Oh my god Becky, look at her Blog!

It’s here; 19 months in the making, from the first thought until publishing day, today.

I remember talking to a friend at Easter in 2017 about all the blogs I had started reading and how Id signed up to “Bloglovin” and downloaded the app, so I could follow my favourite Bloggers and read about their latest adventures and gather all their hints, tips and advice. I mentioned in passing “oh I could do that, I’ve got heaps of experience and advice from the 40ish countries I’ve been to”

I had spent January 2017, whilst travelling through Scandinavia, taking notes on things that I believed would make good blog posts. At least information that I would be interested in reading…. But then did nothing with it! I had no clue how to start a blog

Even after the conversation with my friend, I still didn’t actively do anything to start my own blog. But what I did do is research. A shit tonne of it!! I started following more bloggers, I spent more time on Instagram, I signed up to different online courses and I read and observed as much as I could. I read articles on the tram on the way to work and I bought the books released by some of my favourite bloggers. In September 2017, a few months out from my next trip to Brazil and Argentina, I decided it was time to really get serious and make a go of this.

This blog represents the months of research, the months of coming up with names, narrowing it down to one I liked, to only find that it was already in use, signing up for Bluehost, registering my URL, signing up for WordPress and then the countless late nights trying to figure out what the heck I was doing on WordPress to build the website.

This was like learning a new language while being blind and deaf. I was completely out of my comfort zone and some nights out of my mind, close to tears and ready to throw my laptop through the nearest window.

I’m no techy, obviously. I can work my way around a computer and a website but to BUILD one. What was I thinking? Who did I think I was, building a bloody website?

It took me, no joke, days to figure out I had to get out of my WordPress theme to upload content… it was laughable and so damn obvious once I finally worked it out. I couldn’t distinguish between making my website look pretty by adjusting a theme to uploading content and photos through the dashboard. Dumbass!

Then I had to figure out the difference between a post and a page, a category and a tag and don’t even get me started on plugins, widgets, analytics, focus words and SEO….

But I persisted. I kept reading, I kept watching YouTube tutorials and I kept playing and adjusting my site. As with anything new, you start doing it slowly and you persist if it’s important enough to you, and finally, it all begins to make sense. I was getting the hang of things, slowly but surely.

It is still a work in progress and I’m not suggesting for a minute that this site is going to blow your mind, or that I’ve figured everything out. But what I have done I’m super dam proud of.

When you read my article’s, (and there will be some general journaling thrown in for good measure) I hope you can gain some help and advice from my experiences. I hope you appreciate my writing and are not too harsh with me, but I want you to see past the articles too.

I want you to look at the website itself. The website that I have built. The page, menus, links and layout that I have designed and built. The website that did not exist 8 months ago, but only in my imagination.

This site took time, a lot of time, persistence and resilience. It took blood, sweat and tears. There has been a huge amount of fears and doubts, as well as a lot of procrastination, that have crept in along the way. No one will like it, I’m not a writer, who do I think I am trying to be a blogger? Were all regular thoughts I was having, and to be honest, still creep in. (I was seriously going to launch this before I left 8 weeks ago!)

At the end of the day, it has been a labour of love that I have undertaken, in the hope to help OTHERS. What I’m still learning about building a website, I do know about travelling. I have been “practising” that for the past 20 years, and that’s what I can talk about. I am the only one that has had MY personal experience of travelling. Whilst there might be a saturated market of travel bloggers out there, I’m the only one with my experiences and my voice.

It’s been my one true passion and will continue to be and I hope that this will assist at least one other traveller.

I want to use this platform to show you how to travel, where to travel, how I go about it and ways to do it on a medium to low budget. And I want to show women that you can and most definitely should travel solo. It is so empowering, rewarding, humbling and character building.

And what better way than now.

I am 8 weeks into my six-month backpacking SOLO trip around South East Asia. This trip will take me to a few countries I have visited before but the majority I have not. I booked my first week’s hostel accommodation in Malaysia prior to leaving Australia and that was it. I have a rough idea of the route I will take, due to the number of visa’s I must apply for, but mostly I’m just winging it for the next six months, and I am so damn excited about it. I’ve already made my way through southern Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and now Vietnam. I’ve 4 months left and so many more adventures and experiences to have and to write about, so with being said….

 

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