A pleasant surprise indeed, I never did think that a Malaysian, all the way in Southeast Asia, would even make it into the list for Top 50 Travel Bloggers by Travelocafe.
Surprisingly Malaysia Asia came in at No.11 in the list, which is calculated based purely on visitor traffic, engagement on social media and follower numbers. This, too, was backed up by Google Analytics statistics, so no cheaters out there.
Top 50 Travel Bloggers
Again, many lists of top travel bloggers are issued while most of them are American or European created; therefore, each has its own individual calculations on how the travel bloggers are ranked.
While this is very subjective, there have been debates on the listings, different groups or camps with different ideologies.
 |
| The list of Top 50 Travel Bloggers |
Over the years, I have seen some claiming that so and so should not be on the list because of this and that or this person cannot write for nuts and he or she is in the top 10 bla..bla..bla... Yes, it never ends, and even travel bloggers have their own politics, groups, etc.
As for me, I clearly try my best to stay away from these politics and just do what I enjoy doing most, which is travelling, exploring, photographing and sharing them on my multiple platforms.
I tend to focus more on Malaysia and Southeast Asia as we all know that this is the current hot spot for travels in the world. Many may think differently, but when you look at the travel statistics for 2014/2015 or even attended travel and trade show or conventions like I do, you would see that Asia and Southeast Asia is currently the strongest.
 |
| Me diving at Sipadan Island, Sabah |
How the 'top 50 travel bloggers' list was calculated
Travelocafe took the relative position of each blog for 3 different metrics according to the following formula:
► 50% of the total score was represented by the blog traffic for the last 3 months (each blogger provided a screenshot of their Google Analytics)
► 30% of the total score was represented by the Klout score (calculated as the average between the 90 Day High and the 90 Day Low)
► 20% of the total score was represented by the total number of social media followers
Again, the above clearly shows the metrics based on Google Analytics, Klout and Social Media Followers. This is very fair in terms of getting the list out rather than just purely based on popularity in circles.
Conclusion
Finally, a big thank you to the team at Travelocafe for making this travel blogger list possible, and again, I am truly touched that I, a Malaysian in this corner of the world, actually made this list.
On a lighter side of things, I hope that in the next upcoming list, possibly in 2016, I can make it into the top ten of the Top 50 Travel Bloggers List.