Trains on the Brain Savour the journey & travel by train

Every now and then I have myself a cursory mooch on the Problogger Jobs Board.  It’s rarely an inspiring use of my time, trawling through swathes of posts from content farms and ten bob blogpimps who want the moon on the stick in exchange for penny-a-word rates.  But today I stumbled upon (I wonder how long it will take in the (d)evolution of our language before the two words actually morph into one in everyday usage? ) an intriguing posting from an outfit called Flightster.  Now, not only are they seeking travel bloggers but they’re actually offering to pay them a pretty respectable rate by online standards: $75-100 per post.  Yes, I read it twice myself.

Their recruitment drive (not dissimilar to that of trainspotterswanted) employs some fairly canny viral techniques but is also refreshingly straight-no-chaser.  They want folks to post about their blog in some way by commenting on any of their previous posts, working it into their existing travel blogs, to sign up for their feed, like them on facebook, follow and mention on twitter. Sounds reasonable enough doesn’t it?

So where’s this leading?

So, ok, it should be fairly transparently obvious by now that my curiosity is piqued enough to throw my hat into the ring with this, but there’s a slight problem.  How do I reconcile my stance here on embracing rail and other slow travel with posting about a blog behind what will be yet another flight engine?  Obviously their blog content is not solely fixated on the business of flying and covers a fair range of more general travel topics, but at the end of the proverbial day, flights ARE their business, so how would my interest sit with them, and me for that matter?

Ethics & hypocrisy

Now before you frequent fliers accuse me of playing the pious green traveller card I should say here that I am hardly a hardy environmentalist myself.  Like most people I sometimes take flights. I don’t enjoy it, but it’s often the most practical and convenient way of getting from A to B unfortunately.  Living in Scotland I am a good six hours away from the channel tunnel and the gateway to Europe that provides our little island of empire builders with.  I don’t like it, but that’s the cold, hard ryanair- seatbacked- easy-on-the-netting-truth of the matter.  What I’m saying is that I don’t think I’m being flagrantly hypocritical in showing an interest.  I’m just slightly troubled by the apparent inconsistency.  Is it really fight or flight?  No, no, there has to be another route.

Best laid plans

So what to do, what to do?  Well my fluffy feathered friends, here’s my plan, freshly hatched and ready to tweet until teatime:

What if – just what if – Flightster dared to be different and crossed the tracks into vaguely controversial territory?  How about they hire me specifically to play devil’s advocate on their blog?  I could post regular missives about the manifold drawbacks of flying and choice journey planning tips of viable overland alternatives.  I could run polls canvassing readers on which specific component of the air traveller’s experience makes their soul shrivel the most.  What bums you out more:  the robotic ‘thank yous’ you get as you disembark, the eye-gougingly exploitative ‘add on’ fees so beloved of Michael O’Leary and cohorts or the bizarre time vortex that seems to exist between the alarmist FINAL CALL boarding status displayed on boarding gate departure screens and the inexorable waiting time you experience before you actually board? I could be their man on the ground, literally.

Final call!

What do you think flightsters?  Bound to be decent linkbait in it if nothing else.

Here I am, barely a few weeks into the back-rubbing blogging moshpit, talking to myself mostly, but talking loud and clear nonetheless. Come get me, come fly with me!  (Or maybe ride the rails instead, the scenery’s better and your ears won’t be battered ceaselessly with annoying announcements for ‘your safety and comfort’ every five seconds.)

Share and Enjoy