Thank you to Ashley Dow for sharing her blogging views with our readers. Ashley is the founder of the successful travel and lifestyle blog Destination Delicious.
What is your blog about?
Destination Delicious is a travel and lifestyle website designed to inspire people to live life more deliciously. From amazing destinations, to scrumptious recipes to lust-worthy fashion, beauty and interiors, we share our top picks from around the world to help people to discover new favourites.
What inspired you to start your blog?
I’ve always been passionate about travel and love nothing more than discovering new places, indulging in exciting new foods and bringing back little finds from my travels.
Having trained as a journalist and working in PR for the past 10 years, I spend a considerable amount of time writing for other people, but I always wanted to create something of my own, so the blog made perfect sense.
When did you start your blog?
I launched the blog in October 2014 and it’s been going strong ever since.
How do you motivate yourself to keep the blog up and running?
My passion for the blog grows every day. I love meeting new people and hearing from different brands, PRs and entrepreneurs about the exciting projects they are working on or any new products or ventures they have launched. Social media has also been instrumental in discovering new things and helping me to keep informed on the latest trends.
Working on my blog has become a part-time job. My weekends and evenings are spent compiling research, shooting images, drafting copy and attending events, so it is all consuming. Luckily, I enjoy the process, so it doesn’t feel too daunting!
To ensure I stay motivated and don’t lose focus, I set myself a goal each week so I know how many posts I should be aiming for. Needless to say, things come up and this doesn’t always go to plan, but it gives me something to strive for!
What do you find the most frustrating aspect of blogging?
As patience isn’t one of my virtues, for me, it’s the amount of time that you need to invest to ensure that each post has been given the love it deserves.
When you spend a lot of time creating content, often without any feedback, it can be difficult to know which tactics are the most effective, so you need to really need to rely on a combination of gut instinct and of course Google Analytics!
In the future where do you hope your blog will take you?
The dream would be to be able to travel the world and blog from a deck chair on a secluded island – coconut in one hand, laptop in the other! That failing, I’m happy to simply keep doing more of what I’m doing currently, which is meeting new people and hearing about all of the wonderful things the world has to offer – both close to home and in far-flung destinations.
Have you met anyone interesting/famous on your blogging journey?
While I haven’t met anyone famous on my blogging journey (yet), we have a section of the blog entitled ‘A Moment With’ where we interview a variety of inspirational people across the worlds of fashion, interiors, food and drink and the arts. From designers to chefs, there are so many creative people that have followed their hearts and dreams to carve out a career doing something they love, which is really inspiring.
If you could do only ‘one thing’ today then what would it be?
It really depends on the weather! My fail safe destination whenever I want to be a tourist in London is to head to Somerset House. If the sun was shining, I’d enjoy a cuppa outside, taking in the stunning architecture, while watching the tourists play in the fountains.
After strolling through the galleries looking at the latest exhibitions, I’d head to the nearby Pennethorne’s Café or Fernandez & Wells for a spot of lunch and a cheeky tipple.