Happy New Year! 2019 has been a slow one personally and travel-wise. As I continue to build my full-time business (I sell Real Estate in San Diego), I still try to make travel and travel blogging a priority. Can you imagine a more exciting hobby? I still have so much fun sharing my travels and other travel-related topics with you here on The Voyageer. As I did in 2017 and 2018, I would like to take a few moments to do a year-in-review for The Voyageer‘s third year.
This site was founded in January 2017 with the goal of inspiring others to travel. I’ve continued my strategy of writing about destinations near and far in order to inspire you. Find something unique in your own backyard, or check off a bucket list destination—both are great ways to explore the world around you. I don’t know where 2020 will take me (hopefully Japan!!), but I look forward to bringing you along with me!
The best part of travel blogging is connecting with people from all over the world. This site has grown for the 3rd year in a row and I am grateful for those who have stopped by, especially my regular readers.
Excited to announce, I continue to reach readers all over the world! I just went back and tallied up how many different countries my blog reached in 2019: 115! A big Thank You to my US, Mexico and Canada readers, making up the top three.
Guest posts
From The Voyageer’s inception, it’s been my goal to open this blog to new voices in addition to my own. I am a little sad to note that I only hosted 2 guest posts this year! I am always, always, always looking for guests to post here. I can’t possibly visit every corner of the US or of the world; not to mention we each have a different point of view that we can bring out through writing! A huge thank you to my guest authors. Don’t forget you can contact me to join the contributor team.
As it turns out, we published 21 posts this year, averaging just under 2 per month. A sharp decline from my prior years! 2020 will definitely be focused on writing more!
Bringing back this many souvenirs should surely result in more posts!
Here are my top 10 posts, ranked by number of views. Fascinating to note that none of these were written in 2019. For a blogger, this is a sign of a healthy site: we want posts to have a “long tail” meaning collect readers for a long time and rank high on SEO. Take this chance to read a post you may have missed earlier!
Here’s the part where it has the potential to sound like one of those PBS pledge drives.
I started The Voyageer with the goal of making money doing what I love (which is travel writing). Blogging is not my full-time career… I work for myself selling real estate which can be all-consuming. My next paycheck depends on my hustle! That said, the content creation here at The Voyageer slowed down in 2018 and then slowed down even more in 2019.
Some bloggers I follow have transparency policies where they share how much they’ve earned blogging. I like the idea so here you go: My grand total is $13 earned from affiliate links, $70 from sponsored posts, and $124 from booking.com commissions.
I am committed to bringing you high-quality travel content regardless of whether or not I generate income. However, running a website takes money and I am trying my best to reach and then surpass my break-even point. If you would like to support me, you can book your hotels through my booking.com links (bookmark bit.ly/VoyageerHotels or use the tool in the sidebar) or, you can shop with one of my affiliates including but not limited to:
In conclusion…
I want to thank everyone who has followed along this year. It has been a struggle to be honest! I make a serious promise to you that I will write more than 20 posts in 2020! Haha!
Happy New Year! I didn’t know you starting working in real estate – how cool. Looking forward to your posts in 2020!
Thanks Noelle!