Blog, Blog, Blogging Away

10

Journey Jottings blog

celebrates 2 years

A great opportunity to take a walk down memory lane and revisit travel topics we’ve talked about.

We’ve covered fun travelling tales, including yours via the monthly themed Facebook Travelling Tales, as well as sharing some of mine in Tales of a Traveller.

I’ve also illustrated ways to use your Australia Map Journal including the creation of an annual Year at a Glance summary sheet.

I’ve asked What travel means to you? And Do you have a Medical Case of Wanderlust?

All scattered with Australia travel photographs of  Australian flora, fauna and landscape.

Anniversaries mark the end of one cycle, and herald the start of another.

Cycles re-volve while we e-volve ~ Even trying to stay static things change so while its inevitable we’re in a different spot today to where we stood this time last year, its encouraging that the path we’ve wandered has reflected positively with a burgeoning readership.

Statistics

My gut instinct tells me all I need to know, but for those who can’t see or feel that, here are some diagrams to illustrate the direction this blog is heading. (With facts and figures out of the way I’ll then review the great content we’ve covered :) )

BlogStatsMay09_11

The Subscribers diagram above shows the last two years of subscriptions to the blog ~ The left half illustrates a fairly flat first year, after which there’s been a steady rise over the course of this second year -

The visitors have doubled :)

2010Stats_red

Last year there was a 30% bounce rate but this year only 25% have taken a quick peak and run, which is good to hear as 75% of visitors to the site are new.

Our Alexa ranking has improved -

This time last year (2010) our site was ranked at

  • Alexa    2, 101, 752 in the world and
  • Alexa         125, 054 in Australia.

Alexa_May2011_500

Now, our Alexa ranking (May 2011) is:

  • Alexa   234, 353 in the world and
  • Alexa         3, 063 in Australia

Which, reflects the increase in RSS and email subscribers, as well as new visitors – (Is coming down from two million to two hundred thousand a 90% improvement?)

In the first year, I put up 150 posts, including a series of extracts from an 1878 journal by a man sailing aboard a clipper from England to Australia to start a fresh life ~ I wanted to illustrate how jotting a few things down on our journeys transcends time and reading his daily entries are entertaining even 130 years later ~ maybe more so?

This year we made 80 posts, focusing on the following travel topics:

 

Facebook Tales

Highlighting *your* holiday adventures is fun ~

Fun for both the teller of the tale and the listener.

I love short, non-fluffy reminders of travelling adventures so in July 2010 we started featuring your tales -

Around the middle of each month we put up a theme, so there’s a couple of weeks to add your tale to our Facebook Page Wall before I collate them, with images, and put up a monthly post here on our blog ~ Facebook allow only 420 char in a comment so the maximum length is pre-determined to a quick and easy to post short and sweet length.

Jot a few memories and share your tale!

Your contributions have been fantastic -

These are the tales we’ve themed so far (click on the link to read more!):

Karajini ~ Pilbara (Photo by NeilsPhotography)

Photo by Curtis Morton-Lowerlighter

Rick Stacey and the Shelter Box that he will pull across New Zealand

Christmas in PARIS by Sally Foley Lewis

photo by Kaylene Higgs

Guinea Pig for Dinner

Romance_GFrew Wedding

Romance in the Mediterranean

The Man Port William Scotland

The Man, taking a break from walking the dog

And next week we’re putting up your tales about:

  • Mystery or Surprise Travelling Tales ~ Do you have a tale to tell of being whisked away to a surprise location, or venturing off the trail to some un-researched mystery destination? Add it to our Facebook Page for inclusion NOW


Tales of a Traveller

Travelling tales about on the road scenarios


I shared a few of my own travelling tales ~ Posting:

Its amazing how many travelling folk bump into people they know from a previous time in their lives when away in far flung crevices of the globe! Numerous travellers left comments recounting their experience of this phenomena.

Bust Ups, not  surprisingly, wasn’t such a popular topic to remind people about ;)

 

Year at a Glance series

Win:Win ~ Journey Jottings News & ‘How to’ Use our Map Journals combined

This series evolved to satisfy a combination of two needs ~

  1. I’m the worst when it comes to acknowledging what I’ve achieved or accomplished ~ I set myself a task, complete it and before drawing breath I’m onto the next thing with no recognition or pat on the back for what’s been completed so…
  2. Using a Map Journal, I vowed at the end of each month I’d record ONE highlight from the previous four weeks.

2010_All

This means that I’ll have Journey Jottings 2011 year at a glance simply summarized on a single sheet, which is fun for me, whilst illustrating a fun application of a Map Journal for something other than travel :)

 

How To Use your Map Journal

A series of posts to show you how to get the most out of your Map Journals

Categorized in the ‘Journalling Ideas’ section, these posts even included some videos.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAvtHx1V0A4[/youtube]

I also produced one monster post of

101 Ways to Use your Map Journal

in November, which being a signature post like

My 3 Best Kept Travel Secrets,

I added to the Menu Bar along the top of the blog here to make it easier to find :)

I’m planning on writing more posts about ‘How To’ as there are so many fun ways to quickly and simply express your trips with assorted pen colours, types and textures, creating different lines, symbols and diagrams that don’t require artistic skill – and are far less bothersome than writing up a travel tome each night ;)

 

Travel Topics

Here I covered general discussion points about travel ~ Like…

Photo Postcards

Australian landscape, flora and fauna

Our lives are so full of the written word many of my posts relating to Australia’s bush, rainforest and beaches are photo centric.

As thoughts start to wander towards the weekend,  I instigated a Photo Friday post highlighting a photograph of some beautiful Australian scene ~

 

Looking forward…

So where to in the future?

How have you enjoyed the last 80 posts? What were your favourites?

Are we on the right track? What did we glaringly miss?

What would you like to see? Have you a burning issue you’d like me to cover?

 

Would you like to be kept informed as new posts are published?

Click here to subscribe by email or RSS feed

And I look forward to seeing you here for our 3rd year :D

Rainbow visions for 2011

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Its New Year’s Eve!

An evening of optimism and anticipation ~

New Years Eve is like a rainbow ~

No matter how dark or stormy the end of year may be, a glimmer of sunshine always filters through to create a streaming arch of colour lifting you up, and over, and who knows, maybe to that elusive crock of gold awaiting on the other side!

Irks from the last year are shed, and possibilities for the new year planned ~

What dreams and aspirations lie somewhere over your rainbow?

Here in Queensland we’ve had wild weather over the festive season ~ In fact we saw record low temperatures in November, record rainfall in December and our dams that were dangerously low (down to 20% capacity) are now overflowing. But with that comes sights like this from our office window :)

What lies at the end of that rainbow?

Will 2011 be the year we find out? ;)

Keep me posted in the comments below!

So, Who is Linda?

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The wonderful Craig and Caz Makepiece of yTravel Blog hold a weekly “Post your URL”on their Facebook Page on Fridays ~

A random participant is drawn by number from the list and last week it was

—–> ME!! <—–

They promptly asked me some questions…

and this is what I said ;)

1. So, who is Linda?
Born in England, I couldn’t wait to go travelling!
I love the serendipity that happens when you step out into the unknown world of travel. I’d never heard of ‘cartography’ until, on the other side of the world, I got a job at Darwin airport interviewing tourists and crossed paths with a German named Henning. This chance meeting led to my pursuing a course in map-making, which in turn led to some amazing years mapping outback Australia.

2. Tell us about your travel blog and it’s purpose?
Holidays and travelling are full of amazing experiences ~ but that’s only the half of it!
Spending time with those memories when that moment for nostalgia strikes, whether that be a few weeks, a few months or even years later, is like taking a marvellous mini-trip… if you can remember it!
There seems to be a great divide between the pedantic journal writer who fills a tome, and those who don’t bother at all as it appears too much like hard work ~
I really want to spread the word that jotting a few bare essentials to help recall fading experiences and place names is the way to go. i.e. Don’t feel you have to compose the first draft of a finished manuscript!
I loved this description by Ant about his notebooks:-

“They offer a short, sharp and raw portal

to many of the places I’ve visited.”

My 3 Best Kept Travel Secrets give some pointers as to how to do this.

Scottish stamps and precious local postmarks :)

3. Why do you travel?
Serendipity ~ Being out there ensures all manner of unexpected delights will come your way.
Discovery ~ The wonder of bombarding all of my senses with fresh experiences and I’ll have to add to that… magnificent landscapes – luv landscape ;)
Change ~ What’s out there that’s different to what I already know and to what I’m familiar with?
 Generally, I take the tack that as soon as a place doesn’t feel as though I’m on holiday, its time to to explore elsewhere – Interestingly, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m constantly on the move – I love ‘travelling’ on what, for a period, will be my ‘home turf’ – Taking the time to see beyond the big picture so as to notice on a deeper level local idiosyncrasies and by remaining observant drink in the often overlooked little details that make up my current surrounds.
It otherwise seems so funny how there are people saving madly to visit where I live, while I’m dreaming of visiting where they live!

Sunrise in the Bay off Brisbane

4. Where have you visited so far?
Scandinavia up to Nordkapp, above the Arctic Circle. The big lap right around Australia, then overland Australia to GB, via Timor, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, then across Europe to England. USA – just Up-State NY then into Canada to do the east coast and Prince Edward Island. New Zealand.

Sculpture Treasure Hunt in Cairnsmore, Scotland

5. Favorite place to date?
Every place has its beauty -
I’m always excited broaching any new horizon :)
However… I did love Istanbul.
If you’re coming from Europe heading east it feels like the first real taste of the orient, but coming from the east (as I was) I was more struck by the Mediterranean influence. Having said that, the Blue Mosque and the Grand Bazaar are a-m-a-z-i-n-g LOL

6. What place has surprised you the most?
Seeing not only the splendor of colourful life in India, but in the streets of Calcutta, seeing death. It puts what we consider to be a struggle to survive into perspective.

7. Where are you currently and what are your future plans?
Currently living on an island in the Bay off Brisbane, where I’m publishing and distributing a range of hand drawn Australia ‘Journey Jottings’ Map Journals and Mail-It Maps that *highlight your holiday adventures*. Hoping to get a series of other countries happening – that will involve personal on the ground research of course ;)  Starting with GB as the Olympics are there in 2012.

8. How do we learn more about Linda?
Bare essentials for jotting your journey: http://journeyjottings.com/wp/best-kept-travel-secrets/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JourneyJottings
Twitter: http://twitter.com/journeyjottings
Web for Map Journals of Australia: http://www.journeyjottings.com

Have I missed anything?

What else would you like to know?

Happy to answer questions in the comments below ;)