Love to travel but feel the pinch on your bank balance? Checkout the posts on Escape Normal by Jacqueline Boss, who writes interesting articles to help travelers in mitigating their expenses and extracting more fun while at it. She is a qualified entrepreneur who has a very refreshing perspective on life. The name Escape Normal derives from the fact that she wanted to break free from 9-5 job routine that people fall into and here she shares with her readers tips and experiences on a vast repertoire of topics ranging from travel, her experience of monetizing her blog, food ideas, interesting products to even ways to build cheap houses.

She is also an avid traveler and it is her staunch belief that the wheel should not be re-invented i.e. the valuable tips that she has learnt in her journeys should be available to any one out there and has even written a eBook titled "How to Become the Jack of All Travel: A Beginner’s Guide to Traveling the World for Free". I personally find the posts on her experience of earning a passive income from her blog very interesting.

You can see the summary of her blogs earnings for the year 2011-2012 here. Jacqueline was good enough to take some time to work on a interview with us and this is what she has to say:



Jacqueline, lets start with an introduction to yourself for our readers.

I studied entrepreneurship in school because I want to make my own path in life; I was interested in too many things and couldn't decide on a major. I picked entrepreneurship so that I could learn to start a business in any field. Since I graduated I've been traveling and learning about the world, developing life skills, and meeting amazing people.


What was the inspiration behind starting Escape Normal? 

I started Escape Normal mostly as a way to organize my own ideas about travel and entrepreneurship. After writing only a few posts, I realized I could use the blog as a way to reach others who are interested in similar things. I am always happy when a reader lets me know that my blog has given them a great idea or saved them a lot of time.

Kassel - Germany

According to you, what is optimum frequency of posting on a blog and why?

The optimum frequency for blog posting is completely dependent on the specifics of the situation. For me right now, it is just a few times a month. What I prefer to focus on is writing posts that will drive a lot of traffic to my site by writing about specific topics with detailed information, or about topics that haven't been widely covered before.


Tell us something about your recently launched eBook on travelling. What was the inspiration to choose travel as the subject of the eBook?
Selling an eBook seemed like one of those things that people talk about but never actually get around to doing. So one day I just sat down, picked a topic, came up with a list of sub-topics, and started writing. It took about a month to complete. I chose travel as the subject of the book because it would allow me to sell it on my travel blog- I already had the right type of people coming to my site who would be interested in my book.












































If you could be one superhero (or have a magical) power, who/what would it be and why?

If I had a superpower, it would hands down be teleportation. As someone who loves travel, it would be great to be able to be at any point on the earth instantaneously.

Let us have a rapid fire round:

Tea or Coffee?

Blogger or Wordpress?

Other bloggers that you look up to?

Blogging tools that you can’t do without?

One deep secret no one knows about you?

Miami

Biggest compliment that you have received for your blog/eBook?

Every now and then I get a comment or an email from a reader who just wanted to let me know that my blog is exactly what they were looking for and that it helped them find the resources and ideas they need to finally live their travel dreams. I am always very happy to hear that from my readers.


What are your future plans, both as a blogger and as a traveller? What are your must-go-to destinations?
As a blogger I hope to continue to grow my traffic and explore new sources of income so that I one day make enough money from my blogs to cover a substantial amount of my living expenses. I am working on developing a new blog now, (thestrawbalehome.com) about a cheap and eco-friendly building technique. It is slow going but I think the new blog has more earning potential than Escape Normal. As for traveling, there are many places I want to visit. For now though, I want to explore America, and experience its national parks, its wild west, and its southern hospitality. And any place with a great beach is always on my radar.

Hiking Alabama

What advice would you would like to give to our readers to help them in lowering their travel expenses?

The best way to lower travel expenses is to travel long-term; it has the same results as buying in bulk at a price club instead of buying individual items at an expensive health food store. Beyond that, the best piece of advice I can give is you don't need to bring or buy nearly as much as you think you do. You should be able to fit what you need for any vacation into a carry-on, and pass over the tacky souvenirs.


Thank you Jacqueline for taking the time for this interview and sharing your experiences with us. Your blog can truly inspire anyone to pack up their bags for an interesting adventure. We wish you the very best for the future.


You can find Jacqueline on Twitter.