How to take pictures of yourself when travelling solo

I am very excited for you that you are taking a trip solo! And pictures are really important! Even if you don't like your photo taken, it's really nice to have a few pictures just to remind yourself of the trip and to share with your friends and family. We all appreciate a good view but when you are in it, it's more personal and truly yours. You might have wondered how can solo travel instagrammers take pictures of themselves. It's actually not too hard! The photo below was taken by myself in Sri Lanka. 

Here are the four tricks I regularly use!

1- Mini Tripod and Timer

I use the Joby tripods because they are so versatile and can be twisted and places in random spots. I think most cameras would have a timer. Look into how to set that before you trip! You don't want to be fiddling with your camera and figuring that out on the spot. 10 seconds is the most common time, but you can set the duration. Possibly 20 seconds so you don't have to run to the spot. 

Ps1. You can do that on your phone too! 

Ps2. You can take a proper tripod with you if you like but that might be too heavy to carry. 

2- Remote shooting

This is done by connecting your wifi enabled camera with a phone application and using your phone as a remote. If your camera doesn't have an app from the manufacturer then it might be worth purchasing a remote. I absolutely love this feature on my Canon G7x and its own app Canon Camera Connect. I can see the photos on my phone before shooting as well!  

3- Selfie stick

I know. You probably know that, but just in case! It looks slightly funny, but everyone is doing it now it became very normal. I actually use a selfie stick for my travel vlogger rather than still photos! Just like the two photos below!  

4- Asking others

You can start this conversation by asking others if they want their photo taken then ask nicely for them to do the same. Everyone loves that! You can ask them straight if they would take yours and offer to take their as an appreciation token. Sometimes people just offer when they see me struggle setting the tripod and timer. 

Over to you: Which of the tricks above do you use to take your own travel photos? And do you have any other ways I haven't mentioned? Share away! 

Relevant posts: 

Hijabi Friendly Outfits for an Island Holiday in Malta

Malta is a gorgeous island and having few pretty outfits to match is a must! I tried my best to look stylish while modest. I also needed to pick light outfit so I can survive the island's summer heat. Thankfully I visited Malta end of May, which meant that the weather was still beautiful and breezy. Hope you like the outfits!  

Shop This Look

Shop This Look

Shop This Look

Shop This Look

PS. All outfits were packed in carry on, so that's fantastic if you like to travel light! 

More Posts from Malta: 

Travel Inspiration for your gram

How to travel in a girl group (Hen Do Celebration in Santorini!)

Last month, I was blessed to go on a trip to Greece for a friend's hen do (or as it's known in America a bachelorette trip) in the gorgeous island of Santorini. Since Greece is mostly affordable, a lot of the girls wanted to join for the fun hen do abroad. We ended up being fifteen girls including the bride. No one anticipated this big turn out, but it is a great feeling to see how many people would love to come and celebrate for a big occasion. We were all excited and rented a big villa. One of the only ones that accommodates fifteen! We were there for five days. On one hand it was undeniably fun, but on the other some plans were hard to arrange. Saying that, the maid of honour did a fantastic job organising everything!

On the last day, I asked the girls about their thoughts on group travel and how to make the most of it. So, this is a collective post with all our thoughts.  

Let's start off with everyone's favourite things about travelling in a group: 

• Lots of fun 
• Cheaper accommodations  
• Meeting different people 
• Getting to know your friends better 
• Becoming more aware of your personality and your own traits 

Here are SEVEN tips to make the most of a group trip: 

• Designated a leader
  Let one person be in charge instead of various people who are trying to make plans as they go. 
   
• Discuss plans before the trip
  It's hard to determine all trip plans before the actual trips, but having a rough plan is very helpful. Luckily, the maid of honour, tried her best to do that. She even told us what to bring for certain occasions like the all dressed in white dinner!
   
• Be aware of the purpose of the trip
  Ask yourself and other attendees about the purpose of the trip. All members of the party should be on the same page. Is this trip to party? to spend most days on the pool? To try food?to explore? Being clear on that will give you better expectations
   
• Be flexible and open to other people's suggestions
  Going on a group by default means that the trip is about the whole group and trying to balance everyone's wishes. So, being flexible is key!

• Consider different budgets
  When you are travelling with a group, this is a very major consideration because not everyone has the same income. Defining that before a trip is ideal, but sometimes activity and food prices cannot be anticipated. Establishing a daily budget could be beneficial.   
   
• Take 5 and be accepting
  If someone bothers, just take a moment out of the situation to get your zen back and then discuss that subject again or avoid it. Plus, don't let it show through your behaviour. There is no point of heating things up unnecessarily. People just have their own views on things and not everyone needs to have the same mentality. Just accept it and move on.
   
•  Enjoy yourself
  Going with a group as pointed out earlier is FUN, so just focus on enjoying yourself, the new place and bonding with the awesome people you chose to travel with. 

Over to you: What are your thoughts on group travel? and what are your tips? Share with us in the comments below! 

More travel tips you might like: 

Travel Inspiration for your gram

How to Monetise Your Travel Blog? Seven ways to make money blogging

When I tell people that I want to make it as a travel blogger, many still ask HOW. How would you live off it? How would you earn and pay bills? Well I am still asking these questions myself. I am still not making actual cash, but I did get a hotel stay for a review in the gorgeous Heritance Kandalama for example. I think that is a good start for where I am with my blog anyway. Slow and steady wins the race they say. I am still working on it and trying to dip my fingers in all the pies.

One of the things I thought might help me get some direction into HOW I could possibly monetise my travel blog was attending travel related conferences such as the World Travel Market, Blogtacular, Summer in the City by Youtube and Traverse. All were held in London. I went to their educational sessions and social media panels. I also read a lot of blogging websites and e-books such as Digital Nomad Wannabe. I learnt a lot from each and it's a matter of putting everything into motion to earn, which takes longer than you might think! 

In this post, I want to share the things I have learnt from everything on all the possible ways to make money from blogging. 

How to Monetise Your Travel Blog?

Method One for Making Money Blogging: Affiliate Links

Affiliate links are when you endorse a product or a service and add a link to them and getting a percentage. This is a very slow way, but it builds up over time. It is also known as passive income because you can make money without getting involved after posting about it. The percentage you get back can be between %2 to %8. There are many programs. Unfortunately, there is not only that for everything, so you might find yourself part of a few. I have an excel document to keep up with them! The ones I use are Amazon, Adobe, Booking.com, Itunes, Shop Style and Skim Link. If you want to find a specific one just look it up with the word Affiliate. If you want more information, watch the video below because it talks about this in details. Although it's mostly about Youtube, but all the information applies on blogging too! 

Here are previous examples I have written with affiliate links that might give you some ideas:
- Santorini Hijab Friendly Look book
- The vlogging camera I swear by
- My travel tech kit
 

Method Two for Making Money Blogging: Brand Sponsorships

Influencer Marketing Marketplace | TRIBE

Brand sponsorships are great, but they are not easy to get especially when you are starting out, but once you have an established online presences you can start approaching brand you love or you might get lucky and be approached. The company will either pay you to represent/ mention/ use/ place/ model a product or sponsor a trip/ activity/ flight or stays. Brands usually collaborate with bloggers to reach to a new audience or to spread the awareness of their brand further. Sometimes the brand wants the information only shared as a blog post, sometimes a video and sometimes on social media. More information on how to work with brands as a blogger can be found here. 

There are some companies that connect bloggers/instagramers/influencers with brands such as the Australian company Tribe. You will have to be approved though! This was recommended to me by Polka Dot Passport from personal experience. It's an app and I just started using it. Watch their video to know more. There are other companies that appeared when I looked up similar companies such as Revfluence. 

Method Three for Making Money Blogging: Content Creation for others

Bloggers have trained themselves in so many skill sets and they are able to produce written and visual contents for their own blogs and others. For example, I do some freelance writing on the side and I get paid per article. There is a lot of hustling involved in this one. Sometimes you have to pitch yourself and tell the company you want to write for that you are a valuable influencer that will enhance their brand. Since I started my Youtube channel, I have had a few video making requests. Have you seen my video collaboration with Skyscanner? 

Method Four for Making Money Blogging: Providing services/e-courses

When a blogger has an audience interested in something then it's only logical to create an e-course that satisfies the markets needs and bring in a steady income that will also be considered as passive income. here are a few examples of bloggers and vloggers that created e-courses that generate an income. 

1- Normadic Mat and his various ecourses such as: travel blogging, travel vlogging and travel photography on the Super Star Blogging platform. I myself took the took the Art of Travel Vlogging e-course. I would only recommend it for complete beginners though.

2- Thomas Norman with his The Travel Video Academy
3- The Travel Hack and her Blogger course. 

Method Five for Making Money Blogging: Selling merchandise

This has worked for some bloggers or vloggers where they collaborated to sell a product like (t-shirts etc) to generate some income. Examples of vloggers who have sold merchandise: 
1- Mr.Ben Brown
2- Zoella 
3- Psycho Traveller

I feel like this method requires a lot of work and someone to actually be in one location to package orders etc. I am all over the place for this to be an option for me, but it might work for you. 

Method Six for Making Money Blogging: Writing and selling books

Blog posts are all written content, so it makes sense to turn that into an e-book. Especially if there is a a useful story or some valuable advice. If you are interested in this, I would recommend reading the book Authority by Nathan Barry. I really enjoyed reading the book and he is very encouraging. I haven't written an e-book yet though, but it is something I would love to do one day.  

Method Seven for Making Money Blogging: Speaking engagements

Speakers get paid at conferences and if you have an inspiring story to tell you will be invited or you can just pitch yourself to be a speaker. If you are a blogger or a traveller there are plenty of events you can go to such as Blogtacular or Traverse.  

As you can see most of these methods are even more work than just writing posts or making videos. Making an income is not straight forward, but some people love the challenge.  

Another amazing source of information is Video Influencers' Youtube channel

Over to you: Do you have any other methods to monetise your blog or vlog that you would like to share with us in the comments below?

How Can You Afford Living in London?

This is the million dollar question that I get at least once a week or whenever I meet new people. Let me start by saying when I say I live in London, I am no where near Big Ben, London Eye, Harrods or anything in Central London really. I live an hour away and that's still considered London. This city is expensive no doubt, but here is how I can afford living in London

• Being a Full Time Student in London is GOLD

I think being a student in London gives you so many possibilities and DISCOUNTS! I have a discounted Oyster card, which means I pay 125GBP a month for a travel card from zone 1 to 4 and that includes all forms of transportation in London (Bus, DLR, Tube, Trains and the Overground). I also get a student train card (Rail Card) to travel in the UK  for a significantly cheaper prices. Plus, I get 10% off in most stores with MyUniDays or you can get the NUS card. 

As a full time student, you don't pay council tax too, which makes rent cheaper as well. 

• Give up Central London for Zone three or four

As I said in the introduction, I don't live in Central London. I live between zone three and four, which happens to be on the other side of the River Thames that you probably would not have visited. It basically takes me an HOUR to get ANYWHERE. That's a sacrifice you have to make if you want to stay in an affordable place that is slightly bigger than a shoe box. With my discounted Oyster card mentioned above, it makes sense to live further.

• Meal Planning and Home Cooked Meals is a great method to SAVE MONEY!! 

This saves so much you have no idea! Those supermarket sandwiches and crisps you buy at lunch for 3-5 pounds add up and become crazy! Think of this: A whole loaf of bread is 80p and humous is 1 pound and a bag of spinach for another 1 pound you can even treat yourself with 6 small bags of crisps for 2 pounds max. There you just made 5 lunches for 5 days for the cost of one! You see what I mean. Another thing, plan your meals before you get groceries, so you don't waste. Each meal I cook has two portions, so I have it for two dinners. Try a few vegan meals a week and that saves loads if you are using one type of vegetable, a can of chopped tomatoes and rice that's like 3 pounds for a filling meal. You can get very creative here and there are like a bazillion pages on instagram and pintrest to help you with that!    

• Meet Your Friends At Art Galleries or do other free activities

The wonderful thing about is London is the amount of free activities! (Read: How to find cool events and things to do in London). Big museums and art galleries are my default meeting point now. It gives you something to do and it is a fun. If the weather is good, you can also go to parks for picnics and catch ups. 

• Only Go out to Cafes    

I am a social butterfly and I love hanging out with my London pals. As a Muslim, we can't meet at Pubs, so I used to meet my friends for restaurant meals (Read: My Ultimate Favourite Food Guide in London). That started costing me so much!! Now, I try to meet at cafes in the afternoon for tea or a just desserts. We sometimes only get tap water and stay there for two hours or more. Even buying a cup of tea or coffee is much more affordable than a main course.

---

Over to you:

How Can You Afford Living in London? Are there any other things you are doing I haven't mentioned above? Please Share your thoughts in the comments below! 

More Posts from London: 

Travel Inspiration for your gram

The Vlogging Camera I swear by (Review for Canon G 7X) + Travel Camera Recommendations

When I decided to get on Youtube, I decided to get a more portable camera other than my profession (but heavy!!) Nikon D7100. I looked around and basically read every possible review. Until I found Canon G7X. I was a little worried because it was almost 500GBP, but after using it for a year, I can highly recommend it! About 95% of my videos are all filmed with this camera, so take a look at my YouTube channel Arabian Wanderess to see the video quality if you need more video examples. 

Click here to buy*

Six things I personally love about Canon G7X

• One. The Flip Screen!!
  Omg this is so essential when I am vlogging you have no idea! I can see how I look and exactly what I am filming.
• Two. The Weight!!
  It's such a light and portable camera. It fits the smallest purses I have. I don't even feel like I am carrying it. 
• Three. The Wifi function!!
  I haven't taken any photos on my phone in AGES! The quality of Iphone photos just do not compare to the photos I take with this camera. The wifi function makes it so easy to transfer the photos from the camera to the phone using the Canon app. It takes me less than a minute to connect, upload and share on social media! My camera instagram photos are getting lots of love! You can give them some love too! 

• Four. The low light performance (Night filming)
  This is another great thing! My biggest worry was if this camera would still preform well. It does work nicely at night for the most part. I had to fix the yellow saturation of some videos on Premier Pro, but it's quiet good. It's good for photos as well. Take a look at my London after Midnight Photos. All were taken with this camera. I think it's quiet powerful. Unfortunately, this camera can't seem to take stunning photos of the moon or stars, but that's another story. For a compact camera, it's mind blowing!     

• Five. The baby tripods! (Great to take photos when you are travelling solo!)
  This is very helpful! When I am travelling light and for a short time, I only pack one of these Joby tripod with me. They are versatile and can bend and etc. When I was travelling in Sri Lanka, I took my solo dreamy beach photos (like the one below) by using the Joby tripod and the Remote Live View Shooting function (accessible in the free Canon phone app). 

Buy this tripod 

Buy this tripod

• Six. Remote Live View Shooting Function (For Quick Stop Motion Films)
  As I just mentioned in the previous point the Remote Live View Shooting, which is accessible through the Free Canon phone app is a life saver for taking travel photos if you are travelling solo OR for stop motion films! 
  ** Check the video below and forward to 2:54 to see the stop motion I included using this camera and the Remote Live View Shooting. 

Extra Tip: I bought two extra batteries from Amazon, so I stay longer on the road without worrying about the battery life! 

Another Tip: I got the wind muffler to get better quality sound. 

Also another thing you might want: a camera protective case! I got my poor camera scratched so many times until I got a case! Like a whole year later. 

Buy this Extra Battery for Cannon G7X

Buy this wind muffler via Amazon

camera protective case

Cheaper Travel Camera Recommendation

By the way, if you are looking for a cheaper alternative to the Canon G7x reviewed above and you don't really care for vlogging or flip screens and you want a light, reliable, good quality camera with the phone app then the Canon Powershot SX610 is going to be a great option for you. I bought it for my sister as a birthday present and she loves it. The quality of her photos are so much better than a phone camera. 

Note: if you are considering buying any of these practical and reliable travel bags, please consider getting them through the links provided in on this page. That will give us a little commission with no extra cost to you. These little commissions help this blog grow and continue. Thank you for your support.  

More Posts that you might enjoy: 

- Practical and Reliable Duffle and Tote Travel bags for your solo travels

- Eight reasons every Muslim woman should travel solo at least once

- How to take pictures of yourself when travelling solo

Over to you: What camera are you taking with you on holidays? and which one would you love to buy? 

Travel Blogging and Social Media hashtags and feature accounts

As we all know, being on social media is crucial especially for bloggers and artists because that's the main way people find out about us. As a travel blogger, it's good to have visibility via specific hashtags and features. These are the ones I find most useful for Instagram. Keep in mind that I keep my caption clean from these hashtags and only use my own, but add them in the comments below to give a neater look to the photos. 

Top Travel Hashtags

Daily Travel hashtag: #TravelTuesday #WanderlustWednesday 

General Travel hashtags: #travel #wanderlust #explore #travelfind #discover #instatravel #traveljunkie 

use: season, day, county, city, occasion as well. 

Top Travel Feature Accounts

Might be a good idea to start with smaller accounts because bigger ones get 100s of tags a day. 

#LPTraveller @lonelyplanettraveller 
#BBCTravel or #LoveTheWorld @bbc_travel
#WeLiveToExplore @WeLiveToExplore
#wonderful_places @wonderful_places
#TheGlobeWanderer @TheGlobeWanderer
#beautifuldestinations @beautifuldestinations
#IPulledOverForThis @IPulledOverForThis
#PassionPassport @PassionPassport
#TLPicks @travelandleisure
#discoverearth @discoverearth
#darlingescapes @darlingescapes

Top Travel Feature Accounts and Hashtags Specifically for London

#ThisisLondon @London
#london4all #london4all_video @london4all
#TopLondonPhoto @TopLondonPhoto
#London_only @London_only
#lotiloves @londontheinside
#timeoutlondon @timeoutlondon

Top Travel Feature Accounts specifically for females

This photo was featured on @Globelletravels  and there are a number of travelling females account that support and empower such as: #Girlsborntotravel @Girlsborntotravel , #girlsmeetglobe @girlsmeetglobe , #girlsLOVEtravel @girlslovetravel , #femmetravel @femmetravel, #TheTravelWomen @TheTravelWomen. 

Top Travel Feature Accounts specifically for Muslim and/or Arab travellers:

The photo below was featured on #361.world @361.world 
There is also #muslimtravelers @muslimtravelers 

For Feetlfies (feet selfies) for when you are travelling and when you are home: 

#fwarabs @fwarabs

#fromwhereIstand #FWIS @fromwhereIstand

#Ihavethisthingwithfloors @Ihavethisthingwithfloors

#Ihavethisthingwithtiles @Ihavethisthingwithtiles

PS. remember that if you are using brands/products or you are in a place that owns a social media account you should tag them too! 

connect with me on insta @designeresra

Over to you: What are your favourite travel hashtags and accounts?