It’s been a mega positive year! In terms of travel our most active, although in terms of physical activity definitely the worst ;) Today we unveil the cards and like never before you will be able to learn a lot about us, our work, the benefits of blogging and…. what didn’t work out for us this year….
This post will be such a positive summary of what we are incredibly proud of, because you may not know about all that has been and is happening on the other side of the computer. And there is a lot going on!
So this time of year has come, when we look back at the last 12 months and remind ourselves of what we’ve been able to do, see what aspects we’ve been able to develop, what we could have done better, and what we simply didn’t have enough time for.
We look back on the last 12 months with undisguised pride, for many reasons, but there’s one thing we’re sort of more proud of! So today, uniquely, we’re going to brag, bemoan, complain a little (after all, nationality obliges ;-)) and describe what’s the biggest motivational kick for us for the next year!
Table of contents
Yes, we work full time all the time (although Kamila is currently resting, lying down with a huge belly and resting :))). Since we’ve been blogging, we’ve always worked full-time jobs, and we simply take vacations for the duration of our trips. We have never taken an unpaid vacation, which is something to be proud of with our number of trips :) And yes, we know that others travel more often, farther, more, maybe better, but for us, how much we are able to travel within 26 days off per year is a success.
Yes, we work, we are experts in our fields, and above all, we like what we do! Work is, on the one hand, a way to earn funds for travel, and on the other hand, a springboard, a place where we can meet completely different people, with different interests, and learn so much from them!
Let’s also remember that a blogger doesn’t live by traveling alone. Before, during and after the trips, we write coverage, process photos, create graphics, plan posts, embrace social media, chase down thousands of emails from sponsors (hehe! :))) and we try to keep in touch with you. Plus technical work on the blog, keeping up with the news, testing equipment, and so on and so forth…. there is always something to do!
No, we’re not complaining, we’re just showing that at a certain point in life it becomes a second job, so it’s good that there are two of us and we share the responsibilities.
Related to the above: we don’t have to blog to live. In fact, we could give up blogging at any time, and we would still easily maintain the same standard of living. But that’s not the point! We do it because we just like it! :)
Besides, it never crossed our minds to live solely from the blog. Which doesn’t mean that we don’t have a thousand other more entrepreneurial ideas in our heads that we might be able to put into practice in 2019, but we’ll keep quiet about that for now ;)
And the fact that we don’t rely only on blog resources (because let’s not kid ourselves, they are too) has its benefits. We do not seek cooperation by force, and we do not have to accept every one. Thanks to a full-time job, most simply in the world we can afford to pay for the flight, hotel accommodation, so even if nothing comes out of the cooperation, and the partners disengage, there is no drama, because we can still afford one trip or another. This is the comfort that work gives us, which we need. We can go where we want and travel in a way that suits us, and share our thoughts with you, which are not always sweet and rosy.
We also don’t promote something we don’t agree with, we don’t do marketing to places we don’t like just because someone paid us. We can put our own conditions, because we know that if nothing comes of it, we still have other sources of income. Thus, we remain independent and objective in our assessments.
We are happy with these numbers, and we are not talking about zeros in our bank accounts :-P We are happy because behind every number there is a human being, a reader who reached our site, liked us, left us a comment or sent us an email. We are happy to help and inspire, and more and more people simply trust us. We are not a travel agency, we do not organize trips, and we do not want to make money from it. Everyone should travel as they like, in their own way, and we just show our way of traveling and prove that whether on a job or with a child – you can see quite a bit of the world!
Especially since this year we recorded records ourselves, as a working-traveling family :)
And when it comes to the blog, a few breakthrough numbers:
As we wrote before: we know that others travel more often, farther, more, maybe better, but for us these are still great numbers and a reason to be proud! :)
Combining work and blogging is a peeve compared to combining blogging and parenthood! Seriously! To this day, we still wonder what we did with our time when we were not yet parents! :)
There was a time when it was only possible to sit down to blog when Olive had a nap during the day or went to bed in the evening. Unfortunately, after 10 pm, a person was already falling on his snout and little was coming out of it. There was a time when we would get up at 5 or 6 a.m. to embrace the blog first, before Olive got up. Unfortunately, she quickly covered us and as soon as she saw that her parents were already awake she immediately joined us and also wanted to write accounts of the trips ;)
So how do we try to cope? We share in the responsibilities. One goes outside, to the pool, to the playroom, the other sits down at the computer. We are people who really like to spend time with each other and we want to share as much time as possible with Olive together, but still, sometimes we have to split up to publish something meaningful :) Especially since we assumed that no computer work with the baby! We happen to look into the cell phone, reply to a comment or upload some Insta Stories (by the way please visit our Insta! :))), but there is no situation where Olive plays alone, and we both stare at computers.
We also ask for help from Grandmothers or friends who have children of a similar age. Any help for gold. Finally, in 2018, the time has come when Olive is happy to stay with someone other than mom or dad.
This year was probably the most challenging in this aspect…. but I guess it didn’t go so bad ;) Only one thing puzzles us: how it will be with two – one thing you can be sure of, the entries “in the meantime” are just forming :D
We are not only parents at home, but also on the go. We do not take a sitter with us, and the time on the trips is time together, for the family. And we are proud of the fact that we travel together, we can show the world to our child, and our teenager willingly wants to travel with us and bravely endures even the most distant journeys. And here we have to honestly admit that this two-year-old copes with jet lag, climate change or cuisine better than her parents, and recently, when asked if we were going to Warsaw, she replied that yes, but only by plane :)
As a matter of fact, in this aspect more than with ourselves, we are proud of Olive.
All of this we are proud of, but there is one thing we are awesomely proud of:
All photos are taken by us. All materials are written by us. All videos are shot and edited by us. All graphics are created by us. As proof, let us serve you with our first posts, when the blog was just a travel directory with poor photos and little substance. You can see what a leap we’ve made, and although it may still not be the highest level, for us it’s already something to be proud of.
But that’s not all. Everything technical is also on our side, we do not hire any companies, agencies, specialists. WordPress is fully embraced by Paweł and he doesn’t use outside help. We do the website positioning, advertising and traffic acquisition ourselves.
We also run social media ourselves – we schedule posts, analyze statistics and promote posts ourselves. We ourselves run a group on FB. You can be sure that any question you ask us, whether on Insta or FB, or in an email or in a comment will come to us and one of us will answer you :)
Yes, this is the one thing we are most proud of – we got to this place on our own, with hard work, without connections, we spent a lot of time learning and invested a lot of money. We are over-happy to be here and to be able to develop further. Especially since it is not our job, but a passion that allows us to learn so much and create something of value that serves others.
And that’s the biggest motivational kick for us. In moments of doubt, when we no longer have the strength for anything, we recall where we were a year ago and how much has changed since then. How many opportunities the blog opened up for us, how many interesting events we participated in, how many wonderful people we met!
Of course, not everything went as planned, life verified some of our ideas and plans, but on the other hand, we also did things and developed in directions we hadn’t planned at all (such as video or graphic design).
But to make the tradition come true, following the pattern of previous years, we are throwing in a list of our greatest travel memories of 2018. And importantly, we specifically call this list, a list of memories, because it’s not about how famous or popular places we’ve seen, but it’s about what events and places have uniquely stuck in our minds.
Phew, it was not easy to choose only 10 memories…. We have a whole lot of them, and that’s what’s most important about traveling, even the close ones!
For this year, we didn’t set super ambitious plans to write two posts a week or publish at least two photos a day on the feed on Instagram ;) We knew it wouldn’t work, and unrealistic goals cause frustration. In fact, we wrote about this in our 2017 summary – we wanted to focus on what really makes us happy.
Also, we can’t say as we did last year that there was little of Poland, because there was definitely more, especially of the Lodz province.
>>> See our entry: 100 reasons we love Poland!
So what was missing? We lacked rest during the trips. So even though we assumed that traveling was about pleasure in the first place, old habits and the desire to share great places took over.
Is there anything wrong with that? I think we’ve gotten into the habit of doing this and it’s our way of relaxing. About halfway through the year, we decided that in order for the writing of the blog not to overshadow everything, we needed to loosen up and we went a few times to places we didn’t even mention on the blog or social media. Maybe someday we will write about them, but they were our little vacations from everything. After all, everyone deserves such a vacation :)
Plans are already in place, but as always we’ll see how it goes, even more so when our team of travelers expands…. soon :) For the time being, we don’t have ANY airline tickets purchased for 2019! It’s a strange feeling, because as a rule, once we come back from one trip, there’s already another one waiting in line. Yes, we have plans, even already quite specific, but we are waiting for the next member of the family to arrive, get a passport, and set off on another trip!
Other than that, we continue to do our thing! We work, travel, write a blog…. and we want to inspire and encourage you to travel whether in smaller or larger groups! :)
And that would be it. We end traditionally with wishes of a Merry Christmas to you and your families and many fantastic trips in the next year!
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