Three years ago, I bought this tiny space on the internet, and Away With Maja was born. I like to write reflection posts when this date comes along each year. (You can read my reflection from 6 months, 1 year, 1.5 years, and 2 years!) And life has taken me in a crazy different direction from last year’s blogging reflection post! Thank you all to everyone who has followed along with me on this wild ride from the past three years. Here’s what I’ve been thinking about blogging and Away With Maja!

I made my first ever money blogging in the last year!!!! This is probably one of my greatest accomplishments looking back at the last year. I finally reached the payment threshold on one of my affiliate programs, and in November 2018 I got paid €29.34 (or just about £25). My first EVER money I’ve received as a blogger!!! It was so exciting. It was so motivating. It was something I’ve been working hard on since I first took the steps to monetize in October 2017. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more proud of any other accomplishment in my life. You can support me through my affiliate links (at no extra cost to you):

• Book hostels through Hostelworld!
• Book hotels through Booking.com!
• Sign up and search accommodation through Airbnb!
• Book flights through Skyscanner!
• Learn about travel insurance with World Nomads!
• Sign up for a Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card!
• Sign up and send money with Transferwise!

I should say as well, I don’t blog for the money. I blog because I LOVE it. But one of my big goals from last year was to earn money, so that I can (hopefully, eventually) do my blog as a full-time business. I want to make enough money to pay my bills, travel a lot, and have a career I genuinely love and enjoy. In a dream world, I’d be able to retire Mr. Away With Maja, and have him work on my blog with me (so that we’d be able to travel as much as we want). That’s a long way away—even having a small but stable monthly income is a long way away.

But this year I made a start. And I know that I can do it.

Life has changed a lot since I started my full-time job. While struggling with money through multiple part-time jobs wasn’t fun, it meant I could take as much time off as I wanted (if I could afford it). Now I have a stable income, but have a limited number of days off each year. I’m lucky in some ways: since I work weekends, I accrue lieu days. If I can be smart enough about it, I can end up with enough days off to take a couple smaller trips in the year outside of my annual leave. That’s how I ended going to Scotland at the end of the summer!

In terms of blogging, a full-time job has meant that sometimes I don’t have as much time or energy for the blog. Sometimes it has meant that I’ll work all day and be so motivated and inspired to do something for the blog that I spend all night on it. It varies from day to day. But certainly I’m still able to pursue my dreams.

I was full of blog motivation at the start of the year, and had a huge setback. I had such big plans for January and February 2019. I had guest posts I wanted to pitch, idea boards to create, content to plan—really exciting stuff. In case you missed my recap from January 2019, this did not happen. Mr. Away With Maja was seriously injured in a car crash, and I pretty much had to put my life on hold. It’s only now, a month since the accident, that I’m feeling motivated and inspired to write blog posts again. I didn’t post on social media for weeks—I just couldn’t. Anything I posted would be fake and awkward and I didn’t want to do that.

Hopefully I can pick up from where I started soon, and continue with my big plans and goals to create a successful business from my blog. That is still my endgame. My 2019 plans have just been delayed ever so slightly!

I started making big investments in my blog this year—and mainly this was with technology. I FINALLY bought a new laptop in September 2018. It was so so so SO necessary. Coming back from my big trip to the Caucasus and Istanbul this summer, my laptop would no longer connect to other wifi networks beside my home network. That was the deciding factor. I had to buy a new laptop. And so I bought a beautiful MacBook Air, with the highest processor and the most storage space I could buy. It was an entire monthly paycheck. But it was SO worth it.

I bought a new phone in July 2018, before my big summer trip. I have no idea how I was able to manage on my old phone for so long! It was such a bad phone that just didn’t really work. Having a new laptop and a new phone have meant that I’m able to be so much more efficient with my time. Photos for blog posts no longer take 1-2 hours to upload—it takes about 10-15 minutes, depending on how many photos I’ve got. It no longer takes as long to post on Instagram, since I don’t have to keep restarting my phone. These were necessary purchases and investments, and I’m very happy with them.

I have also started to invest in myself as a blogger. Days after I made my first money blogging, I went to Leeds to see one of my favorite travel bloggers, Glo from the Blog Abroad, give a great lecture on influencer marketing. It was a free event, but train tickets cost me a small £10ish. It was so worth it though, to be able to learn new things and expand my horizons. It’s something I need to do more, but it was the first step in investing in myself and my blog and my business. And that feels good. Now that I have a full-time job and a bit more money, this is something I know I’ll do more with events and courses.

I have a fairly clear strategy going forward. I need to start writing some guest posts, and getting my name out there. I need to pitch businesses and bloggers, and learn how to pitch well. I need to be better about networking and making an effort to meet and collaborate with other bloggers. I need to continue writing content that is both informative and inspirational. I need to keep at it with social media, I need to keep up posting on Instagram, and I need to keep working at Pinterest. All of this will come in time—but the good thing is that I have tangible steps I can take to expand my reach and grow my blog!

Traveling is still the most important part of my life. Part of why the last month has been so difficult is because I haven’t been able to travel and explore. We’ve had to cancel our trip to Greece, which has been pretty devastating. Without a car and with Mr. Away With Maja very limited in his mobility, we just can’t go that many places. And I can tell that I haven’t been traveling and exploring. Hopefully this means that we’ll have more opportunities later this year, when he’s well! But I have absolutely loved my trips from the last year, and I can’t wait for the trips in the upcoming year.

Traveling makes me feel alive. Any foreign city, any new region, any unhiked hill is my happy place. I’m in my element haggling for taxis in Georgia with my basic Russian. It gives me so much joy—the pure, unadulterated kind of joy. I am ready to be exploring again—and I can’t wait.

As time goes on, I think I’ll be writing more personal posts. These are the posts with the best views, these are the posts that people read. These posts are the chance for me to make real connections with my readers—by being honest about what I’m actually thinking. Some of my posts with the best views in the last year were about my worst travel moments, what I wish I knew before I moved abroad, and what I’ve learned about British culture. These posts are far more personal than my travel content posts, but it’s what people seem to want to read. So I’ll continue writing them, and do my best to write even more.

It’s easy to get discouraged. Sometimes I look back on my blog and I’m embarrassed. I monetized in October 2017, and it took me over a year to see any actual money in my bank account?? I’ve been blogging for three years and I only have 1800 followers on Instagram? I still haven’t done XYZ that every other travel blogger has done yet?! It’s easy to compare yourself to others in a very saturated and very public industry.

But every day, I remind myself that there’s no other blogger who is ME. There’s no one else who has my exact life. There’s no one else who has done what I’ve done. Every person is on a different path. Some reach goals and milestones faster than others. Everyone has different priorities. And when I do get discouraged, I remind myself of this. No two people are on the same path in this journey. And it’s the journey that matters in the end!

Thank you so much, to each and every one of you, who reads my blog. For every single like, comment, and share on social media. For every purchase through one of my affiliates. For every second you have supported my blog and my dream. I couldn’t do this without you. It means everything to me. Here’s to the next year (and many more) of Away With Maja!

What would you like to see on Away With Maja in the next months to come? What types of content do you enjoy and what would you want to see more of?

Thank so much to all of you for following along! I can’t wait to share the next year with you all!