Welcome to Brain Contour! I appreciate you stopping by.

ericsalas

When I started blogging in 2006, my intention was to share reflections of my day-to-day life through postings about politics, religion, the Filipino culture, matters of the heart, and anything related to, well, random and crazy. The blog was not named Brain Contour, yet.  It was something else.  Since I started blogging at the period when the number of blogs saw such an exponential growth, I tapped the most popular platform, Blogger.  In six months, I gained a number of followers, regular readers, even critics.  I met new friends though blog forums.  After a year, my blog rose through the ranks to become one of the popular blogs in the Philippines. I was elated.  I became obsessed with blog ranking sites, specifically Technorati. Technorati measured the juices of my blog, updated me of inbound links, and ranked my blog through its popular index. It was through Technorati that I realized how blogs around the world could be so interesting and varied. One of the blog categories that I often checked was, yes, travel.

I love to travel. Travel is joy. Joy is being in a place somewhere new. A new place is where adventures are created. Adventure is travel.

So I started posting my travel adventures. I wrote about Bohol, Philippines; my trip to Boston, Massachusetts; and my visit to a friend in Chicago. That was 2007.

It is 2016. My blog has evolved. Gone is the free Blogger hosting. I bought a domain name and paid for file hosting. A number of travel posts from my old blog were moved to this domain, braincontour.com.

This is now my travel blog.

What I do not love about other travel sites is that they do not post enough photos to really see what the place is all about. Most times, I get disappointed when a travel site described a location so beautifully in a post, but in reality when I saw it, it was not exactly what was described. Also, most travel sites borrow photos from online sources. This means that the authors have not even visited the place themselves!

My travel articles would include many photos, even videos and 360-degree photos so visitors would have a clear picture of what to expect when visiting a place. Below is an example from the Hartman Rock Garden. Use your mouse to scroll through the 360-degree photo.

This year, 2016, I celebrated a decade of blogging. My travel adventures have brought me to so many places in the U.S. Over the years of discovering and exploring places, I realized how I constantly long to visit all 59 national parks and 122 national monuments. There is still a long way for me to see all of them, but at least I have already started the journey.

What will you find at Brain Contour? Mostly adventure stories, plus the usual ranting once in a while. To get the latest post, subscribe for free here.

My trip is endless. Watch out for new stories as this trip may not even see its finish line.

For now, see the USA Travel Guide, Europe Travel Guide, or Asia Travel Guide.