Possible Changes to Travel Guy

Hey to all of my faithful readers... Anyone?... Tumbleweed? Well anyway, there might be some changes to the blog coming up soon. I'm looking to expand on the presentation and display of the blog, or in other words, make it prettier and with more buttons. Over the weekend I set up a Weebly site after seeing my friend Ricardo's great looking Web site with them. Weebly allows you to set up a free site and has many more options than Blogspot.

This "new" Web site is totally under construction and has nothing on it yet, save the title Travel Guy and a picture. I thought I would be able to transfer this blog easily to the Weebly site, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to do that. I changed my web domain to redirect from this blog to that new site, so if you type in www.jon-brandt.com now, you will be redirected to that page. Don't be confused--this is still the Travel Guy Web site. In the meantime, just follow this same page and avoid www.jon-brandt.com.

I still want to improve this site and add more features to make it more enjoyable for everyone. I have a little experience with WordPress and know that it has many more options than Blogspot. I have also read that while it's pretty complicated, you can migrate all of your files from Blogger to WordPress without losing past posts. So in the next few days I'm going to be researching this more and trying to figure out if I can do it without cracking my brain. After all, I'm not a Web designer. If anyone out there has any knowledge of how to do this, I'm all ears. Til then, stay tuned for any updates.

Malawi Blog: Read This

My good friend Ricardo Hernandez has been volunteering in Malawi, Africa for the last month. He's been keeping a blog about his experience teaching children, many of whom have HIV. His blog is an amazing insight into a country that I've never learned much about, and it really gives me respect to see my friend back on the volunteering circuit again.

Ricardo and I met in our volunteer program in Ecuador, and the kid instantly became a great friend. I hope he continues to have success in Africa, so give him a little support by reading along with his adventure.

La Vida Idealist Is Looking for New Writers

As I’ve written about before on this blog, I’m also a blogger with La Vida Idealist, which is a Latin American based blog on volunteer opportunities from Idealist.org. The topic that I focus my posts on are life after volunteering and trying to find new employment opportunities/move on after long term volunteering, etc.

Well, at some point I’m going to have to pass the reigns off to someone else, and that time is nearly upon us. Today our editor, Celeste Hamilton, sent out an email saying that the blog has reached over 10,000 page views, and they are looking to expand its content. There are a handful of writers involved in it currently, representing different countries in Latin America, as well as different view points. We are now looking to expand to more countries and writers.

You can find information on the Idealist Web site, and see how you can apply to be a writer for La Vida Idealist. The main requirements are that you can post once a week or so and be involved in volunteering or non-profit work in Latin America in some way. Check out the blog for ideas on what kinds of stories are covered and the style that is preferred. Good luck.