Hiking In The King Arthur Mountains In Snowdonia, Wales
March 13, 2017
Castles, Sand Dunes And Epic Weather In Northern Wales
March 22, 2017
Yay, our very first Liebster Award! We’ve been nominated for this award by the travel blog Hawaiian Brian and so, get to answer a few of his questions as well as nominate our own favorite blogs for a Liebster. Let’s do this!
First, we’ll answer this one important question: “What is a Liebster award?”
The Liebster Award Rules
- Thank the person who nominated you and post a link to their site.
- Display an image of the award and write a post about your nomination on your blog.
- Answer the 10 questions your nominee has asked in their blog post.
- Nominate 5-10 other deserving new bloggers for the award and ask them 10 questions of your choice.
- List the rules of the award in your blog post.
Next up, answers to Brian’s questions:
Tell us about yourself! (a little background, your skills and interests, etc.)
Tiia’s background is firmly in the creative field: she’s got work experience and training in photography, graphic design, copywriting, marketing, arts, social media and all sorts of content production.
And to balance this artsy stuff out with some very useful practical skills, Satu’s worked in travel management and event organizing for more than a decade, so we actually make a pretty efficient duo!
Since we both love & adore many TV shows and movies, our interests align pretty perfectly: we like to go where the action is (or was during filming!), we love fandoms, geeky people and events, actors and everything that comes with it.
We’re both very much into nature / natural wonders and fun experiences (like ziplining, rollercoasters etc.), so it’s usually quite easy to find things that both of us want to see and experience.
Film tourists on slippery rocks at a Game Of Thrones filming location
How did you get started traveling? What inspired your wanderlust?
We’ve both always dreamed of visiting all sorts of places in the world. We became friends back in 2005 when we started going to the concerts of our favorite Finnish band (Poets of the Fall) together. Pretty soon, it wasn’t just the gigs in Finland – we ended up going to Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and many other countries just to enjoy the music.
Eventually, we ended up living in Wales as roommates and that’s what started the blog. It began as a Tumblr blog for all the TV shows we both loved, but soon grew into a full-blown travel blog thanks to our passion for discovering and visiting filming locations.
Fangirl Quest channeling their inner Jon Snows at Audley’s Castle
How many countries have you been to? How many continents?
We don’t actually have a very impressive number of different countries (yet!) like so many other travel bloggers do, since we’ve done most of our traveling as bloggers in the US, the UK and Europe so far. But it’s definitely above 20 for both of us if we take into account all the travels before the blog. Plus, we’ve both visited more than 30 states in the US! That’s what movie roadtripping does: it takes you to surprising places, not just New York City and Los Angeles :)
Continents? Sadly, just three so far for both. We need to fix that ASAP!
Our first big North America / Fangirl Quest roadtrip took place in 2014.
What is your favorite travel experience?
It has to be the big roadtrips: 12,500 kilometres (7700 miles) spread over six weeks in 2014 and almost 16,000 kilometres (10,000 miles) over 8 weeks in 2016. We both love traveling by car and we saw so much during these trips. But out of shorter trips and particular destinations we have to choose our Game of Thrones roadtrip to Northern Ireland and our very recent movie trip to Wales.
(Oh, can’t forget the Hannibal trip to Florence, Italy… Man, there’s just too many to choose from!)
Where is your favorite destination and why?
If we have to pick just one… We are big lovers of Vancouver, BC, Canada. For movie / TV / Scifi fans such as ourselves, it’s practically Mecca. It’s where they film our all time favorite TV show Supernatural (along with like 30 other productions) and not only that, it’s a very vibrant, friendly city to visit. Plus it’s surrounded by the stunning nature of British Columbia.
Vancouver Lookout offers magnificent views over the city and on a clear day you can see all the way to Burnaby!
When did you start writing about your travels?
We posted our first sceneframing photos in 2013 and it all started from there. But it took us quite a while to kind of get into proper blogging, so this website / main blog wasn’t actually launched until the autumn of 2014.
What is your favorite post that you’ve written?
Oh, no way! Picking one would feel like we appreciated that particular experience more than the rest. So we’ll just say there are many favorites among the Roadtrip 2016 category :)
Film tourists enduring the Iceland weather on the Black Sand Beach.
What are your upcoming plans for the blog?
To keep traveling, to keep learning! Over the years, we’ve grown from a simple movie location photo blog into something much bigger & much more interesting and we’re hoping to keep that trend going.
We’ve just returned from Wales, where we had a sort of epiphany while walking along a muddy footpath in the storm looking for a remote, beautiful beach. We realized that aside from writing about filming locations, we’re actually showing our readers that anyone can be an adventurer.
Just look at us: two city girls in sneakers and jeans/skirts watching blackbears in Yellowstone, hiking mountains in North Wales and stargazing under the majestic skies of Iceland… and it’s actually not that big of a deal.
Leaving your comfort zone, experience a real adventure and doing it all while staying safe and smart is relatively easy and safe. We’re hoping to encourage people to do more of it – not just pick the safe and familiar places, but to do something very random every now and then… just for the possibility of being surprised.
A black bear enjoying the scenery in Yellowstone National Park
Where are you traveling to next?
Quite randomly, we’re hoping the answer to be “Ireland” or maybe even “Nashville, Tennessee”, but sadly, we don’t have a confirmed trip to look forward to at the moment.
(No wait! We’re going to see Poets of the Fall in Tampere and Jämsä, Finland this weekend, so maybe that counts as a roadtrip!)
Yes, we want to go to Nashville to see some of our favourite country stars! Pictured here: Eric Paslay & his band.
Where is the best place you have ever eaten?
We’ve dined in some very fancy restaurants and had amazing foodie experiences here and there, but since the first thing that comes to mind for both of us is “Boston Pizza in Vancouver“, we’ll have to go with that. We were very hungry, they had the bestests pizzas and pastas just perfect for the roadtrip starvation and we’ll never, ever forget eating that fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth cheesecake while our favorite country tune was playing in the background. Mmm-mm.
Also, we have to put a good word in for McDonald’s. Our roadtrip days are often 16 hours long and there aren’t many other places in the world where you can eat as cheap, as late in the night and as quickly as at McD’s. It might not be the healthiest or the most respectable choice, but while on the road, it’s sometimes the greatest one.
Dunkin’ Donuts, Krispy Kreme, Orange Leaf’s divine froyo… I think it’s safe to say we’re quite the junk foodies!
A donut smile.
We nominate the following bloggers for the Liebster Award:
Bloggers/blogs listed in no particular order. All of these bloggers are hard-working, professional and in general, just really good, inspiring people to have in your blogger life! Most of them don’t write in English, but we hope we can connect some readers with their blogs anyway :)
Minna (Finnish) / aloneinthewild.net
Denise (Dutch) / inhetvliegtuig.nl
Eva (Spanish) / unaideaunviaje.com
Otto Izakaya (Finnish) / ottoizakaya.com
Milja Köpsi (Finnish) / (blog + a beautiful guide in Finnish to free attractions in Rome: opasroomaan.fi)
Nella (Finnish) / kaukokaipuumatkablogi.net
Veera Bianca (Finnish & English) / veerabianca.com
Arna & Arto (Finnish) / cocoaetsimassa.fi
Our questions for our Liebster Award nominees are:
- How did you end up becoming a travel blogger?
- The best part about blogging?
- The worst part about blogging?
- Your #1 handy travel tip?
- The most underrated destination you’ve been to (AKA surprisingly good)?
- Pick one travel photo with a good story and tell it!
- What’s the one advice you’d give to someone who’s considering starting a travel blog?
- Any scary moments you’ll never forget?
- A beautiful travel memory / moment you’ll always remember and want to share with us?
- Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
