Measuring the Earth with our feet. Driven by curiosity, guided by respect. Uncornered Market.
I might be the only person who’s never heard of Uncornered Market. It’s more a shame on me because I think I’ve been missing out an a pretty unreal and amazing travel blog.
Content
Straight off the bat and I’m seeing so much content here I’m wondering where to begin. I cheat and go straight to the about page because I want to know who made this huge website. Dan and Audrey that’s who, and adorable husband and wife team. I see their faces in the desert and I’m hooked into diving into their site.
The long left hand side bar is filled, and I do mean filled with countries they’ve visited. Dating back to 2006 it’s a who’s who list of places to visit. A little further down and you can some feature articles and I’m loving it. Yes it’s a long list. And I don’t thing I’d want it any other way.
Jump into the articles and you meet the two travels. The posts are often quite factual rather than personal. There’s no bursting into tears and deep feeling emotions here. They certainly touch on many of these aspects but Uncovered Market tells you about place based on personal observations and facts. I like it and it works thanks to some stellar research and explanation.
If I were to comment on anything negative it’s that I did get a little confused as to who was writing what? Both Dan and Audrey are listed as the authors and sometimes posts jump between them. It’s confusing, but then again some people might like it as it certainly makes things more personal.
Site Design
Big and square. There I said it. Something negative. Oh how I wish this blogs design just had a hint of curve. It’s a little dated looking. Just a tad. The content overrides this. And I’d hate this site to have a cookie cutter type WordPress design, or something fancy. What they have works. It’s easy to navigate, and nothing looks too clustered.
There’s just so much content it’s hard to put it somewhere neat. Maybe a different background would help? I really would like to see a PR webmaster guru sponsor these guys something special and nothing too far off what they have now. It might just be enough to push them to the top of the Travel Blog world.
Photography
The photography is just right. Nothing too flashy, and nothing too bland. It merges perfectly with the website as it is now. The photos of Dan and Audrey make this a very real experience to the casual reader. If it were all mine (I wish) I’d make the photo gallery a lot bigger. The thumbnails are quite small and I really want to see these photos up big and close!
Style of writing
Factual and precise. I read many of their feature articles and really found the explanations easy to follow. The journey’s themselves are easy reads and all about exploration. Dan and Audrey have very open minds and there’s rarely a wrong mentioned.
I was tempted to list this as a Travelogue at the start. But cruising through the main blog section shows me more articles on food and life than travelogue entries. I don’t look at this as a negative. It’s simply that Uncornered Market is huge and covers many bases.
It’s a smooth flow to read a post on Uncornered Market with never a sudden jolt. A joy to meander through I really got stuck in there.
Continuity
Another minor blip and I’m not sure how they can handle it. Uncornered Market is huge in terms of content. On the main home page the posts do jump around a bit. I’m reading about their travels in a country and the next thing they’re posting something about panorama photos. This is fine, and good. But I just wonder if they could separate photo posts and other non travelogue posts about and maybe show them in a special “latest photo” corner of the site. Would that work better? It would mean the main middle section would only show their travel blog posts while else where the rest of the content could be displayed.
Lastly it’s hard to make out what years they’ve been to what countries by simply looking at their list. Maybe include dates next to country names. Or arrange them by year rather than in their current form. It’s a little thing, but one I think could help with reading through the site.
Conclusion
I am so happy to have come across UnCornered Market. If you have any liking for travel than check Dan and Audrey’s website out. It’s stellar in many regards. I want to read more about their travels. It’s an encouraging website meaning if they can do it, so can I. And if that’s not an epic travel blog, I don’t know what is!
