You may have noticed that this blog has gone silent over the past couple of months. Or maybe you haven’t. Or maybe you aren’t even reading anymore.
If you are, or you were wondering what the hell happened, I can assure you, nothing serious. I wasn’t physically harmed and I didn’t fall ill. I guess, about halfway through the trip, I had a bit of a change of heart toward blogging. Now, with 11 days left before I return to the United States and 1 day into my 12 days as a solo traveler, I’m going to start again. I have the notes. I have the photos. I have the memories.
Now, I feel, I can write about all that has happened..
You see, about a month and half after I left Korea I realized that blogging was actually getting in the way of traveling. I would constantly stress about what I would do next, just so I could have something interesting to write about. If Tara and I were planning on going out to dinner, I’d order meals just because I thought I needed to blog about eating that particular dish. And if the lighting wasn’t good enough, hell, I’d freak out. On days where we had a lot of activities planned and I didn’t have as much time to write as I’d planned, I would feel guilty. The same thing would happend if I wanted to sit in a hammock and read a book. So then I would force myself to write some half assed posts, which were mostly boring and uninspired.
I soon realized that this was ridiculous. I had worked hard to save money in Korea so I could go on this trip. I’d spent nearly two years planning it. I have no idea if I’ll ever get the opportunity to travel like this again. Why am I spending my time feeling stressed and guilty when I could be slurping down Thai iced tes and bowls of pho?
Once I stopped feeling like I had to blog about every little thing I did, I started to think about the probably thousands of blog posts I had read about Southeast Asia before embarking on this little adventure. And it was then that I became a little jaded with the idea of travel blogging itself. Even posts as benign as tips to make travel easier, actually make travel sound harder than it is. I had about seven million worries and concerns and fears before I left, only to find out that everything is actually really easy. Like, ridiculously easy. Yeah, maybe sometimes your van sucks or you end up paying a dollar or two more than you should’ve, but overall, traveling southeast Asia is a breeze.
Then I started thinking about all these posts by people who have these, like, life changing, existential experiences everywhere they go. No. Just no. When you are crammed in the back of the van with 12 people and their suitcases and no air-con and a Russian man who won’t stop smoking, there is no life lesson to be learned. Except that maybe I have more will power against killing than I’d originally thought and that some people are just assholes. Travel does change you, but is every day some profound learning experience? Hell no.
But it didn’t end there. Somehow, I managed to bring my contempt with the travel blogging community back to myself. Maybe I was a bad traveler. There were times when I thought to myself that long term travel was the worst thing out there. I was exhausted. I was sick of seeing temples. I wanted to drink an IPA and eat a Domino’s thin crust pizza while sitting on a couch watching reruns of some Bravo reality show. I was over bugs and the thought of a hostel dorm room horrified me.
But then two things happened.
I got into a travel groove.
And I realized I never really wanted to be a travel blogger.
You see, I want to be a writer. And I figured the best way to gain some experience and break into the industry would be to start blogging. But then I got dragged into the whole travel blogging realm of Facebook groups and comments and niches and press trips. I’m a competitive person and suddenly it wasn’t about my writing anymore, it was about being one of the best. With the most readers. Thousands of Facebook likes. A bunch of retweets.
It took a while, but after I stopped blogging, I finally remembered why I started.
To write.
So now I’m going to take all of these notes, memories, and experiences and write about them however I want. I’m not going to think about SEO or retweets or comments. I’m going to think about the best way to express my story and my life over the past four months and beyond. I’m going to blog the way that makes me happy. The way that made me enjoy it in the beginning.
Hopefully it will make me a better writer.
Hopefully it will give me something to look back on in the future.
And hopefully some of you still read it…
(BTW, I don’t hate the entire travel blogging community. There are a lot of you I really love and respect as writers and bloggers. These were just some of my frustrations.)
I tend to neglect my blog sometimes too, for various reasons (but usually when I’m unhappy), but I figure that in the end, your blog should make you happy. Whether it be as a full time job, or to showcase your writing when you feel like writing
Erica recently posted..Tapas for Lunch
I agree. If it doesn’t make you happy, you gotta find out why and change it.
Great post, Amanda – I did wonder what had happened to you! I experienced a similar thing last year. Every waking hour was consumed with blogging or teaching. I let myself get out of shape, I was doing things for the sake of blogging about them. So I took a break for a few weeks, regrouped, and then came to the conclusion that I still wanted to write about my travels and life as an expat.
TBEX in Toronto actually made me realise that I don’t want to make a living off being a travel blogger, though. There was too much focus on money, very little focus on travel, and very little focus on writing skills. I feel that some of the most successful travel bloggers out there are actually pretty poor writers who just know a lot about SEO.
I’ve started focusing more on my writing. Still doing three posts per week, but not stressing about page views, comments, retweets.
And omg YES to what you say about not everything being a life lesson. Sometimes I feel like a bad traveller because I’m thinking, “what profound things have you learned today? Nothing.” I think I’m learning to be more confident, more empathetic, and more self-sufficient through travel. But I’m not having epiphanies on a daily basis or writing wishy-washy posts on why travel is so amazing that actually have very little substance.
Tom @ Waegook Tom recently posted..Tom’s Travel Awards: Colombia
Thank you, Tom! It makes me happy that other can relate and feel the same way. I was always stressed about blogging in Korea, but it amplified tremendously when I got on the road. Interesting about TBEX. I do feel that a lot of bloggers are poor writers, which is unfortunate for the industry. I would love to see more emphasis placed on storytelling. Or correct grammar. Or style. SOMETHING!
Also, I’ve loved all your posts since your trip started. Interesting, informative, but different from what I could read everywhere else.
This is extremely well written and it is great that you had a chance to reflect upon what makes you happy…
On the selfish i do hope that you enjoying writing so much that you end up writing a travel essay of your experiences…
Thank you Andrew! I will definitely be writing a lot more about this trip in the near future!
Awesome post! I can really relate. I put a lot of blogging pressure on myself too and wonder why some blogs are so popular and others are not. I actually stopped reading a lot of travel blogs because I was just so bored of the same writing and boring short posts and press trips press trips press trips.
And for my blog, sometimes it feels like no one is reading my posts except my mom so why bother?? But like you, the whole reason I started my blog was to write and share photos and if others like to look at them, great
Anyways, I’m really looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip!
Amanda recently posted..The Sights of Big Sur
Thanks, Amanda! I feel like blogging can be one of the more discouraging pursuits, because even if you start for yourself, part of you wants others to read and enjoy.
Good to see your back and on your terms – although I was hoping of reading more of your travels after we met
Alana – Paper Planes recently posted..>> Moment of: Walking on Glass Sidewalks >>
Thanks Alana! And yes, I did drop the ball soon after we met lol. I will get back on that, though! Loved hearing about your Blog House adventures.
I had to do the same as well. It’s so hard to keep up blogging while on the road. I started to just focus on what I liked sharing….pictures and tidbits and held off on posts I just didn’t have time for. In all honestly, I started to get annoyed with travelbloggers who were also backpacking and were sharing stuff ALL THE TIME. I just wanted to shake them and be like, “Don’t you do anything else than tell people about everything you are doing…alll the time??”
That’s my vent haha. I sure hope I don’t do that. Mostly with traveling and having a blog, I’ve learned about how I DON’T want to do it.
Do it on your own terms. At least you’ll be more proud of it that way.
Jessica Wray recently posted..Month Four and a Half: The End of the Road….for now.
That’s basically how I feel. While actually on the road I realized how ridiculous the nearly constant updates are. How do people enjoy anything? I feel like I now have a much better grasp on how to travel and what kind of travel blogger I want to be.
As a soon-to-be expat American teaching English in Korea, I’ve been rather inspired to have found your blog, for what that’s worth. But your mission, to write, is compelling one and you should pursue it with every ounce of energy you can muster. If you’re writing how-to’s or compelling existential pieces makes no difference–write what and how you want to write. You’re a very GOOD writer, which is already putting you ahead of the curve there (there are a lot of not-so-good blogs out there).
Keep at it and have fun doing it–because when writing becomes a chore, it stops being an art. And you never want to lose the art.
Love and hugs from California (for now!).
Robyn
Thank for the nice comment, Robyn! Good luck in Korea- it’s an amazing place
It’s so refreshing to hear someone else say what I’ve been thinking for a while! I’ve stopped reading several of the “big” travel bloggers because I think their writing is sloppy and uninteresting. I want to read posts by people who are excited by travel and are sharing genuine experiences not motivated by money. I look forward to seeing how your writing career develops!
Heather recently posted..Hong Kong Museum of History: Where the Past Comes to Life
Thanks, Heather! I’ve stopped reading a lot those blogs, as well, for the same reasons. I’m glad there are others who agree!
You know what’s weird? How NOT having a life epiphany every 12 seconds is somehow considered the outlier. I’ve always been suspicious of people who say something–anything–”changed their life.” Particularly if it was something mundane or boring, or just not very good. How firm a grasp could someone possibly have had on the world if their view of reality was thoroughly shattered by reading whatever quick-read bestseller made it to the pinnacle of the New York Times fiction list?
You know who doesn’t have a life epiphany constantly? People who had a good sense of what’s important to begin with.
And everyone goes through ups and downs on the road. Sometimes you’re burning with passion to see EVERY temple you possibly can, and sometimes you just want to savor a mojito in a hammock and do nothing for 12 hours. You can always blog retrospectively, and save your writing time for downtempo days. No one will know the difference anyway.
OCDemon recently posted..Fun things to do in Kiev
This is probably the best comment I’ve ever received on my blog. Thank you. I don’t really have anything to say, because you’ve already said it so well and I agree with everything.
Amanda, thanks for sharing your change in perspective on your trip. I guess that at some point you need to decide if you are blogging as a business or as a hobby.
If you are running a business, hopefully you would also be claiming some of your costs to do the trip and be trying to leverage that investment as much as possible – by blogging and sharing everything and trying to grow your audience so you can make money from advertising and cross promotions.
If you are running your blog as a hobby then you have a choice. You can choose to plan and enjoy your trip, sure maybe keep a diary and take copious numbers of photos – but – wait until your trip is over or you have some time off your trip to actually blog about it.
It sounds like you have chosen the second option so perhaps your blog is really a hobby, not a business. As you have said it is easy to get sucked into the world of travel blogging and maybe not stop and think about (or lose track of) your goal for your blog. Once you have made a conscious choice of whether you are in business or running a hobby then that provides a framework for your actions and you should act accordingly.
I hope you have had a great trip!
Pretraveller recently posted..NEW! Awesome Australian 2WD Road Trips: Darwin to Katherine on the Stuart Highway
Thanks for the comment. I agree with some of what you’ve said, but I also believe there is a place in between. I run my blog not necessarily as a business (I do make some money from it), but I don’t want it to run my life. Also, there are plenty of blogs out there that are run as a business that are full of uninspired, and sometimes terrible, writing. I don’t want to get to that point. I want to blog because I love to write, not only because I want to grow an audience and make as much money as possible. My blog is more than a hobby, more than a way to remember or share with people back home what I’m doing, but I also want it to be something enjoyable. Something I’m proud of. Something that is more of a showcase of my writing.
Thanks for this post. I’m at a tipping point right now and trying to decide whether to apply myself more to my blogging, grow my audience, and try to make money off it or just to keep it as a fun hobby that I do on my own terms.
Michele {Malaysian Meanders} recently posted..Getting a Lock on Love in Paris
It’s a really tough decision. I do believe, though, that there is a way to have it both ways. You just need to make sure you don’t let the money take all the fun out of it.
This is wonderful and very honest. And a wonderful reminder to myself as I am about to go to Cambodia and Vietnam and have decided to take my laptop with me for the first time. I will keep your words in mind.
I like what Anaïs Nin said – We write to taste life twice. But I guess we mustn’t forget the proper living it in the first place.
I really like that quote! I think, like you said, writing isn’t the problem, it’s when writing gets in the way of actually living. Enjoy Cambodia and Vietnam- they are my favorites!
Good for you, girl!
This is exactly why I’ve never strictly categorised my blog as a ‘travel blog’. I write about travel and living abroad because it’s a big part of my life but I never wanted to limit myself when it came to what I wrote about. I’m a writer and I’m going to write about whatever I want. 
Plus I much prefer to read a blog that’s a bit more personal. I don’t like too many travel blogs because they can all tend to lose that personalised experience and sound too robotic … almost as though I’m reading a Lonely Planet guide or something. And while that might be useful for when I’m planning my travels, I like to read blogs for fun and experience life through someone else’s eyes.
I hope that makes sense. Haha
Anyway, don’t put so much pressure on yourself, hun. Write what you want to write, when you want to write. About the big things and the little things.
Ceri recently posted..The Midnight Bubble Tea Run
Great post – as a blogger, journalist or writer (basically any freelance gig), that constant horrible feeling that you should be doing something / writing something inspiring / seeking out the best restaurant etc. to write about can get pretty draining. It’s a bit like that feeling at university when an essay you should be writing is constantly hanging over you.
I’m really glad you took a few months off to get some head space – your blog is fantastic and I imagine taking a step back will allow you to write even more personal and inspiring posts. Can’t wait to read them and good luck
Victoria Ellen Lee recently posted..Florence from the sky: Climbing the Fairytale Campanile
Hello,
I’ve been sporadically reading your blog for a while. I found you through searching for info on teaching English in Korea (you gave some insightful tips, by the way). Not really sure if I’ve ever commented, but this post really struck a chord with me. You’ve offered insight into the realities and frustrations of blogging with a happy ending: your return to doing what you love. Thank you for your honesty and inspiration. Happy writing.
Thank you so much Staci! It’s comments like these that make me want to blog even more. Good luck with Korea!
I agree wuth what you wrote so much…I’m trying to always have my attention on what I want to do, and on not making it become what I HAVE to do. Ciao!
Mae recently posted..Palace Demesne and Friary ad Armagh – Irlanda del Nord
That’s a really good way to look at it, Mae! Hard to achieve, maybe, but worth trying