In my series of interviews with travel blogger, I look for travel bloggers and influencers with interesting lives who can share some inspiring stories and useful advice from their experience. This week we have Bistra & Nace from The Magic of Traveling blog.
Table of Contents
An Interview With Bistra & Nace from The Magic of Traveling
Tell us a bit about yourself
We’re Bistra and Nace, a couple that travels the world on a mission to prove that humanity is alive and everywhere! We created The Magic of Traveling blog almost 8 years ago to inspire people to explore new destinations and adventures around the world and inside themselves. We’re always looking for authenticity by following the locals and by complementing our responsible travels with cultural and nature immersion. We are proud authors of two travel books – the first one is called “The Magic of Traveling: Follow the Locals” and it introduces impressive people from all over the world we’ve met in our travels. It transports the reader to 14 (un)usual places seen through the prism of locals’ life. It reveals their adventure and puts you in some comic and enlightening situations. Our second book, “The Magic of Traveling in Central America”, focuses on a very underappreciated region of the world and its amazing nature and warm-hearted people. It is yet to be published in English.
While we’re still figuring out the magical mix of traveling to exciting places, being digital entrepreneurs, working jobs that make the difference and volunteering to help the society, one thing is for sure – we dance at as many places as possible! We’re avid dancers and choreographers and show the magic of dance to as many people as possible. When we’re not dancing anywhere around the world, we dance and teach dance in our base town – Sofia, Bulgaria. As we represent an international marriage, we’re also in love with learning and speaking many languages. Our couple speaks a total of 8 languages. One of the things we’re most proud of is that we’ve volunteered in India, China, Belarus and have supported social entrepreneurs in several more countries. It’s so magical when you can feel the transformation when you travel and try to be of service to society and the environment.
What’s your biggest achievement as a Travel Blogger?
Having the opportunity to work with amazing business across the globe and in our home country – that’s something that would’ve probably never happened if we didn’t have our blog to back us up and demonstrate what we’re capable of.
You have an unlimited travel budget for 24 hours. Give me your itinerary.
Antarctica. As much as you can experience in 24 hours.
How do you fund your travel?
We fund our travels mostly on our own. We do work with tourism boards, destinations, and travel businesses. We’re monetizing our blog so that money goes to the travel fund, too.
What is the single most effective strategy that a blogger can use to bring traffic to a blog?
The single most effective strategy for bringing traffic is your SEO strategy. If you take the time to learn about SEO and apply the best practices, think SEO when creating your content, you’ll realize the massive effect. Up to 90% of our traffic comes from search engines.
What tools do you use to monetize your blog? Which works best for you?
We use affiliate marketing, ads, and sponsored content to monetize our blog. What works best is the affiliates. Once you have your readers’ trust, they’re happy to go to the places where you’ve been, stay at the same accommodations, experience the same tours, etc.
What is the first trip you remember taking and how old were you?
Our first trip together (about 10 years ago) was to celebrate New Year’s in Greece. It was one crazy Greek party – lots of music, dance, and ouzo. Sightseeing the next day was just a nightmare for us. Since then, we promised to visit Thasos island when in better shape, but we still haven’t.
Have you been anywhere which turned out to be totally different from how you imagined? If so, how?
We can give a positive example here. We expected that Oman will be flashy and fancy just as the neighboring UAE (especially Dubai). Oman turned out to be one of the least visited countries, wherever we went, we barely met other travelers. Oman is home to pristine if rough nature, breath-taking views, and very friendly locals. A true gem!
Have you had any bad experiences whilst travelling?
We’ve been robbed once (almost all the money we had planned for a 2-month journey in South America), pickpocketed (we lost a camera and half of our Israel photos this way). Unfortunately, we’ve experienced hospitals and healthcare in several countries. Bad experiences are just part of traveling, but they help you appreciated the good stuff.
Where is your favourite place in the world?
Wow, we have so many favorite places on Earth! If we have to choose just one, we choose New Zealand – for both traveling and living. We hope we’ll live there someday.
Do you have a bucket list? If so what is on it?
In the first years of our travels, we did keep a bucket list. However, with more and more travels, we realized that places and experiences find us at the right time, the right circumstances, so we don’t formally keep a bucket list anymore. Well, except for Antarctica, maybe.
If you were not travelling what would you be doing instead?
That’s a tough question! Some weeks ago (before the Covid-19 lockdown) we would’ve answered just nothing! Because we need to travel to exist! But now we’re adapting to the current situation and focus on writing, photo editing, connecting with our community online. Never say never!
What has travel taught you?
The biggest lesson taught to us by travel is that the sooner we realize we are one big world of different still beautiful souls, the better chance we have for survival and progress. The more we travel, the more we master how to appreciate what’s different and to learn from inspiring people that are working towards a change every day.
Who, in your opinion, is the most successful travel blogger? Why do you think that is?
We know and follow many travelers who blog. Most successful is a hard judgment, as everyone defines it differently. We like the couple behind Two Wandering Soles – they’re really focused on creating insightful and thorough content and even share their income reports to inspire aspiring bloggers.
