Last week, I posed the question “What do you want from an online travel community?” And a lot of great discussions followed, both on that post and on Nerd’s Eye View’s Forums.

Here’s a glimpse into the discussion:

Christine:

What I would like to see specifically is Travel Blogging… promoting a travel blog, social networking for travel, what works, what doesn’t etc. All that technical and marketing stuff that isn’t covered anywhere, unless you look at Problogger.net, but then it’s so general it doesn’t apply. For example lots of places talk about using Digg, but if you’re writing a travel blog this won’t work. Digg likes tech and political posts, or Top 10 weird crazy posts, but you’re unlikely to do well with an article on green travel or a festival in brussels. I think there is a very specific market for travel blogs, and we have to navigate the waters completely differently than someone who wrote, for example, a celebrity news blog. There are probably only 1000 people (max) who would be interested in these topics, and maybe 25 people who will take an active role in the discussions. That’s probably why there isn’t a place for it, and most of us just end up talking about this stuff via email with other bloggers. …

Kimba:

…Finding people within this community to comment on my stories (even the old ones since I just changed over from a static site with no comment areas to multiple dynamic blog sites). And vice-versa. I want to find blogs that are writing about things that I can comment on.

Promoting each other when there is something appropriate to promote.

Caitlin

…I think we need to promote the travel blogging genre so that we are growing the pie, not just fighting over the size of our slice. That means promoting each other and sharing information and resources here.

…We could also start lobbying to have a travel blogging category at the Bloggies. There was no category last year and there wasn’t a single travel blog nominated for any of the general categories. By contrast, there were 11 food blog finalists, both in the food blog category and in other categories.

The majority of the feedback fell under two categories:

1. Promotion
2. Questions

Promotion

Travel bloggers want a community that actively supports them in promoting their (quality) content. This includes: using social media like Stumble Upon and Digg, commenting on others’ posts, linkbacks, and blog awards. In the forums, several people mentioned the lack of travel blog presence in blog awards.

Questions

Travelers, travel bloggers, and travel writers also want a place where they can ask questions. These questions range from technical ones about blogging to questions about places to go and sites to see.

How Do We Do This?

The question I would like to pose to you: How do we build community among travel bloggers? My thought is that we need a way to actively promote each others’ writing, more than we need a place to ask questions (since several forums exist for travel bloggers to talk).

Post your answers below (or I will also post on the forum) and let’s see if we can come up with some ideas. One thought I have is to possibly make September Traveler Blogger Community Month, where the challenge is for travel bloggers to comment on a certain number of sites per week, or to link to other blogs.

P.S. Another idea I have about promotion is one that I’m going to run with. Tomorrow we’re going to host a “social media love-in,” modeled on the one Problogger had last month. This one will be specifically for folks interested in travel. Watch for details tomorrow.