Blogger’s Corner with Nickolai from Adventures of a Tiny Lady

The Blogger’s Corner series is an interview series featuring advice and experience from bloggers whose blogs are older than six months.

If you would like to take part, you can find all of the details here.

This week, we have the lovely Nickolai from Adventures of a Tiny Lady

1 Introduce yourself

Hi, my name is Nickolai and I live in Surrey, England.

I’m a communications and digital marketing professional in the tourism sector. I started my career as a travel writer in 2005 before diving into communications management, and my work has taken me far and wide across the globe.

I’ve lived in South America, India, the Middle East and the United Kingdom.

I figured I may not always have the time or money to travel, so I had to find a job and lifestyle that pays me to do it. These days I consult with some esteemed international organisations, while having the time and money to fuel my wanderlust.

2 Tell us a little bit about your blog

Adventures of a Tiny Lady is my thoughts, views and snippets from 4ft 11inches above ground as I take on this enormous globe with my ever restless feet and wild child hair.

3 What can your readers learn from your blog?

I’d like for my blog to inspire people to travel and get out of their comfort zone, and explore everything that the world has to offer.

I also like encouraging more women to travel solo without inhibitions and worries. Ten years of the travels that I’ve done in the past have been solo, and that has only changed very recently when I met my husband and we started travelling together. It has evolved from a solo woman traveling to more couple travelling these days.

4 What’s your favourite thing about blogging?

Sharing my experiences and thoughts on the places I get to travel to and stories of the people I meet along the way.

5 And your least favourite thing about blogging?

Sticking to a publishing schedule. When your job revolves around writing all day for brands and businesses you consult with, it gets very difficult to make time to do what you love and promote it without making it feel like work.

6 Tell us one random fact about you

I’m of mixed ethnic background; one part Indian and one part Portuguese and yet I possess a very Russian name :p

7 If you could only blog about one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?

Slow and Responsible Travel, there is just so much to learn from it.

8 What was the hardest part of starting your blog and why?

Choosing the right platform, finding the right themes/designs and figuring out a voice to write in. Only because I’m a perfectionist, it’s taken many moons to get it to look the way it does today and I’m finally happy with it.

I started this blog in 2007 on the WordPress platform before it evolved to be so much more than “just another WordPress blog”.

9 If you could give new bloggers one piece of advice, what would it be?

Someone once said to me “Try everything that will make a good blog story once”, but my honest advice to new bloggers is: Be consistent, keep writing and keep learning.

10 Is there anything you know now that you wish you’d known in the beginning?

There is no competition, there is only collaboration and it does work.

11 Do you have any long term goals for your blog?

I currently work 30 hours a week at a job where I spend 90% of the time writing content for others, I would love to be able to turn the tables and focus more on my blog and write for myself 90% of the time.

12 Who’s your blogging hero?

“Heroes are made by the paths they choose, not the powers they are graced with.” ― Brodi Ashton, Everneath

Having said that, I love Uncornered Market. Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott, the husband and wife team share their stories about ways in which to travel responsibly, and with respect. Not only is the writing strong and engaging, their stories about people they meet are thought provoking and, most importantly, make you want to travel to a place and meet the subjects of their stories too.

13 What’s your favourite social media network and why?

Instagram without a doubt. I usually check my feed 3-5 times a day and I use it for inspiration and to connect with other travellers. I love the clean grid interface and it makes me happy that I can visually and aesthetically display my travel photos whilst sharing them with the world, all by the use of a mere hashtag.

14 Anything else you want to share with us?

I may be a tiny lady but I have a mighty heart and I believe that this world goes round by the power of kindness. I try to do good, support sustainable and responsible travel, and spread magic through random acts of kindness. I even got to speak about it at TED.

15 Where can we find you? (blog link and links to any social media)

My blog, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.