The guts of what’s behind the MELBOURNE LOCAL BLOG
Why this Blog – Back in 2006 when my partner and I did our last long trip, we did several long weekend trips to Europe taking advantage of the two pound fares to cities like Paris, Prague and Sitges with some of the low cost airlines like Easy Jet. Wanting to make each trip economical, our research led us to staying in homestays. We discovered with this form of accommodation that you could position yourself within any part of your destination city, sampling the many cultural groups that was the eclectic mix of that city.
What your host provided as part of the accommodation and stay varied. But there was one thing that was constant, and you could engage with it as little or as much as you wanted – this was the inside tourist information and knowledge of the host on what each city had to offer, how to navigate it, and live and breathe in the city as only a locals does. Captured with this ‘know- how’ it made our experience in each city even more richer, providing us later with many a story that we still dine out on – priceless !!
Following our trip, our experience prompted us to offer homestay ourselves and then I developed extra pages to our homestay site, with tourist information for our guests.
So why am I doing this – A recent guest staying with us, on their departure sent us a link to their blog and the posts he’d done on Melbourne. I started reading and following the links, as you are want to do. When reading the blog I soon found myself as I am sure many the novice has, buried in the Codex and “the First Steps with Word Press“. I found myself sifting through the pages establishing how and what I had do – they had me hooked.
It wasn’t too long that I was thinking of the things that made up my town, Melbourne, and dreaming of the stories and yarns I would tell . My mind was racing of what I needed to do to organise a site. The planning seemed endless and at times I have wondered if I was ever going to get anything written. Already I have learnt that to write, it’ll take some structure at the keyboard. It is very easy to drift off thinking about the next post to write and researching on this wonderful internet, rather than using the time to develop and write the post that you are working on.
The plan is – to get some exercise through this process, whether it be a bike ride or walking, delving in to Melbourne’s neighbourhoods to unpick some of the weave of the city and draw out the threads. From a local’s perspective I want to share what makes up the fabric of my city – Melbourne, through my posts, embellished with some great photography.
Aimed at anybody who is inquisitive – there will be a focus on helping the Melbourne visitor and tourist, but hey there is nothing to stop a resident being a tourist and see another part of their own town. As ‘Melbourne Local’ grows the vision is that the basket will contain enough threads, sufficient for many short experiences and for the visitor to weave together their own Melbourne experience be it a couple of hours or days. I hope that you walk away warm from your experiences, becoming, Melbourne’s newest ambassador with your own yarns to share.
I’ll try – to keep it honest and keep it simple. Endeavouring to add posts twice a week in the initial stages, whilst getting the blog and the site established. As I become more skilled and not wanting to be over ambitious, this may become more frequent.
One last thing – if you are not sure where something is, what to do next or how to get to something – why not walk up and “Ask a Melbourne Local’.
