Travel Writers, the Online News Association or a similar group on board for a travel blog competition.

I think having a credible award is important for the fledgling travel blogging movement. It would give travel bloggers something to aspire to and it can’t hurt our credibility.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

6 comments

  • mtp

    And the award for the best travel blog should go to YOU, Chris! That’s a no-brainer!

  • Christopher Elliott

    Awww, thanks.

    On second thought, I should have included this disclaimer in the post: I don’t participate in awards — don’t nominate myself and don’t encourage my readers to stuff ballot boxes when I am nominated for something. It’s just a thing I have about popularity contests.

    But I think there is value in a credible award. As I said, the travel blogging community needs something that people recognize and respect. I would support a credible award, although I would not trip over myself to be a nominee or a winner.

    What can I say? I just like being on the sidelines.

  • http://www.gadling.com Justin

    I agree completely. Unfortunately, most of the recent travel blog awards (Performancing, Travvies) come across as marketing efforts for the host, not a true effort to compile a good collection of travel blogs.

    The Webby Awards has a travel category, but it’s not exclusive to blogs. This means blogs like Gadling were in the running against sites like Kayak. How does that make sense?

  • http://www.kango.com/californial/long_beach Kango Suz

    hummm… seems to me though that even with the lack of fields truly great examples still find ways to get acknowledged. For example- Snow White won Best Picture before there was ever an animated category.

    Not that there shouldn’t be a travel category, but perhaps we need to tell more people about the awesomeness of this site?

  • http://www.t2impact.co Timothy

    Well actually there is something that I think works. Its the T-List.

    Why not ping Jens Thraenhart and see if there can be something that he can do to make a BEST of the T list.

    Cheers
    Timothy

  • http://www.hotelsuncity.co.in/ Donald

    While people may have different views still good things should always be appreciated. Yours is a nice blog. Liked it!!!

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