Happy Two Year Anniversary To Us: Updates And Highlights From Year 2

Happy 2 Year Anniversary to us!! Two years ago from this very day we wrote our very first blog post ever! So much has happened in two years and it seems like both the longest and the shortest two years in the world! When we wrote our 1-year anniversary recap post last year, we thought we had learned a lot! Boy were we in for a lot more learning and growing than we could ever have imagined this year! Looking back on our 1-year recap and comparing it to this two-year recap is so much fun and we love seeing the hard work we put into the blog at every waking second of the day actually show in the numbers and growth.

We are going to follow the same format as last year but also compare to last year and will do the same in future years so we can keep track of the growth! Ready to see all the interesting things that happened this year?

Milestones from two years of travel blogging: 

174 posts written on our blog which means we wrote 77 new posts this year [97 in our first year]

54,200  Instagram Followers on our photography account [up from 32,000 on our first anniversary] and 23,800 Instagram followers on our travel blog account [up from 500 on our first anniversary]

10,363 Facebook Fans up from 6,154 in the first year

40,000 Twitter Followers up from 10,000 in our first year

9,300 Pinterest followers and 1.3 million monthly views on our boards up from 4,668 followers last year

Collaborated with over 41 companies/brands/tourism boards up from 32 in our first year

Where we traveled:

USA:

Florida | Oregon | New York | Arizona | Alaska

Canada:

Nova Scotia | New Brunswick | Quebec | Ontario | Newfoundland | Nunavut | Manitoba | Saskatchewan | Alberta | British Columbia [Only missed PEI and Yukon!]

Europe:

Ireland | France | Austria | Switzerland

Caribbean:

Turks and Caicos | St. Kitts | St. Thomas

South America:

Peru

Most popular posts:

1.  15 Things To Know Before Taking The Train Across Canada
2. 5 Things To Know About Grocery Stores In Iceland
3. The Ultimate 5 Day Iceland Road Trip Itinerary [Top 5 for the second year]
4. Iceland On A Budget: 5 Things You Are Forgetting To Save For
5. Don’t Go Out To Eat: 7 Tips For Visiting Iclenad On A Budget [Top 5 Year 2]

 

Top 5 most amusing Google searches leading to Follow Me Away:

1. Iceland women with their interracial couple
2. Icelanders are snobs
3. Pictures of nude hot springs
4. Naked girls at hot springs
5. In Epcot where are the bathrooms by imagination
6. BONUS: Hot naked people who like me

5 Things We Learned In Our Second Year Of Travel Blogging:

1. SEO IS SUPER IMPORTANT. Optimizing our website for SEO is something we always knew we should do but this year is the year we really took this to heart and cracked out a ton of optimized posts that rank #1 on Google search or on the first page. Helping our website grow organically is very important to us and we love thinking up new ways to help people on the web and then making sure they find our site through good SEO. We also learned to update old posts that had quality content but could use an extra bit of love on the SEO and photography side.
2. Monetizing Our Blog Is Super Awesome! This year we joined Mediavine which is the ad network you see on this site. This has been beyond fantastic for us and has helped us put more effort into creating this website. The money we have made has helped us upgrade our equipment, spend more money on the website, and have the ability to continue to do what we do. We wish we had signed up for an ad network earlier than we did but we are glad to be here now! We are also affiliates for a few companies such as Amazon where we recommend products we love to you! This has been an incredible way for us to really make our blog into a full-time business.
3. It is okay to say no/Don’t burn out! Our second year of travel blogging involved a TON of trips and a ton of brand partnerships. Although we sadly had to say no to speaking in the Maldives and a trip to Nepal which were both all-expense paid trips, we said yes to way too many trips last year and ended up burning out. As of this writing, we are still burnt out! Our goal for year 3 is to be more selective and to not burn out so we can truly enjoy travel and the partnerships we have! Read our full post about the past year here. 
4. Building our Facebook community has been so rewarding. This past year we started Follow Me Away Community which is our Facebook group for travel lovers, photography lovers, and followers of our brand. We currently have almost 1,500 people in our community and we wish we started this group earlier! We love giving support to everyone and encourage everyone to join if you aren’t in our community already. We provide tips for traveling, photography, blogging, and life. We are fun and non-judgemental and really and truly have a fantastic bunch of people in our group! Join here!
5. We can only rely on our own website. Sadly, social media algorithms have changed for the worse causing our photos and posts to be hidden even though we have tens of thousands of followers. This past year, we have really shifted a focus to making our website better and more user-friendly for our readers. If social media disappeared tomorrow, all we would have left is our website so we want to ensure that it is exactly what you are looking to read. Although we still spend a lot of time on social media as it is very important, we have also begun to put a lot of work into ensuring our website is helpful for our readers.

Top 5 Favorite Trips From Our Second Year Of Travel Blogging:

1. Taking the train across Canada from Halifax to Vancouver for 18 days
2. Taking our first river cruise along the Seine river in France
3. Heading above the Arctic Circle to Nunavut and walking on icebergs on the Arctic Ocean
4. Our epic trip to Mayo, Ireland including jumping off cliffs in October
5. Heading back to Oregon and exploring some epic photography locations 

 

We had a busy and successful year and we appreciate your support every step of the way! We could not do what we do without you. We are always here to answer your questions and love to get emails and messages from our friends around the world. Thank you for coming on this journey with us and supporting our travels! We will see you next year!