Guest of the week: Towe Ahlin and Johanna Westberg, founders of Swedish Travel Blogs.

Towe Ahlin and Johanna Westberg are two travel bloggers who two years ago came up with the idea of starting a network and a portal for all Swedish travel bloggers: Svenska Resebloggar. The network quickly became popular and today a large number of travel and international bloggers are connected.

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Through the network, bloggers can now find each other and get tips and advice on what's going on in the travel blogging world. The portal also offers simplified opportunities for companies to connect with travel bloggers.

For many travel bloggers in Sweden, the network means that you no longer have to feel so alone with your questions and thoughts, and perhaps for many it has also become more fun to blog! So who are the people behind "Swedish Travel Blogs" and what are their thoughts on the network and the future?

Can you tell us a bit about yourself? What do you do when you are not running "Swedish travel blogs"?

Joanna: I work full time at Umeå University coordinating construction projects. In addition to that, I instruct in various group exercise classes at a gym and in my spare time I prefer to be outdoors, preferably based in the cabin in the mountains. I have been lucky enough to be able to combine both work and education with my interests in travelling and training, and recently there have been several training trips and training events.

Towe: I am currently on maternity leave but otherwise I work full time as a web editor in Stockholm. I travel a lot with and without children but I also love being at home in Stockholm. My free time is mainly spent with my family and my travel blog right now, it's strange how much time a little baby can take.

How did you get the idea to start 'Swedish Travel Blogs'?

The site was founded after a group of Swedish travel bloggers went on a trip to France. Morocco, organised by Norske Reiseblogger and we realised that there is nothing similar in Sweden. We, Johanna and Towe, clicked immediately and after spending these wonderful days in the desert in a Jeep together with FREEDOMtravel!

How many travel bloggers have joined and what are the requirements for joining? Can you tell us a bit about the blogs?

There are currently more than 130 registered bloggers who travel and write about travel. More than 50 bloggers live abroad. The first group travels a lot but lives in Sweden, and many also blog about everyday life in Sweden.

Those who live abroad have their everyday lives there and may not necessarily write in the same way about the country or town as a destination, but from their everyday perspective there. What they all have in common is that they blog in Swedish. Almost ten bloggers are linked to travel agencies, large and small.

To register, there are instructions on our website and once the blogger has followed them and sent us an email, we check that the blog is a relevant travel blog. Our guideline is that about 20 per cent should be travel-related, so every fifth post on average. It's not enough to just blog about fashion or everyday life and travel once a year and post a few pictures from the trip. There should be a clear interest in travelling.

This is mainly because a reader who enters the Swedish Travel Blogs portal should be guaranteed to find blogs to read with good information about travel and destinations. What that information looks like or how often each blogger updates it is, however, up to each one, likewise, you do not have to be on any particular portal but you link via RSS.

We have a great variety, with some bloggers being very niche and good at writing and photographing only about travel, while others write about their everyday life living abroad or everyday blogging and travelling often with their family.

What can the network do for the travel bloggers who participate?

We drive traffic from our site to the bloggers through a visible RSS feed on the home page, "Scout of the Week" posts with links, retweets, links on our Facebook page. We also have a newsletter exclusively for the bloggers and a closed forum on Facebook where the bloggers can discuss tips and advice on everything from camera equipment and advertising fees to travel and press events.

By being the unifying link, we have good knowledge of our bloggers, how often they post, what they write about, how many visitors they have and other interesting things.

Do you offer partnerships with companies, and if so, in what ways?

Yes, we do. We have collaborations directly on the portal in the form of ad banners or competitions, but above all we coordinate companies and bloggers for what everyone on this portal loves most - travel. We have sent several bloggers on trips for companies, including Langley and Apollo. We have participated in fairs and events to promote the network.

Bloggers often have great influence over their readers but many are difficult to contact. Some blog completely or partially anonymously, some avoid spam by not printing their email address, and some may never have thought about the possibilities for collaboration. We can provide that contact either through the newsletter to the bloggers or through a personalised service from our team who can select suitable bloggers for different assignments based on destination, travel type and activities.

What are your plans and goals for "Swedish travel blogs" for the future?

We hope to achieve even more collaborations and that Swedish Travel Blogs becomes the natural meeting place when companies are looking for blogs to collaborate with. We have a very good member group on Facebook that we hope will continue to develop. In the near future, we will also make sure to get together a member meeting, preferably with lectures and networking.

What is most fun about running Swedish Travel Blogs and what is the biggest challenge?

The best part is reading more and more travel blogs and finding like-minded travellers. It's fantastic to see how the travel bloggers boost each other and give tips and advice in our community on Facebook. There is so much positive energy and never a bad word - no question is too stupid to ask and everyone takes the time to answer. Of course, it is also fun to see that the need for this type of service is really needed considering how many companies get in touch.

The biggest challenge is to find time to answer all the emails we get from bloggers and companies and to keep track of the travel industry and the blogosphere as we both work full time with other things as well.

Finally, a question we ask everyone we interview: What is your dream destination?

JoannaSvalbard! It's a revelation due to the fact that I've travelled so much and even though it's never possible to fully discover the world, I've become more and more fond of the Nordic areas with snow and mountains. Since I read the book Expeditionen by Bea Uusma, I became infected with the obsession to go there and see what it looks like in Spetsbergen.

More people than me have been infected, so it is far from unattainable as it used to be. My dream trips nowadays are rarely a place but an experience. Two other things I dream of are a long stay in India and practising yoga and to walk Santiago de Compostela at some point.

Towe: Maldives. Is it really as stunningly beautiful as the pictures? That turquoise water, the huts on pillars in the water and the chalky white beach. Otherwise, I dream of driving between San Francisco and LA and doing yoga in Bali.

Thank you Towe Ahlin and Johanna Westberg, for sharing your experiences and thoughts!

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