Who Is Linda Martin Of Indie Travel Podcast?
Always looking to provide travellers with top trending, influential information and allowing you to ‘stay connected’ before and while you travel Wise Traveller profiles up and coming travel blogger Linda Martin, who is behind the Indie Travel Podcast. Our profile series allows you to get to know the person behind some of the most popular and influential travel blogs.
About Linda
Linda Martin is a New Zealander and full-time traveller who has been travelling around the world with her husband Craig since February 2006. In late 2006 they started the Indie Travel Podcast to share tips and stories about independent travel; they also run a website development and hosting business, Performance Foundry. Geared at independent travellers, Indie Travel aims to help people experience a destination, or learn a skill for travel. This is mixed in with personal stories and examples. About half the articles/podcasts focus on a destination, and the other half are more general.
Let’s Get To Know Linda
We asked Linda a few questions about her life as a traveller.
What is your favourite destination and why?
We keep finding ourselves back in Spain, so it looks like that’s my favourite destination! I love the variety of cultures, the history, the delicious food, and the experience of walking ridiculously long distances across the country.
What was your worst/scariest travel moment/experience?
We were scammed in Romania — the moment we realised that we’d been tricked out of a couple of hundred dollars was worse than the time we were caught in an enormous earthquake in Chile a few years later.
What was is your most memorable, inspiring or life changing travel moment?
Oh, it’s so hard to limit it to just one moment! One of many awesome experiences was walking the Camino de Santiago across northern Spain and then doing other camino routes later on. The rhythm of life just changes when all you’ve got to do for five weeks is walk, sleep, and eat. It’s incredibly freeing!
If you could only give one single travel tip that you think would be the most helpful what would it be?
Pack light. You really, really, don’t need as much stuff as you think you need. Take a carry-on sized bag and no more.
What is your favourite travel related quote?
“To travel is to live” – Hans Christian Andersen.
Who are your three favourite travel bloggers and why?
It’s hard to limit it to three, since there are so many amazing bloggers out there, many of whom are personal friends, but three to spring to mind are:
- Chris Christensen, Amateur Traveler — such a great guy and a podcasting friend!
- Sherry Ott, Ottsworld — another awesome long-term blogger.
- Pete and Dalene Heck, Hecktic Travels — I love their writing style and openness.
What, if any, is the one thing you would never travel without?
Apart from the obvious (passport, phone, clean undies) I love my Kindle best. I need to be able to escape into a good book.
What was the single most influential moment that drove you to travel blogging?
Both Craig and I travelled a lot with our families as kids, so travel was pretty normal for us. We started blogging as a natural extension of the physical travel diary we’d kept before blogging became mainstream— so there wasn’t really a single moment when we decided to start blogging.
We started Indie Travel Podcast to help people to not make the same mistakes we kept making, and we chose podcasting as a format after a friend suggested it. It was 2006 and we’d never even heard of podcasting, but we thought it was worth a go! Twelve years later, we’re still going.
What advice you would give someone wanting to become a travel blogger?
If you want to make money travel blogging, start with a business plan. Think about who you are talking to, and plan your income streams. Use WordPress to build your site, and make sure your site is self-hosted from the start.
What do you do when you’re not travelling?
We’re always travelling! Even when we’re back home in New Zealand, we go on weekend trips to the Bay of Islands or to visit people around the country. We are thinking about staying in New Zealand for a longer period soon, so we can do some more hiking and spend more time with our friends and family.
Indie Travel Podcast Summary
Linda and Craig created the Indie Travel Podcast to share the lessons they learned on the road with fellow independent travellers. The site was recently the winner of the Lonely Planet Best Podcast award. Follow them on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
