Happy 1st Anniversary Explore Adventure Discover!

Explore Adventure Discover is exactly one year old today.  This time last year, I nervously clicked publish on what was to be my very first travel article!  It felt like a huge step at the time – I knew very little about blogging and there would be a lot of frustrations to follow.  But thankfully, with a lot of cups of coffee and some much needed venting with my mother (who started her Candelo Blooms blog on the very same day), Explore Adventure Discover is now thriving!

When I started blogging, I basically wanted a way to record and share my travels with anyone who was interested. My journals are always fun to look back on, but at the end of the day, they stay locked in a big suitcase, hidden away from the world.  Blogging has been such a great way to share my travel experiences – past and present.   I have taken my computer up the east coast of Australia in a home-built campervan, through the Australian outback and over to Deutschland, where I am currently living, writing and learning German.

What blogging has taught me

• Invaluable online skills, such as how to install widgets, what html code means, how to schedule posts, how to organise images and create tags for maximum readership.
• Patience, especially in the early days, when whole articles would go missing and I would need to write them again from scratch!  Since then, I have learnt how to recover previous drafts.
• Importance of planning, especially during busy periods, or when you know you will be entering a remote area, where internet connection is weak or non-existent.
• The importance of social networking.  If you want your posts to have a wide readership, then it is so important to read and interact with other people’s blogs. It is also helpful to take advantage of social networking tools, such as Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook.  My social networking has certainly increased since starting this blog, though I am yet to explore Twitter!  I still have a long way to go in expanding my readership, but in the mean time, I am enjoying the process.
• Persistence.  Even if things start to look too hard, it is important to just keep going.  Some weeks you may be less inspired than others, but keep at it.  One of my favourite quotes (which originated from a Chinese proverb) reads: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” And this is so true – just put one foot after the other in the right direction and you will make it in the end.

Blogging Achievements to date

• Nominated for a Liebster Award
• Three articles selected for the Lonely Planet Pathfinders monthly roundups (March, April and June, 2016), moving me to the next level of Lonely Planet Assignment Pathfinder.
• Articles reblogged on several sites
• In the process of having some of my travel articles converted into GPSmycity Apps
• Viewed by 80 different countries
• Gained 231 followers (more than double what I expected)
• Nominated for a Sunshine Award
• Connected with hundreds of other like-minded travellers and bloggers from all over the world

But besides all this, I really love travel blogging.  Crafting articles, gathering photos and sharing my adventures with everybody has become a favourite task.  I can’t wait to see where Explore Adventure Discover will be this time next year, but regardless of what happens, it has been a wonderful journey so far, above and beyond what I expected!