6 years ago today, I sat down and bought this space on the internet. I wanted to share my travels with more people, to offer tips and advice, and to let other people around the world go away with Maja.

I’ve written these reflection posts every year since I started blogging. You can catch up on my previous posts about 6 months, 1 year, 18 months, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, and 5 years of blogging.

As I sat down to write this post, all I could think was, “what do I even have to write about?!” Last year’s blog-a-versary recap was during one of the most exceedingly painful periods of my life. You can read more about how I survived and my thoughts a year on here.

In terms of my blog, I really haven’t done much with it in the last year. For so much of the last year since my 5-year blog-a-versary post, I was barely alive. I focused solely on surviving. Then, as things got better, I was so overjoyed to be living my life for me and so grateful to be alive and to have made it to the other side, that I was too busy living to blog. I don’t have any regrets at all about this – I spent my time hiking, camping, exploring, seeing friends, going home to my family, generally just living life. I was too busy living my life offline, to put my time and energy into sharing online. It was well-needed and, I think, well-deserved. But having that separation also made me realize: I do really love blogging! I do enjoy it and I want to keep it going.

The pandemic meant that all my content in the last year has been UK-based, and with a heavy shift to outdoor adventures like hiking and camping. Real talk, I couldn’t really afford any trips last year where I wasn’t camping haha. So I went camping a lot, I spent a lot of time outdoors, I hiked Hadrian’s Wall, I took four separate trips to Scotland. While I love Eastern Europe so much (and it is definitely my favorite region in the world), I can’t really consider myself an expert on traveling there anymore – since I haven’t been since summer 2019. With all the immigration difficulties after my marriage ended, I couldn’t leave the UK for most of the last year anyway. So I stayed in the UK – but man, did I see a fucking LOT of this country.

I visited so many incredible places, some that I’d been to before (like the Lake District), some that were completely new destinations for me (like the Isle of Mull). I saw so much of Yorkshire, constantly ticking things off my Yorkshire bucket list. I hiked in the North York Moors and the Yorkshire Dales and across the entire country when I did Hadrian’s Wall. It’s been amazing, to see so many fantastic places in this country and to yet still have so many more places to visit.

I have also fallen very deeply in love with Scotland in this last year. While I love York with all my heart, I took four wonderful trips to Scotland over the year: Dumfries and Galloway, the Isle of Mull, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, and the Isle of Arran. Each of them was amazing in their own way, and I fully intend to explore as much of Scotland as I possibly can in this lifetime, with the time that I’ve been given. It cemented my love for Scotland and I am deeply passionate about exploring there. I hope to share some of my favorite places and adventures with you all, since Scotland is truly one of the most awe-inspiring places I’ve visited. I am planning at least two trips to Scotland in 2022, so stay tuned!

I know I will be in the UK long-term now, which has helped shift my focus and allowed me opportunities to plan blog content and work towards new goals. I was granted Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) at the end of August 2021, and not a day goes by where I’m not grateful for it. Despite the circumstances, it is a true blessing. It has changed my entire life for the better, and blogging is just one area of that. Blogging goals that I had to put on hold (possibly for good) because I didn’t know if I’d still be living here, can be re-started and reinvented. While I will have other incredible adventures around the world, I’m sure of it, the heart of this blog will be the UK, and specifically Yorkshire (and my beloved city of York). Over the coming year, I hope to hone in on this and create the best, most useful, and most inspiring content I can for people coming to this corner of the world. For several years, I’ve toyed with the idea of writing an e-book travel guide – now that I know I can stay living in the UK, I hope to start working to make that a reality. I hope there will be exciting things on the rise and in the future this year.

This blog will shift (slightly and slowly) to more solo travel content. I started off as a solo traveler – when I studied abroad in Nottingham, I was jetting off all over Europe (not to mention traveling all around the UK) on my own. I grew my solo travel roots then, and it became a part of who I am. For nearly all of this blog’s life though, the vast majority of my trips have been with another person. But I never gave up solo travel when I was married, and those trips brought me great joy. Now that I’m single (and intend to stay that way), I have been traveling alone – and I will continue traveling solo for the rest of my life. It is empowering and incredible! So I plan to share more content for solo travelers.

Despite another year of the ‘rona and travel restrictions, I still managed to increase my page views by 30% from the last year. Good SEO strategies (that I’ve been implementing for years) paid off during the peak summer travel season. The work I did last year on Pinterest really helped. With roughly half my audience being UK-based, I could still create relevant content that my readers wanted to read. As omicron emerged towards the end of the year, I saw a real decline in traffic to my blog as people err on the side of caution when it comes to travel. But despite the fact that I feel like I didn’t put much work or effort in, I still saw big improvements! And that’s very motivating to me to keep going – to work harder, smarter, and better to keep this blog (my baby) alive.

The social media struggle is real. I simply don’t have the time to be present on all platforms now, and have really pivoted towards Instagram in this last year. I’ve found such a kind, supportive community there – who have lifted me up when I was down, and celebrated with me as I went on the up. I barely ever use Twitter, and ever since Facebook switched their Pages layout a few months ago, I’ve barely had the energy to post on there. While I don’t think I’ll ever put the time into them that I probably should, I hope to post a bit more regularly there. I’m also hoping to revive my long-dormant email list, and get back to sending out newsletters again!

I really enjoy my current job, and learn so much that I can put back in my blog. Working as a copy editor for an online travel publication and e-commerce business, travel and writing is a regular part of my work day, 40 hours a week. I am constantly learning new things about SEO, Google algorithms/updates, analytics, ideal readers, and how to be a better writer. I am constantly devouring information, and hopefully it will soon show off in my blog too! After being made redundant in 2020 from my travel job working in sales for a tour operator, I am thrilled to be still working in travel and to have pivoted my career to work I genuinely enjoy and learn from.

Neither myself nor this blog would have made it this far without you. As I crawled my way up out of the darkness of the last year, I had an amazing online community behind me, who supported me and cheered me on. If no one was reading this blog or sharing that it inspired them, I wouldn’t still be doing this. I have so much gratitude and appreciation for the people who have stuck by me, who have supported this blog and who have been there for me. When I was at my lowest, and when I felt like I had no one, I had you.

Besides reading my blog posts, there are a lot of ways you can support Away With Maja (and me!). If you feel like sharing the love, I would really appreciate it! One of the best ways to do this is to engage with my posts on social media: liking, commenting, sharing, and saving are all free actions and they really do matter to me! Signing up to my email list (if you haven’t already) is another great way to help, along with turning off your ad-blocker on my site. Purchasing anything through my affiliate links is another key way to support my blog – along with any of my Amazon links, if you’re planning on booking a trip please do so through my links!

• Book hostels through Hostelworld!
• Book hotels/accommodation through Booking.com!
• Book flights through Skyscanner!
• Learn about travel insurance through World Nomads!
• Send money internationally through Wise (formerly Transferwise)!
• Sign up to get my favorite travel credit card, the Chase Sapphire Preferred!

Thank you all so much. Thank you for being with me on this journey, whether you’ve been here for 1 week or 1 month or 1 year or all 6 years. Thank you for lifting me up when I was down and for being there for me. Thank you for motivating me to keep blogging, to keep sharing, and to keep using my voice. Thank you for coming to this site for inspiration and information and for making me feel like all the work I put into this actually means something. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and here’s to next year! <3

What would you like to see from Away With Maja in the future? Share in the comments below!

Thank you all for following along on my journey, and happy travels!