Gary Arndt is one of the top 5 travel bloggers in the world. He runs Everything Everywhere, which I had the honor to write a guest post for. He's also interviewed me on the This Week in Travel podcast, as well as his new Global Travel Conspiracy podcast.
This time, I turned the tables and asked Gary 5 questions. He's graciously allowed me to show some of the photos he's taken in Africa. You can buy them (and many more) on his website. And now for the 5 questions....
1. Gary, isn't the UNESCO World Heritage list becoming a bit ridiculously big so as to dilute the wow-factor that the sites used to have? I'm going to take a shit in my backyard and ask UNESCO to proclaim it as a World Heritage Site. What do you think?
Yes and No. There are some UNESCO Sites that are undeserving, especially in Europe.
However, the Earth is a really big place. Africa is under represented. I still think that the US and Canada are under represented. It is easy to look at a number of draw that conclusion, but if you look closely at the sites which are being added, they are still pretty special. There are far more unknown sites I visit that are surprising in a good way than in a bad way.
2. Is Google+ dead? You have 1.4 million followers, but your posts get just 50-500 +1s. How do you interpret that data?
It isn't dead, but it is on life support. As you note, the engagement rates are incredibly low. However, if you actually do the math, it is about the same or slightly higher than Twitter. I have roughly 10x the following on G+ and I can get about 10x the engagement per post.
3. What's your future book going to be about? Will we see it this century?
I'm now leaning towards a book on Travel Photography just because it will support my other projects and would be easy for me to write.
4. How do you have time to do everything you do everywhere? Do you sleep!?
Dunno. This is pretty much all I do. Each individual thing doesn't take much time.
I've also cut back on my traveling and I'll probably stop traveling full time later this year. Being on the road full-time isn't conducive to running a business or my health. Rick Steves manages to run a travel business being on the road only 3 months a year. I could do the same traveling for 3-6 months, I figure.
5. If you were to rank your activities from the most productive/lucrative to the least useless/lucrative, how would you rank them? Example: YouTube, Periscope, Instagram, FB, Twitter, Tumblr, G+, Blog, Guest Posts, TBEX, etc....
It is almost impossible to compare something like Instagram to TBEX. Right now Instagram is far and away my best platform. I have the smallest audience on it compared to the other big platforms (FB, Twitter, G+, Pinterest), but I get more engagement than all of them combined.
I plan to start a YouTube channel and will be launching my Travel Photography Training course in a few months as well.
