Travel And Beyond is an interesting digital journal started in 2011 by Joseph and Rosemarie, a foodie couple who decided to run a blog about their travel endeavors and experiences, with food as their main drive in life. Stationed in Australia, they received several awards for their blog where they share the passion for traveling and enjoying life with unforgettable experiences.

10,000 people monthly enjoys and shares their experiences as well. With many diverse categories covering cuisine, events, life in Canberra, reviews of travel tours, hotels, picture section and many destinations put together in this blog, you get the impression that Rosemarie and Joseph are professional travel bloggers, and nomadic wanderlusters. And the truth is that they are regular folks, who just love traveling, and are able and blessed to relocate several times during their adventurous relationship.

Let’s see what makes Travel and Beyond blog so good.

Visual Appeal – 91%

Travel & Beyond is a well designed blog maintained by professionals (further beyond design). The theme their WordPress installation runs on is sleek, and optimized. With 10 possible options to click on beneath the large title of the website, you can choose from About, Destinations, Gallery, Media-Portfolio, Advertising, Clients, and Contact page. A little bit crowded, since almost every menu item has several submenu entries.

The photos that await you on this blog are looking well, are usually in mid-resolution pane, and with slightly moderated diffraction. Some of the impressive ones on the main slider on the homepage are well captured and prepared for web presentation, since they load relatively fast. Whole site loads within 4-5sec range, which is good.

All the pics are branded, and have functional plugin for Pinterest sharing, which is useful and practical.

Originality – 87%

Rosemarie and Joseph cover multiple categories, and every piece they publish is long, detailed, and well written, with instructions, descriptions and their opinions. You will find about every place they visited in detail, with lots of great imagery, well written and fit in to good conception. It’s a good experience reading their articles.
The unique thing to point out here is the passion that you feel when you explore through Rosemarie and Joseph’s work. You won’t find anything that is not well developed, beautifully designed, smartly placed as well interesting and fun.

The couple went to many places, described a lot about them, and did a fine job.

Practical Tips – 87%

When you’re at bottom of the article, you usually find a box about the location you just read about, where they explain how they stay connected, or how did they used this or that service, lots of different info that could be useful to readers. A lovely addition for the interested travelers to take with them and use when they go and visit the same location.

Also, every category has several posts, which explain something different about it, so that means you will finish an article about Nepal, and you’ll find three, or four more to continue (This is a common practice while reading this blog).

Web Usability – 88%

Articles and web entries on Travel & Beyond blog are interesting, and well designed. You’re intrigued and “sucked in” reading the articles like you’re speaking with Rosemarie & Joseph. Well written, and social strength of the blog shows this, as well as comments section on posts (there are rare posts without comments).

However, there is one small animadversion for this blog. Mobile responsiveness could be a little better. Navigation-wised, one can easily navigate and find interesting articles, with not much hassle. With related articles beneath every published piece, reader gets 4 well placed suggestions for continuation for reading, which is also good.