Each week we will be featuring an interview with a member of the Superstar Blogging community. These interviews will highlight the ups and downs faced on the road to success, illuminating helpful tips and tricks along the way. If you want to get inspired and succeed in the world of travel blogging, video, writing, or photography then consider these interviews must-read material! This week we are interviewing Scott and Megan, members of the Business of Blogging and Photography courses. They blog at boboandchichi.com
If YOU ant to be featured in our interview series be sure to email our Community Manager Christopher, at christopher@nomadicmatt.com.
Tell us about yourself!
We are Scott and Megan, newlyweds from the US who have been traveling together for the past three years.
Scott: I originally went to school to be a news anchor, studying broadcast journalism and even interning at NBC LA. I was the kind of person who believed you should work hard, buy a house, have a family, retire, and then maybe, just maybe it would be time to travel. I honestly thought travelling was such a waste of money and opportunity but my girlfriend at the time convinced me to do a big trip before starting a serious full-time job. So, we took a six-month trip. Immediately I fell in love with it and she hated it. We went our separate ways as soon as we landed and I kept scheming on how I could do more of it.
Megan: Growing up on a farm in rural Ohio I always found myself with an itch to see the world. During my third year studying Fashion Merchandising and Marketing at Kent State University I got the opportunity to study a semester abroad in Florence, Italy. After graduating I moved to California where I instantly found a job, during a time when it was really hard to pull a full-time job in your desired field. I quickly fell into trying to climb the corporate ladder and barely getting a week of vacation per year to visit my family in Ohio. After realizing this was an unfulfilling life I had to find a way to travel, luckily around the same time I met Scott who also wanted to travel the world!
Today we are currently traveling after saving up money from teaching English in South Korea for two years. You can find Scott behind his camera, flying our drone, editing, or learning more about photography on a daily basis. Megan is the planner, manages the day to day tasks that keep our blog running, the model in our two person crew, and is constantly keeping an eye out for new inspiration.
What inspired your wanderlust?
Scott: I got into traveling thanks to my ex. Like I mentioned before, she convinced me to do it…so something good came out of that! What really got it going was riding motorbikes in different countries. Having never ridden a motorbike or motorcycle before there was something that was so immediately liberating and freeing about being on a motorbike with few possessions and just riding. Then when I would meet people who had been traveling for awhile, or were able to earn U.S. dollars but live abroad I realized that was going to make me much happier than sitting and doing the typical 9-5 in an office.
After meeting people living a lifestyle like that I just felt like maybe I could do that as well. Of course I feel like my old habits of work hard and save money are a bit harder to kill and that is why the path we took was more like ok lets go to Korea and save as much as we can. Spend 50% on travel and 50% for our future retirement.
Megan: Growing up I worked on our family farm with my parents; some of the hardest working people I know. They had to work 365 days of the year to keep our farm running. Taking a vacation was almost impossible since it’s not easy to find a babysitter for 700 acres of land and hundreds of cattle.
As a teenager I would watch the travel channel and dream about eating strange new foods, witnessing giant waterfalls, climbing gorgeous mountains, and relaxing on a beach you’d see as a screensaver on someone’s computer. My dream was to get a job in fashion and travel the world.
After graduating college, I got the ultimate job but not the ability to travel. That’s when I made the biggest decision of my life and quit my job to fulfill those childhood dreams of travel.
What are some of your favorite places you’ve been to?
Scott: It is really tough to choose a favorite. I mean I really love India, Japan, and Borneo all for different reasons and could rant about them forever.
For highlights it’s a bit easier.
That includes running a half-marathon through Angkor Wat. This is something we will always remember because not only was it challenging and unique but we booked a relatively expensive room for that night. Our plans to run the half marathon, eat some happy pizza, have some coconuts poolside, and relax after the big race. Those plans completely backfired after we immediately passed out from the happy pizza at 11:00am and woke up at 2am starving with the worst headache ever. Total fail, but a hilarious lesson.
Another would be arriving at McLeod Ganj in India, and realizing His Holiness the Dalai Lama had arrived that day as well to do a 3-day speech. It was an amazingly lucky and surreal experience getting to listen to him talk and share his wisdom in person.
Finally, taking a trip to Hawaii to propose to Megan on the Lanikai Pillboxes will be another memory for the books.
Megan: Italy will always be my favorite country but close runner ups would have to be Japan and Borneo as well.
One of my favorite experiences to date, especially as an animal lover, has to be spotting wild orangutans and other monkeys from our wooden river boat we lived on for 4 days while floating down the river of Kalimantan, the Indonesian side of Borneo.
Another favorite memory would be when we showed up to the tiny island of Koh Ta Kiev off the coast of Cambodia for a few nights and ended up living and working on the island for nearly two months making some of the most wonderful friends from all over the world.
How long have you been blogging/taking photos?
Scott: I’ve been blogging part-time for about seven years now. First had a blog about jailbreaking and unlocking iPhones. (WTH am I doing in travel, right?) When unlocking became legal it really hurt and I kind of lost interest in blogging for a few years until we started to travel.
Our blogging now is still part-time but this year our goal is to transition into full-time. 2017 will be our third year of blogging as a hobby. We are starting to take it more seriously and are looking into monetizing methods and support from the Superstar Blogging course.
I randomly got started in photography about three years ago during our first year in Korea. Towards the end of the year living there I really just wanted to take one really good photo and hang it up whenever we did buy a home as a reminder of how our journey together started. Then one day I saw this cool hyper-lapse video and was like wait. I want to try that. I spent the next three months learning hyper-lapse and that was a huge part of learning about photography.
This was the very first hyper-lapse video I made in Seoul.
Megan: I didn’t really even know what a blog was until I started dating Scott. I was too busy wrapped up in my career to really pursue hobbies.
Once we moved to Korea, over three years ago, we started talking about starting a blog. So instead of talking about it forever we took action and created Bobo & Chichi a little over two and a half years ago.
What camera/video gear do you use?
Oh man, we are starting to get too much to carry all the time!
Camera/Video: We have a Canon 60D, Phantom 4, GoPro, Osmo, and an iPhone.
For the Canon 60D I have a 10-24mm Tamron and a 16-300mm lens. We also have a ND 10 filter, an infra-red filter, a tripod for time-lapse shots and lots of SD cards.
For zooming in my time-lapse and hyper-lapse shots I really love having the reach of my 16-300mm lens. If I were to recommend to anyone just starting out in photography it would be to get that lens because it’s relatively inexpensive, pretty light, and incredibly versatile. My next tip would be to keep note of what focal length you shoot at most over the course of your travels and consider getting yourself a prime lens of that focal length.
What struggles have you had during your blogging and photography careers? How have you overcome them?
Blog: For us, we constantly feel like there are a million things we could be doing better and that we are so far behind on everything. We are constantly learning new ways to improve our site, grow our audience, make better content, and improve our SEO, etc. It can be overwhelming and sometimes make you freeze and do nothing rather than try to move forward. For us, we have start to overcome this by reminding ourselves this is something we are passionate about and as long as we continue to learn we will be able to improve over time. Nothing happens overnight!
Photography: Learning how to use the camera was the biggest freaking hurdle. I forced myself to only shoot in full manual for a month. That was insanely difficult. There were lots of times I wanted to give up but it was so worth it because after awhile I understood how to use my camera and that made the biggest difference going forward.
I highly recommend to anyone starting out with photography to shoot in full manual. Know this, you almost won’t ever shoot in full manual. But if you can figure out how to do it, you will be so much faster and so much happier in the long-run.
What is one thing you wish you knew before you started blogging?
What the heck we were doing! We wish we had some experience with either social media, other than personal use, or more about running a website before starting our blog.
What do you enjoy the most about blogging/photography?
They both constantly motivate us to do something new. We love constantly learning new things. For the blog, we can always improve our skills and ourselves for the better. For photography, there are always new techniques to learn and room for improvement. It’s become our passion and as long as we are constantly pushing ourselves to learn something new and setting goals we will feel successful.
Can you share some of your favorite photos and tell us a bit about them?
- Shibuya Crossing
After years of dreaming and wanting to go to Japan we finally made it. We’ve both been huge fans of Japan but had never gone and it was just absolutely surreal to finally be in Japan and at Shibuya crossing. I have always seen photos of it and wanted to get this for years.
- Posing in the Rain – Besakih Temple, Bali
We went with our friends to Besakih Temple and it started pouring down rain. We thought we could wait it out but it was a good hour of solid rain. We were separated from our friends and just cracking up at the irony. Megan suggested we took some fun rain photos and this was the result. One of our favorite and memorable photos of the year.
- Drone shot in Cebu
We were in the Philippines and that place is just screaming drones. So we were both high on drone fever and brought ours on the boat ride to Cebu. This was on a bridge to a tiny island with a restaurant and it just screamed take a fun drone shot.
In addition to this course, what other resources do you rely on for help/information?
Blogging: Facebook groups! There are so many wonderful groups out there with others who are having the same struggles as you or are there just to support you through small victories or big wins. Having a network of people you can ask questions to or share small successes with is a really nice way to make friends and learn. One of my favorites is called We Travel We Blog.
Photography: For photography there is a plethora of resources I use. Google and Flicker for when we are going somewhere new and I want to get inspiration. Digital Photography School and Lynda were great resources when I was just learning about the fundamentals of photography. My favorite app for photography is PhotoPills which is great for planning shots and knowing where the sun, moon, and stars will be.
Why do you keep blogging?
We are keeping our memories forever by documenting them and sharing them with other people. Not only will we be able to look back at the adventures but also we want to inspire others to step out of their comfort zone and experience new places.
What apps do you use that make your blogging/photography easier when traveling?
Photopills for planning photos. Grammarly is a web app that helps with writing.
What is one thing you can’t travel without?
Scott: My camera.
Megan: Audiobooks! A good audiobook makes the longest trip feel like a breeze and without motion sickness!
Where do you plan on traveling to in 2017?
Some of 2017 is TBD and still in the works! But right now we are looking to visit Nepal, Jerusalem for TBEX, Philippines, and making our way to Central and South America to end the year!
What are your blogging goals for the new year?
Haha, where do we start? To finally define who we are and where we want to be.
I think like most people we want to be better storytellers and content creators. Our goal would be to figure out how to monetize our blog and market our unique hyper-lapse photography skills to tourism boards, airlines, and hotels. Our goal is to figure out how to make $6,000 a month. $3k for travel and $3k for our retirement and savings. We will be reading, re-reading, and trying to implement the strategies in the course as well as The Hundred Dollar Start Up and few others to help us achieve these goals. But most importantly our goal is to continue to be able to travel mindfully and enjoy the journey on that path.
What one piece of advice you’d give to a fellow blogger/photographer?
Set goals for what you want to accomplish and work backward to achieve each goal and start taking action THAT DAY!
Tell us about your blog and where we can find you on social media.
Our blog is boboandchichi.com. We share our travels through stories, photos, and hyperlapse photography. We also share travel tips for destinations and what life is like as an expat. You can find more of Scott’s unique style of photography and how to do it on his website, hyperlapsephotography.com. We’re also on Facebook and Instagram.