At the beginning of the year, I decided to make a more concerted effort to share more frequently on Travel Explored. The result of this decisions saw me share 10 posts through the month of January. That turned out to be more posts in a single month than the previous six months.
In February I decided to try something that I had not considered before, except when I was travelling. For the month of February, I decided to share a post every single day. What started as a post each day for 28 days, has turned into a daily post for the past 90 days. While there have been some struggles and challenges along the way, some of which I want to share with you today.
What The Last 90 Days Have Been Like
Writing and sharing a post every day for 90 days is definitely one of the more challenging things that I have done. Even on my last trip which was around 80 days in length saw me with a couple of days that I did not post. I have found it even more impressive considering that in the past I have struggled to publish 2 to 3 posts per week.
So over 90 days that is 90 posts and while I did have a couple written before the start of February, the majority have been written within this 90 days. When I look at the word count statistics that is 80,051 words published in the past 90days, on average 889 words per post.
Overcoming Past Challenges
There are a number of different problems that I have come across in the past which I have had to overcome over the past 90days. The biggest one though is not travelling and seeing where I live in a slightly different light.
No Travel
The biggest challenge that I have had in the past is writing content when I am not travelling. When I am on the road and visiting different places I seem to find plenty of interesting things to write about. But when I am at home, I find that everything appears to be plain and ordinary.
In saying that I have had a little travel, it was just a very limited amount of time totalling five days. The trip did help me to craft a little bit of content to share in this period. But in total it was six posts, which still leaves a rather large gap in 90 days.
One aspect that I have tried to bring into the blog a little more is talking about coffee. Coffee is something that I started out the year sharing my weekly experiences. The result has been one fairly standard post each week that helps to build consistency into the posting cycle. The coffee posts over the past 90days have contributed 16 of the 90 posts. I don’t mind including coffee with the travel blog as it is something that I would include in my travels in the future anyway.
Reframing What To Share
Over the past 90 days, I have had to look at just what I do share. Often in the past, I have been far too picky about what I write and share. I would look at the blog and say it is about travel, so everything I write must be about travel. The reality is that there are many aspects of life that can fit under the banner of travel.
The first example I already covered above with bringing the topic of coffee into the blog. I might be at home right now, but when I travel I would look to share about the coffee I find anyway. Likewise, when I am out and about I look at the places that I visit with a slightly different perspective. I look for what I can share about an area, that may see people wanting to visit that area. A great example was my post about Manly Harbour Village, I was there for coffee but could see the potential for why other people might like the visit the area.
Essentially, I have also reframed how I see the area that I live in like a destination that I might travel to. The reality is that everywhere I have travelled and found interesting, is just someone else’s hometown. Whether that is Seattle or Hong Kong or a small town in Mexico. So if they are interesting why not approach Brisbane and the surrounding areas in the same way.
The Challenge of Daily Writing
The biggest challenge I have had to overcome though is that of writing on a consistent daily basis. A challenge that I still find myself facing some days when the rest of life just seems to get in the way. But one thing that I can say is that I am getting better at overcoming this challenge.
Although I still do have some way to go to achieve a truly daily habit. Some days I will find it a struggle just to write a short 100 word Instagram post caption. With other days where I might get into the flow of things and be able to write over 3,000 words without even realising.
I was tracking my writing for a while but found that in some ways it made things more difficult for me. At times I will write posts from start to finish in one sitting, but other times I will write segments of a post over a few days. Tracking all the small bits and pieces of writing can become rather time-consuming and in a way counterproductive.
Future Writing & Sharing
Moving forward from here I do hope to continue both the daily writing and sharing of posts. I am always open to feedback and would love to hear what you think about the writing that I share. Of course, I am also open to any suggestions that you might have for what I can write about. But what I hope is that I will be able to share some more travel posts in the near future as well.
