travelblog.org

Travel Blog is a unique free online travel diary for travelers across the world. Users can update their diary from internet cafes and computers world wide.

In 2002 the founder of travelblog Alistair Watters decided to chart his journey via a website. We managed to catch up with him to get an interview.

Your name: Alistair Watters

Position / title: Founder, administrator.

Company name: Travelblog.org

Website: www.travelblog.org

Your company / website vision statement / goal:

To provide the best travel community website, and be free to use and view.

What you sell / services you offer (brief description of your company):

We offer a collection of tools for travelers to use to build web pages, from internet cafes, Pocket PC's. The tools include blogging / journaling, comments, forum, subscribers and photos administration.

Have you always wanted to run your own business? What were some of your previous jobs / companies?

Yes - Previous freelance web design work -

www.londonofficejobs.co.uk
www.apsaradesigns.com

Before that: Employee: Lehman Brothers, Nortel Networks.

Have you got any qualifications? Please tell us about yourself academically?

1994 - 1997 - Degree Brunel University, London UK. Computer Science. 1^st class honors.

Specialized in Artificial Intelligence - but also produced my first web page. One course on eCommerce, internet and intranets was particularly inspirational - and very forward thinking.

How / when did the idea of your website / company come about?

I had always dreamed of traveling, seeing the world, but a combination of debt and commitments to education meant that I didn't have the opportunity.

I'd been working at some points freelance and at other points as a permanent employee producing management information systems, basically organizing information from many contributors or systems in a way that can be quickly accessed, summarized and understood.

That combined with the buzz in the media about the concept of blogging gave me the basic ideas. I would produce a community travel site and beta test it whilst traveling.

I finally became debt free in March 2002, after paying off the final loans from university. I coded like crazy to get the site working at a basic level and purchased a round the world ticket.

June 2002 - 2004 - Traveling learning that what works on a laptop doesn't necessarily equate to the best experience in an internet cafe, opened travelblog.org to the general public, the first few people to use the site were people I met on my travels.

Most of the code for the site, graphics, text and marketing has been produced on a 5 year old laptop (well past its best) that has bumped around in pickup trucks when hitching, carried around Tikal, Guatemala and circumnavigated the globe.

If you could give readers of this book one piece of advice what would it be?