You spend a lot of time online, and there are times you go to Wiki to search for, say, 15th century burial rituals. So you click and click until you realize you’ve ended up on a totally irrelevant page (cultural relevance of Twinkies? How did I even…?).
Yeah…that’s how the internet works. You click through an endless stream of sites and blogs and most of the time, you hardly even pay attention.
But then there are pages you come across that not only grab your attention, but also manage to KEEP it. These are sites that bring useful, funny, and interesting content that you can’t help but go back for more. Here we round up 12 blogs that do exactly that for us, and we’d like to share them with you.
The Cool Hunter
This site was created by Bill Tikos, and contrary to what some may think, it's not JUST about trends and what's "cool" as defined by the select few. What it does is it "celebrates creativity in all of its modern manifestations" so you'll find everything from travel to music & art to architecture — basically wherever creativity thrives. The stunning photos and images, and interesting finds are definitely worth checking out (and bookmark-ing!).
Brain Pickings
We recently featured Brain Pickings' creator, Maria Popova, as one of the 8 amazing women who are making a difference — and if you check out her site, you'll understand why we think she deserves that spot. Brain Pickings is indeed a "discovery engine for interestingness," featuring ideas, information, and insights that are simultaneously funny, inspiring, smart, and profound.
Tree Hugger
Don't be fooled by the name of the site — it goes above and beyond the stereotypical hippie-environmentalist concept by also venturing into science and technology, design, news, lifestyle, and yes, even business. It's an awesome one-stop digital resource for the curious mind.
Summer Tomato
Summer Tomato was created by Darya Rose, a Zelda-playing gorgeous geek with a Ph.D in neuroscience. We love her healthy living blog because despite her background, you won’t get any of the overly scientific stuff – what you get is fun, informative, and easily understandable information that you can actually use and apply to achieve a better “healthstyle.” And did we mention Summer Tomato was named one of TIME’s 50 Best Websites (2011)? Yeah, there’s that too.
Thought Catalog
Though majority of the site's readership are teens to people in their 30's, the site offers valuable insights and wisdom nuggets from real people of all ages around the world. All of the site's content is user-submitted because the goal is to "shape culture by empowering you to share your ideas and stories." The site makes you realize that sometimes the information you need doesn't necessarily come from the "experts" — it could just be from ordinary people who have the same struggles, ideas, and thoughts as yours.
Dirty and Thirty
Created by Stuart Brazell and Stefanie Seifer, Dirty and Thirty is a fun, go-to site for women in their late 20’s to 30’s who know how to have crazy fun but also pay the bills. As the creators put it, “the twenties were made for making mistakes and the thirties are for actually dealing with them…and knowing better.” It’s edgy, intelligent, funny, inspiring, and most importantly, honest. If HBO’s Girls and Sex & the City had a blog child, Dirty and Thirty would be it.
Apartment Therapy
Apartment Therapy is the brainchild of brothers Maxwell and Oliver Ryan, which they created with the idea of “saving the world, one room at a time.” They believe that having a healthy, clean, and beautiful home is an essential foundation for happiness, and that achieving this shouldn’t require a lot of money or space. The site offers amazing tips and tricks on homekeeping, technology, and DIY projects that are doable whether you’re renting a shoebox apartment or living in a 3-storey house.
Design Boom
Design Boom covers the latest news in art, design, architecture, and technology and has been named by TIME magazine as one of the only 8 online publications included in their list of Top 100 Design Influencers in the World.
The Daily Dot
While a lot of people diss the Internet and the online world as “isolating” (i.e., lessens personal interaction, etc.), the people at Daily Dot believe that the Internet can be a tool to connect people, not isolate them. They cover “glocalized” news — reliable information gathered from the individual communities of their readers all over the world that are funny, relevant, interesting, and intelligent.
Yogi Times
Yogi Times, despite the site’s name, covers so much more than yoga and its various practices. They cover eco-living, food, travel, art and fashion, and even business. We love that you can get not only news from the online global community, but also find relevant information and product/business reviews for your locality.
What The Flicka
Created by actress Felicity Huffman, the site is an awesome online resource for moms, teens, and women on food, love, parenting, lifestyle, entertainment and tons more. Flicka describes the site as "domestication for the undomesticated," and for us, that's about learning to be and feel "at home" with the people and things around you, as well as with yourself.
Origin Magazine
Origin Magazine is a successful print mag and blog that successfully delivers on their vision of providing one platform for multi-faceted ideas to build a conscious, creative, humanitarian, and well-informed community. Origin covers all interesting news and stories about art, music, yoga, health, sexuality, sustainability, and conscious lifestyle. And the best thing about it? They don't just celebrate positive change, they strive to create it.
It’s great to have such a wealth of information available literally at the tip of our fingers, but blogs like these make it a lot easier for us to find bits and things worth reading.
They are useful and informative, funny, interesting, inspiring, and creative – all of which we believe are the qualities of a blog that’s worthy of a bookmark and hundreds of repeated clicks.