What is the Traveler’s Show and Tell blog carnival?

What is the Traveler’s Show & Tell blog carnival?

The Traveler’s Show & Tell blog carnival is a roundup of interesting travel-themed articles and photo essays from all over the web that I host right here on Mental Mosaic: Even Home is a Travel Deestination every other Saturday. It’s a fun way to enjoy armchair traveling, while finding interesting blogs to follow. Plus, if you’re a blogger, participating in my carnival helps drive new readers to your blog, while giving your site a healthy inbound link. To view past issues, simply click on the “Traveler’s Show & Tell” link at the top of this page.

How to submit your post to Traveler’s Show & Tell

It’s easy to submit your article to the Traveler’s Show & Tell blog carnival using the handy-dandy blog carnival submission form. Please remember to include your Twitter name (even if you have submitted before). This way I can promote you on Twitter when the edition is published. (Also, if you follow me, I will follow you back.)

Writers Guidelines

Here’s a quick list of what I’m looking for:

A 400 word (or longer) piece about any aspect of travel.

Your submission must contain original writing and properly credited photographs. (I shouldn’t have to say this, but people have submitted plagiarized work before.)

Your website must allow comments and trackbacks, so that this can be a two-way conversation.

Your Twitter name, if you have an account. (This helps me promote you when the carnival is published.)

Please note: I reserve the right to edit the excerpts I use on this blog. (I would rather fix your typos than put add [sic], for instance.)

But I’m not a travel writer!

While I love getting contributions from travel bloggers, others are welcome, too. Even if your blog is not specifically a travel blog, you might have a post that fits in with the Traveler’s Show & Tell. Submissions about exotic places are great, but a photo essay about your hometown can be just as interesting as a piece about Timbuktu. Maybe your hometown is in Timbuktu!

What makes a travel piece interesting depends more on the mindset of the traveler than the actual place they describe. I have friends who can describe a trip to the grocery store in more fascinating detail than other folks could describe a trip to the moon. It’s all in the telling and/or showing, hence, the name Traveler’s Show & Tell.

What the heck is a blog carnival, anyway?

A blog carnival is similar to an online magazine. The carnival creator chooses which articles to include and which do not fit their theme. For instance, my carnival, Traveler’s Show & Tell, has a travel theme, so when I get submissions titled, “Hot celebrity gossip” I ignore them, unless, of course, it’s a first person account of someone crossing paths with a famous person while on vacation.

Other wonderful travel-themed blog carnivals

The Traveler’s Show & Tell is not the only travel-themed blog carnival out there. There are hundreds of blog carnivals on a wide variety of topics. In fact, at Halloween, I host a blog carnival called True Spooks which is specifically for ghost stories.  Check out the Blog Carnival website to find the right blog carnivals for your posts.

Here are a couple travel-themed carnivals I especially enjoy:

Andarin from Byteful Travel hosts the Byteful Travel Blog Carnival.

Sheila Scarborough from Sheila’s Guide to the Good Stuff hosts Carnival of Cities.