2017 Wrap Up: A Year of Creating Travel Content, Memories & Inspiration

As the year comes to an end, I am taking stock of everything. Friendships (both online and offline), relationships, career, and bosses, my walk with God and everything else in between. I am not sure what it is about this time of the year that makes me extra vigilant, extra conscious and extra protective of my time, space, and attention. But, I’m here for it.

Edit your life frequently and ruthlessly, it is your masterpiece after all. – Nathan W. Morris

The other day, I spent half an hour unsubscribing from mailing lists that no longer add value to me. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that, time and seasons change, and it’s important to let go of what no longer serves you. Granted, I used to be a huge fan of Pizza Hut but not anymore, so why do I need to keep getting those promo emails in my inbox daily? Unsubscribe.

I think taking stock and re-evaluating is an act of self-care too.  Like Brianna said, self-care is not always salt baths and chocolate cakes and it isn’t always a beautiful thing. It can be a painful process.

Self-care is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution. – Brianna Wiest

In the spirit of self-care, re-evaluating, and taking stock, I have done some evaluation of this blog to understand what works and what doesn’t in order to stay true to its original purpose: To inspire young adults and millennials to live a full and wholesome life through travel.

In an attempt to take stock of my blog for the year 2017, I went through my emails, gathered data from my Google Analytics, and read through some comments. Here’s what I gathered…

1.) You love to save and find great deals.

Well, duh! Who doesn’t? If Beyonce claims to be frugal, what’s the rest of us to do? So, this wasn’t exactly a revelation, it was more a reminder of how much you love posts geared towards cost-savings, traveling on a budget, getting airline deals, and the likes. My travel finance series was popular too.

2.) You love Instagram-worthy locations and trends.

Do it for the gram’ they say. Instagram has played a huge role in influencing travel destinations. This summer, it seemed like everyone was in Cuba, Bali, Paris or Morocco. Those destinations were all over my Instagram feed and it felt like airlines took notice and started churned out good deals to those places too. This year, I certainly saw a rise in engagement when I posted Instagram worthy locations vs. Off the beaten paths. It’s amazing what strikes our cords.

3.) You love a great travel tip.

Sharing travel tips is something I love to do constantly and one of my major content goals this year was to share even more travel tips with you and I am really glad you loved it too. Whether it is on choosing a great travel partner, advice on getting travel insurance, or how you might want to ditch your bucket list in order to travel more, knowledge is often chosen over fluff.

[bctt tweet=”This year, I loved reading this travel blog. You should check it out.” username=”theufuoma”]

4.) You love it when I think out loud.

This year, I used this platform to get a few things off my chest and it’s amazing how so many people can connect with that. From the time when I complained about being travel shamed, to the time when I went on a rant about how travel has given off a false sense of superiority, I’ve definitely offloaded on here.

6.) You love predictability.

I think as human beings, we are kind of wired that way. We want to be able to predict things to a large extent. And so, when I started a new blog schedule of weekly Friday posts, you seemed to like the predictability.  I saw more people “check in” on the blog on Fridays just because they were expecting something new. It was amazing.

7.) Finally, you love it when I bring other people on.

Maybe you got tired of my face from time to time. Understood, okay? Haha. But the ‘guest inspiration‘ corner of the blog got major love from you. I know you can argue that the reason this is the case is that, said guests share the content with their own tribe and that in turn brings more people on. I agree that’s a factor. But in general, I know it’s great to switch things up (and faces, too!) from time to time.

In general, 2017 has been a beautiful year of creating travel content, advice and inspiration. I have loved sharing bits and pieces of my travel journey with you and I hope you have enjoyed it too and are inspired. If you are on my mailing list, you already know that this is my last post of the year. I will be taking the rest of the year off to enjoy some downtime with family and friends, plan more exciting content for 2018, and get my house in order. Thank you for all your love and support in 2018.

One more thing before we go. An ask, a big one. I’ll love if you can support me by filling out this quick feedback form for this blog. I want to hear from you. Yes, YOU. By doing so, you’ll be helping me get better in the new year. Thank you so much and I look forward to hearing from you.

Also, what will you be evaluating and taking stock of before the year runs out? Let me know in the comments. Whatever you decide to take stock of, I wish you an amazing end-of-year and I will see you in the new year.

PS: Don’t forget to fill out my blog feedback form here. It’ll help me understand your needs, where you are from, your preferences, etc so I can create better content for you in 2018. Thanks for your help.

Love and light,

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12 Comments

  1. Hi Ufuoma!
    I’ll miss you.
    However, I do respect the fact that you need this and I appreciate it, in fact. Some times we do not allow ourselves grow to be better because we ate looking for perfection, and that is not fair to us.
    I thoroughly enjoyed your journey through this blog so very well this year. Thank you so much for sharing!! Really looking forward to The Ufuoma’s 2018!!!!
    http://www.desireuba.wordpress.com

    1. Thank you so much for all your support this year. You’re always cheering me on and I really appreciate that. Looking forward to catching up with you soon! Thanks Desire!

  2. I’ve totally enjoyed reading your blog this year Ufuoma. Your travel tips were so helpful and your travel diaries so interesting to read, really can’t wait to see the things you have planned for 2018. I love the quote you shared about self-care. I strongly believe that re-eveluation is an important but often overlooked aspect of self care. Sometimes it isn’t about sheet masks and Netflix binges. See you next year! xx
    Coco Bella Blog

    1. Thank you Demilade for constantly being a ray of sunshine around here. Thanks for the love and support and I can’t wait to catch up with you next year. All my love!

  3. What a year for you. You are such an inspiration. I went from supporting because I had to, to genuine love and appreciation for your blog (did you notice when the switch happened?) I can def relate to checking your blog on Fridays (Saturday – time diff).
    I will be evaluating my life, my goals, my relationships.
    Will miss your post!
    Merry Christmas In Advance.

    1. I did notice darling! Thank you for all your support. You’ve been amazing and I couldn’t have asked for a better friend. Love you. Merry Christmas in advance!

  4. What a year! Sounds like you had a great time and good on you for taking time off – I may follow your lead on this. Especially over the holiday period, it’s nice to focus on friends and family. Thanks for sharing!

    1. I did! It’s been an amazing year and I am looking forward to seeing what 2018 holds. Have a great one Amy.

  5. Definitely get what you mean about taking stock of everything. VERY important. I’m here for the tips and thinking out loud posts like this one. Love you consistency and originality!

  6. Hahaha you summed this up really nice.
    The instagram worthy one. I experience it too. Cuba wak my most liked pictures so far. And I saw yours was shared all over too. Now lets see what next year is going to be like.

    1. Yes! Haha Cuba was incredibly popular. For next year, I really cannot guess what it will be. We’ll have to find out. Thank you!

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