World Adventurers Celebrates 1,000 Posts

Dear Reader,

World Adventurers hit a major milestone today — 1,000 published posts! A thousand articles and updates later, this blog is still going strong.

I started World Adventurers in December 2004, as a way to update family and friends about life overseas. It has evolved in ways I never imagined when I wrote my first “Hello, World” post. Since then I’ve written about my books, writing, news and politics, humor, sports, finance, culture, thoughts and sayings, updates from around the world, and other topics. My travelogues have been by far this site’s most popular feature.

The early blog hosted by the now-defunct MSN Spaces Live had more than 350,000 hits and was featured regularly by Microsoft on its “What’s Your Story” page. At a time when blogging was far less ubiquitous, World Adventurers was — and remains — on the frontiers of digital media.

Readership declined when Spaces Live folded and I took a breather from blogging in 2008-09. World Adventurers moved to WordPress in late 2010, and made a roaring comeback since then with another 300,000 hits. Earlier this year the site moved to its new and permanent home on my website, www.mgedwards.com, and was rebranded as World Adventurers Magazine. This site hosted by WordPress and featured on Freshly Pressed has remained so popular that I haven’t shut it down; it’s still going strong and complements the new e-zine. All told, World Adventurers has had about 700,000 unique hits and tens of thousands of visitors since its inception.

Here are the 20 most popular and memorable posts published on World Adventurers:

• Top Ten Things to Do in Korea (with Photos)
• I Am No Longer A Foreign Service Officer
• Top Ten Things to See in Zambia (with Photos)
• Top Ten Things to Savor in Macau
• Palio Khao Yai, the Italy of Thailand
• The Plant Life of Kilimanjaro
• What is a Foreign Service officer?
• Damnoen Saduak Floating Market in Thailand
• The Kilimanjaro Sign–Old and New
• Iguazu Falls vs. Victoria Falls (with Photos)
• “The House of Dancing Water” Show in Macau
• 100-day Birthday Celebration
• Bangkok Flooding Update with Photos
• I Survived Eating Pufferfish
• Kayan Lahwi, the “Long-Neck” People
• Top Ten Things to See in Zambia
• Night Market in Hua Hin, Thailand
• The Hallyu Effect
• Filadelfia, Paraguay
• Farm Chokchai – The Old West in Thailand

Thanks for visiting World Adventurers. Here’s to 1,000 posts and many more!

Remembering the Diplomats on Memorial Day

“Remembering the Diplomats on Memorial Day,” a piece I wrote last year. This is dedicated to the Foreign Service officers we lost in the past year – Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, and Anne Smedinghoff. This year, please remember the diplomats and all civilians who serve their country on the front lines of freedom.

World Adventurers

Every year on Memorial Day, American flags are flown to honor members of the U.S. Armed Forces who died or were wounded in the line of duty. Their service is noble, and I appreciate that our country publicly acknowledges their sacrifices.

Scant attention, however, is paid to the civilians who serve courageously in the line of fire. Diplomats and other civilians who work for the U.S. government are often placed in dangerous and unstable locales around the world. They have participated in every war and conflict since the Revolutionary War alongside their military colleagues. In some cases, the civilians stayed behind after the troops withdrew, as happened last year in Iraq. They were also stationed in places without the benefit of U.S. military support when unrest occurred, as happened in Libya, Syria, and in other countries that experienced upheaval during the Arab Spring.

Hundreds of American diplomats…

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Kilimanjaro a Book of the Year Awards Finalist

My book Kilimanjaro: One Man’s Quest to Go Over the Hill is a finalist for the 2012 Book of the Year Award in the Travel Essay category. The finalists were selected from 1300 entries covering 62 categories of books from independent and academic presses. These represent some of the best books produced by small publishing houses in 2012.

Over the next two months, a panel of sixty librarians and booksellers will judge and determine the winners. Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards, as well as Editor’s Choice Prizes for Fiction and Nonfiction, will be announced at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Chicago on June 28, 2013, at The Pop Top Stage. Click here for a full list of the finalists.

Kilimanjaro is a travel essay that chronicles my attempt to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. At forty years old and on the verge of a midlife crisis, I tried to change my life by climbing a mountain. This is my true story of facing Kilimanjaro and other challenges at middle age. The book, which features more than 60 photos from my trek, earned an honorable mention from the 2012 Global Ebook Awards.

Readers have called Kilimanjaro “life changing,” “inspirational,” “an epic journey of self-discovery,” and “a peek into someone’s personal travel journal.” It’s a book for anyone who feels over the hill and needs encouragement to make a life change in the face of difficult odds. It’s also for the casual climber, mountaineer, or hiker who is interested climbing one of the world’s tallest mountains. Filled with insights and advice for those who are contemplating their own Kilimanjaro climb, my book will put you on the mountain and inspire you to go over it.

Booksellers

Kilimanjaro: One Man’s Quest to Go Over the Hill is available to purchase for U.S.$3.99 as an ebook, U.S.$9.99 (or equivalent in other currencies) from these booksellers:

Amazon.com (US for Kindle)

Amazon.co.uk (UK for Kindle)

Amazon.ca (Canada for Kindle)

Apple iTunes (iPad and iPhone)

Barnes & Noble (US for Nook)

Barnes & Noble (UK for Nook)

Blio

Diesel Ebooks

Google Play (Android)

IndieBound

Kobo Books (available in Australia and Canada)

Smashwords

Sony ReaderStore

The Wordshop

Kilimanjaro is available to buy in print for U.S.$9.99 (or equivalent in other currencies) from these booksellers:

Amazon.com (US)

Amazon.co.uk (UK)

Amazon.ca (Canada)

Barnes & Noble

Createspace

Diesel Book Store

Visit the Kilimanjaro web page for a complete list of booksellers.

Click here to read the first five chapters of Kilimanjaro. If you like it, you can purchase the entire book from one of the booksellers listed on the last page or from Scribd. Thanks for reading my memoir! I hope you enjoy it.

About the Book of the Year Awards

ForeWord’s Book of the Year Awards program was created to highlight the year’s most distinguished books from independent publishers. The awards announcement provides an additional publicity opportunity for publishers long after a book’s initial publication date. After months of perusing the list of submissions, librarians and booksellers eagerly anticipate this announcement of finalists—a valuable resource for discovering obscure titles from the world of indie publishing.

Pick up your copy of Kilimanjaro today!

M.G. Edwards is a writer of books and stories in the mystery, thriller and science fiction-fantasy genres. He also writes travel adventures. He is author of Kilimanjaro: One Man’s Quest to Go Over the Hill, a non-fiction account of his attempt to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain and a collection of short stories called Real Dreams: Thirty Years of Short Stories. His books are available as an e-book and in print on Amazon.com and other booksellers. He lives in Bangkok, Thailand with his wife Jing and son Alex.

For more books or stories by M.G. Edwards, visit his web site at www.mgedwards.com or his blog, World Adventurers. Contact him at me@mgedwards.com, on Facebook, on Google+, or @m_g_edwards on Twitter.

© 2013 Brilliance Press. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted without the written consent of the author.