Happy birthday Travel Jael! It’s been three whole years since I took the leap and finally made my travel blog dream come true.
There have been ups and there have been downs during these years, but here we still are!
In this blog post I look back over the past three years and share what’s been happening. You’ll also find out how many readers I have, in which countries people read my blog and which posts are the most popular.
Three Years of Travel Blogging
Two years ago, when Travel Jael turned one, I wrote a post where I looked back at what I’d accomplished and what hadn’t gone as planned.
In this post I also shed some light on the whole process of starting the blog, like for instance why I wanted to travel blog, how I created the blog and what I’ve learned.
You’ll find the post here: One Year of Travel Blogging – How Is Travel Jael Doing?
Working as a Journalist by Day
As I mention in the post from 2019 I got a fixed-term position at one of Finland’s biggest daily newspapers just a few months into travel blogging.
In December 2020 that position became permanent. Hurray for the steady income, but not so great for this blog as I seldom have the energy to continue writing at home after writing all day at work.
Global Pandemic and Health Issues
In addition to being busy working as a news reporter 2020 proved to be a real whirlwind of a year. It felt as if everything was turned upside down, with the whole coronavirus situation, restrictions and closed borders.
I also struggled with my health so I took a longer break from travel blogging. Fortunately I’m doing so much better these days and could resume writing blog posts in March 2021. Since then things have continued to steadily improve, so yay!
You can read more about why I had to take a break from blogging in 2020 in this blog post: Surviving 2020: A Rough Twelve Months
Slowing Down
When I started travel blogging in 2018 my goal was to write one post per week. Reading about that in my one-year anniversary post from 2019 almost made me laugh out loud. These days I’m happy if I manage one post per month!
On the other hand I’ve built up quite a nice reservoir of blog posts from around the world, so there’s not as much pressure to produce new content as there was in the beginning with a more or less empty blog.
Surprising Results
With the global pandemic and the enormous impact it had on the travel industry I was sure no one would be interested in reading travel content. You can read more about my thoughts on travel blogging during the corona crisis in this blog post from March 2020: Travel Blogging During the Coronavirus Crisis
At first readers almost completely disappeared just as I expected. But in August 2020 they suddenly returned. Except now there were more and more of them every day!
The weirdest part was that at this time I wasn’t writing blog posts at all as I struggled with my chronic migraine. For months and months I never even logged on to Travel Jael. So imagine my surprise and delight when I finally returned to travel blogging in March 2021 to find my site stats at an all-time high!
Travel Tips From Finland
I haven’t travelled abroad in nearly two years now due to the pandemic, which of course is something I miss immensely. It’s one of my biggest passions in life, after all.
However, without the possibility to travel globally, I’ve been forced to explore my own home country and appreciate all the beautiful places we have here in Finland. It might be cold and dark for a large part of the year, but we do have some really nice destinations.
For some reason I thought blog posts about places in Finland wouldn’t be a hit with my readers. But it’s been a nice surprise to see that a couple of these posts have even become some of my most popular!
How Many Readers Do I Have and Where?
When I started travel blogging it seemed almost no one read this blog. And for several months it was very quiet.
However, once I had produced a couple of really popular posts I started to see an increase in the amount of readers.
Today I have an average of around 1.000-1.500 readers every month. Maybe to some of you this doesn’t sound like a lot, but taking into account that this is something I have achieved completely organically without any marketing whatsoever in the super saturated world of travel blogging, I’d say it’s not that bad.
Most of my readers are in the USA and the UK.
In the beginning I was surprised to see how few readers I had in my home country Finland. In the past two years this has changed. Today Finland is one of the countries where I have the most readers – coming in third after USA and UK.
Top Five Countries
- USA
2. UK
3. Finland
4. Mexico
5. Italy
What Posts Do My Readers Like?
It’s funny to look at the list of most popular blog posts I wrote in my one-year anniversary post from 2019. My post with interesting facts about El Castillo in Chichen Itzá and my complete guide for visiting cenote Sac Actun are still clinging on to those top spots, just like they were in 2019!
Of course the list is not completely identical. Looking back at the most popular posts during these past six months my post with interesting facts about El Castillo has been bumped down to second place and my guide for visiting Sac Actun has fallen down to third place.
Meanwhile my post with tips for the Amalfi Drive has climbed up all the way to number one.
In fourth place you can find my post about visiting Helsinki’s sunflower fields. This post was even my most popular one during the peak season for sunflowers!
And in fifth place we have my post about visiting Roihuvuori’s Cherry Park and seeing Helsinki’s Hanami.
Top Five Posts During the Last 6 Months
2. Nine Interesting Facts About El Castillo in Chichen Itzá
3. The Complete Guide to Visiting Cenote Sac Actun
4. A Pocketful of Sunshine – The Complete Guide to Visiting Helsinki’s Sunflower Fields
5. Helsinki’s Hanami Magic – How To See Roihuvuori’s Cherry Park In Full Bloom
Thank You For Reading Travel Jael
Although travel blogging the way I do it takes a lot of time and effort, it’s totally worth it. Every time you guys reach out and thank me for my posts it really makes my day!
So a big thank you to all of you reading: I’m so happy you’re here to share this journey with me!
