June 20, 2015 | talktraveltome | Leave a comment Happy days, happy days! We’ve been nominated for the Liebster Award! We’ve currently been traveling and blogging for a little over 5 months, so you bet your bottom dollar we were really excited to see that Surviving Europe nominated us. Being another two alumni from the University of Delaware… I think it is safe to say the UDel is taking over the world, one travel blog at a time! So what exactly is the Liebster Award? The Liebster Award is given to bloggers by fellow bloggers who are just starting out in this exciting and life-changing world of travel blogging. The idea is to connect bloggers together and encourage everyone to share what gives them that wanderlust bug! What to do once you’ve been nominated: 1. Answer 11 questions from Surviving Europe 2. Give 11 random facts about ourselves 3. Nominate 4 other awesome travel blogs, and become the Question Master by giving them 11 questions to answer Our 11 Questions from “Surviving Europe”: (let the games begin!) 1. What inspired you to pursue a life of travel & adventure? For Justine, this question can be answered in two words: Anthony Bourdain. She spent countless hours watching the travel channel growing up, and that lead to her developing the travel bug at a young age. For me, it was my family. Most of my immediate family has done a lot of traveling throughout their lives, and growing up around that has definitely inspired me to travel myself. 2. How do you create a work-life balance in your lives as travel bloggers? When we first decided to start a travel blog we didn’t realize just how large of a time commitment it really took to create and maintain a blog. Goodbye 9-5 and hello 24/7! Luckily for us, our “work” days now include being able to see and do amazing things around the world. We typically try to set aside some time every morning and/or evening to create new content, update our social media pages, plan for upcoming trips, and of course, answer these 11 questions! 3. If money was no object, where would you go and how long would you stay there? If we ended up like Jay-Z and Beyonce, and money was no object, we wouldn’t be able to pick one particular place to visit. We’d travel as far and wide as possible to see as much of the world as we could (obviously on our private jet). But if we had to pick just one place to visit, we’d head back to New Zealand and spend at least 6 months there. We spent 6 weeks in New Zealand earlier this year, but left a lot of things undone and can’t wait to go back one day (hopefully with a bigger budget). 4. Where is your “happy place”? Tropical beach? Snow-capped mountains? Bustling city? Our happy place is when we’re in the middle of no where surrounded by nature. There’s no better feeling than looking around and seeing nothing but natural beauty. This is a large part of why we want to go back to New Zealand. There are so many different landscapes and so many Great Walks that we still want to explore. 5. When you’re in a travel “rut” and feeling homesick, what do you do to snap out of it? Luckily for us, we’ve grown up in an age where it is very easy to stay connected with family and friends. Because of that, we don’t get homesick very often, but when we do we usually just hop on Skype and give them a call! 6. Tell us about the best trip you’ve ever taken! We’re currently in the middle of the best trip we’ve ever taken! We left home in January of this year and have been on a round-the-world adventure ever since. We’ve already visited Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Bali and Singapore, and still plan on seeing Thailand, China, Cyprus, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Germany, Prague, and hopefully more! Taking this trip has been the best decision we’ve ever made. 7. Are you an adventurous eater when you’re traveling? What is the craziest thing you’ve ever tried? We like to think we’re pretty adventurous eaters when we travel and have never shied away from tasting the local cuisine. So far we haven’t been given anything too challenging, but the strangest foods we’ve eaten are probably kangaroo, chicken heads/feet and fried rice patty snakes. Yum, yum, yum! 8. What is the #1 thing you want to check off the bucket list? It’s very hard to say which is our number one, but we can definitely give you our top 3. In no particular order, we want to visit the Pyramids of Giza, explore the ancient Mayan and Inca temples in Central and South America, and go cage diving with some great white sharks (Nick) or go running with the bulls in Spain (Justine)! 9. Was there someone you met during your travels that really inspired you? Tell us all about him/her! While we have been volunteering in Bali at Bumi Sehat we’ve had the privilege of meeting Robin Lim. She is the 2011 CNN Hero of the year and truly an incredible and inspiring person. When she’s not saving lives and delivering babies in Bali, she’s off saving lives and helping others around the world. Not long after we arrived in Bali, the devastating earthquake struck Nepal. Nearly immediately, Robin stopped everything she was doing and rushed to Nepal to help those in need. Robin and the Bumi Sehat Foundation have changed so many lives and are doing amazing things. If you’d like to learn more about what Robin and Bumi are doing, or if you’d like to donate and help their cause, you can at www.bumisehatfoundation.org 10. Where is the weirdest place you’ve ever slept? The weirdest place we’ve ever slept is in our tent at The Milford Sound in New Zealand. We say this is the weirdest place we’ve ever slept because we’ve never seen anything like it. It’s the most naturally beautiful place we’ve ever been to and literally feels like your on another planet. 11. Is there anything you’ve learned so far in your blogging experience that you want to pass on to those just starting? Travel blogging is hard work, especially when you’re just starting out! From those looking at our blog from the outside it may look easy, but we are constantly working on it 11 Really Rad Random Facts about us! 1. We’ve been dating for 8 years, since senior year of high school. Proof – Picture from Senior Prom! 2. Our middle names are Athena and Photis, so we are basically Greek Gods. 3. Our go-to breakfast meal is three bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches, and we always split the third because life is too short to only have one BEC. 4. We love all things New Jersey… summers down the shore, not pumping our own gas, the delectable food, and of course the Boss. 5. We’ve currently visited 14 countries together and plan on adding a lot more! 6. We frequently listen to Taylor Swift while road tripping around the world because she is the song bird of our generation. 7. We’ve climbed three volcanoes across three continents… luckily none have erupted. 8. Guardians of the Galaxy is our go-to movie while traveling and have watched it 20+ times. Thank you Chris Pratt for combining acton, comedy and a 70’s sound track so perfectly. 9. During our travels we’ve slept in a ton of different places including: cars, airports, tents and the occasional 16 bed hostel. 10. While in Bali we somehow ended up in a very small, very hot sauna with 15 strangers. 11. We’ve had many encounters with chickens along our travels, and we definitely want a few… Fresh eggs every morning! Whose up next! Here are our nominees for the Liebster Award: 1. Laura & Will from Bottled Air 2. Chris & Virginie from Farm Boy and City Girl 3. Brad & Leslie from Two Sided Travels 4. Drew & Julie from Drive on the Left Our questions for our nominees! 1. If you could move longterm to one place, where would it be and why? 2. What is your go-to travel gadget or travel app? 3. Strict schedule or go with the flow? 4. What is the best street food you’ve had so far? 5. What is the most challenging thing you’ve done while traveling? 6. Favorite pizza topping? 7. How many countries have you visited so far? Which one’s are you dying to go back to? 8. What advice would you give to other people traveling? 9. If you could travel with one famous person, who would it be and why? 10. What blogger, other than the two of us 🙂 , should everyone be reading? 11. If you were to make a movie of your life, who would play you and why?