Traveller of the Month: Jonny from Don’t Stop Living

Welcome to Traveller of the Month! Each month on Teaspoon of Adventure, I’m featuring a fellow world traveller and travel blogger to share their adventures and travel wisdom with you.

So let’s meet October 2024’s Traveller of the Month: Jonny Blair (he/him) from Don’t Stop Living!

And if you missed September’s traveller, get to know Victoria here!

Before we jump in, I want to point out that as with all of my travellers of the month, I absolutely respect Jonny’s opinions and value his experiences. However, we definitely don’t agree on everything, such as our feelings around “off the beaten path” experiences and monetizing travel writing.

I’m not saying either of us is right or wrong, just letting you know that I never 100% agree with/endorse all the answers my guests provide, which is why it’s so awesome to introduce other viewpoints!

Please introduce yourself! What’s your travel story?

My name is Jonny Blair and I grew up in the Northern Irish seaside city of Bangor. I’m a coastal boy who always likes the sound of the waves. I currently live in Poland but it has been a long journey to get here.

On route, I have backpacked through over 200 countries across all 7 (or 10) continents, along the way I lived in 7 countries, worked in over 50 jobs and have qualifications in journalism, English literature, PR, teaching and Irish history.

I got into travel mostly through watching the football World Cup and seeing that each country had different kits, flags, colours and cultures. I decided I wanted to visit every country from the 1986 World Cup, but of course I have since backpacked through a lot more than just those 24.

I still do football related travel but I prefer backpacking (or as I call it, whackpacking) through lesser known places these days.

How did you decide to start your travel blog and what sort of stories do you share there?

I have always been a writer since I was about 6 years old but it used to be writing with paper and pen – I’d write poems and short stories. Then in the 1990s I started writing football fanzines and for some music magazines and newspapers.

At university, I despised the strictness of not being able to write about ourselves, so this was when I realised I needed a blog to write words like “I” and “we” rather than be forced under strict university writing rules.

However, the catalyst to start my travel blog was not until July 2007 when I was backpacking in Toronto, Canada. In the same hostel (The Planet Traveler) I met two travel bloggers (Lee and Mike) and they asked why I was still writing all my travel notes on paper and pen.

The next day I set up a Blogspot account and Don’t Stop Living was born. My first blog post went live in August 2007 and I have blogged constantly since; it’s my 18th calendar year as a travel blogger!

The blog is for anyone who enjoys life and the phrase “Don’t Stop Living” but the blog is not for backpackers who follow the obvious paths to over-trodden places like the Eiffel Tower, Thailand beaches and Empire State Building. I prefer to attract readers who want to visit Romkerhall, Chak Chak (in Iran) and Kaesong (in North Korea).

What do you do when you’re not travelling or writing about travel?

Apart from football, bars and cafes, I am also an experienced barman and professional teacher, so I do all those things when I don’t travel. Plus I catch up on sleep, as when I travel I don’t waste too much time on sleeping!

But I rarely go a day without writing. I’m constantly writing and I’ll never stop.

If you had to sum up your travel ethos in one phrase, what would it be?

My travels are endless and boundless without limits. I just don’t set limits or restrictions and try to enjoy all of life. The phrase that leads my blog says it all – “Don’t Stop Living”

What’s your earliest travel memory?

Losing a wee police car on the beach at Portimao in Portugal in 1981. It was my first time outside Northern Ireland and I was playing with that car on a beach. Mum, Dad and I later tried to find it but it was lost forever.

Then in 2017, I backpacked back to Portugal and bought a police car as a consolation.

What’s your best travel memory of the last five years?

There are a lot to choose from, including pub crawling Nauru, walking with rhinos in Zambia, riding the iron ore train in Mauritania, watching AFC Bournemouth win at Sheffield United, watching Northern Ireland win away in Lithuania and visiting The Ocean Club where James Bond (Daniel Craig) filmed Casino Royale in The Bahamas.

But getting the train from Dublin to Galway with my Dad for a three day trip where we backpacked the Fields of Athenry, Galway Bay, Galway Bars and Salthill was probably the highlight.

What is your most unique travel moment?

I have been the first ever tourist to three micronations and in one case, I was the only ever tourist to visit that country.

The People’s Republic of Podjistan was a short-lived micronation from 2010 to 2019 and I backpacked through it in 2015 as the country’s first, last and only tourist. I was given a guided tour, a passport stamp, a flag and a unique bottle as a souvenir. The People’s Republic of Podjistan bordered Northern Ireland.

I was also the first tourist to ever visit The Empire of Austenasia (which borders England) and was later knighted as a “Sir” in the Empire of Adammia (which is a secret country somewhere bordering Yorkshire in England).

Those are just three unique travel experiences but I had countless more, including being the only Northern Ireland football fan at 3 different matches (v. Belarus, Germany and Poland).

If you had $100 to spend for a day in your favourite place to travel, where are you and what would you do?

I’d stay with my parents in Northern Ireland for 100 days and try to save $9,000 of that $10,000! If I get the money, I’ll then backpack a few of the places I have longed to visit.

But none of us regular backpackers will ever see that type of money in our lifetime, so that dream is wild.

(Editor’s note: I meant for this question to mean that you only have $100 and one day, not $100 per day for an endless number of days, but I like Jonny’s creative interpretation!)

What is the best piece of travel advice you’ve ever heard?

Talk about football everywhere you go (it was me who said it and me who does it). It has saved my life many times, saved me lots of money and made me lots of friends.

Football brings people together from every country more than anything else I’ve ever known.

What do you want to inspire other travellers to do?

Stop following crowds, trends and obvious backpacking sights. Get off the beaten track, which is really “off the wheaten craic” and go to somewhere you have never heard of where you will be the only tourist there.

What is your process for writing a blog post?

There is no process other than picking the one to write and then writing it – blogging is the easiest thing I’ve ever had to do but never have the time. I have over 3,000 unwritten blog posts and they’ll never get written as we never have time for that.

If I never get time to write them, I’ll just write a post called “All the blog posts I have planned but will never have time to write”, then someone else with more time might write them.

What’s one thing people don’t understand about travel blogging?

How much money it makes. I still meet people that think there is more money in working for old school book companies like The Lonely Planet and Brandt. Real travel bloggers know that those books are years out of date and have nothing on the travel blogger who backpacked it today and posted up-to-date information.

Travel blogging is a huge industry and I have been a professional travel blogger since 2012 now, so I’m one of the early ones and I understand the industry inside out.

I also hate when people think that getting “page views” or “likes” makes you money as a travel blogger. They don’t and they never will, those who turned professional might have blogs without readers or likes!

Once you get into professional travel blogging, it’s hard to fall into the groove which so many newcomers make.

What destination would you go back to over and over again?

Northern Ireland. I want to keep going back and visiting new parts. It’s my home country and I still haven’t been to some parts of it such as Ballinamallard, Castlederg and Carnlough.

I love my home country and one day hope to have backpacked a lot more of it.

What destination would you never go back to?

There are so many I’d never go back to but Venezuela was the worst place I was in. I felt I was lucky to get out alive and for that reason will never set foot in that place again. I was robbed, searched, treated like a gun runner or drug addict when I was only trying to backpack their country.

As a result I boycotted my three main sights and reasons to backpack it – Salto Angel, National Football Stadium and the Ice Cream Shop in Merida.

If you could go on a worldwide trip, visiting just one city on each continent, which cities would you pick?

I hate repeats these days so I would pick all new cities for this for the reason that they are hard to get to and I was declined before.

Antarctica – South Pole via McMurdo station. I backpacked Antarctica in 2010 but not yet McMurdo or the South Pole.

Europe – Sealand. Sealand is the only country I recognise in western Europe that I haven’t been to. My visa was rejected a few times so I need to go.

Africa – it’s tough to pick just one as there are so many cities there but I would go for Timbuktu in Mali. It’s always been on my list but I kept skipping Mali.

Asia – for visa reasons and restrictions, I’ll go for Lhasa in Tibet which has evaded me so far.

Oceania – Again so many to choose from but I guess Northern Mariana Islands will be the hardest to get a visa for so I’ll go for them.

North America – I’d have to go for Guam as it’s the hardest left there for me to still get to. Greenland is easy visa and trip to book. Failing that, the Diomede Islands would be cool.

South America – I didn’t see enough of Chile and I was gutted to miss Chillan in 2010 so it has to be Chillan in Chile.

Caribbean – Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands will be the hardest to crack here so I’ll nab the brace.

Middle East – Damascus in Syria.

Who do you most love to travel with and why?

A girl that I am in love with. That is always the best. She is always the answer here.

Travelling alone can be depressing and infuriating. Travelling with family causes arguments and different viewpoints. Travelling with friends usually means they are going to places I don’t want to go, so it has to be love.

I still haven’t found a dream girl to go backpacking with. Well I found one but she let me down and lost out, breaking my heart and plunging me into backpacking depression.

What’s a destination you wish more people would visit?

Northern Ireland. I still meet a lot of people who fake to me that they have backpacked every country in the world, then when I ask them what they thought of Northern Ireland, they say “Oh I haven’t been there!” which means they haven’t been to every real country.

Northern Ireland needs to be on every tourist’s dream map. We are the smallest country in the world to reach the World Cup quarter finals, as well as the smallest to win a World Cup match once, twice and thrice, to win our group and to progress twice through a World Cup group.

We are also the smallest country to have 4 golf majors winners. Aside from sport, we have beautiful scenery in Lough Neagh, Giants Causeway, Silent Valley, Sperrins and Mourne Mountains. We have a torn history, an honest present and a wild future ahead! Go to Northern Ireland – you will love it!

Lastly, where can we find you online?

https://dontstopliving.net/
https://www.northernirishmaninpoland.com/
http://www.twitter.com/jonnyblair/
http://www.facebook.com/donotstopliving/
https://www.instagram.com/jonnydontstopliving/
https://www.youtube.com/user/jonnyscottblair
https://www.tiktok.com/@ulsterczyk

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Thank you for joining my Traveller of the Month series, Jonny. Head on over to Don’t Stop Living to hear more about Jonny’s adventures and stay tuned for November’s Traveller of the Month!