Travel is Back season come with hapiness

In early 2014, the idea of Earth Trekkers was “born.” Our plans to spend one year traveling around the world were already in the works. Our house was up for sale, an epic route around the world was taking shape, and big dreams of far off places were running through our heads.

It was at this time that we started this travel blog. The idea behind this blog was to keep friends and family up-to-date on our travels, and to document what we were doing. At the time, we had hopes that Earth Trekkers would become something more once our around the world trip ended, but we had no idea if that would actually happen.

Which leads us to picking out a name for our blog.

What’s in a Name?

Coming up with a name for a travel blog is big deal. It needs to be catchy and memorable and relevant. The name also has to be differ

As far as our website is concerned, we got through 2020 rather well. Our website traffic took a huge hit in March but bounced back rather nicely in the summer months, as Americans went on road trips and visited the national parks. But overall, views on our website were down in 2020, compared to 2019.

We couldn’t help but hope that with talks of vaccines, 2021 would be the year when things would begin to look like normal again.

Hiking in Mount Rainer National Park

2021…Another Strange Year

Our 2020 prediction was correct…for many Americans, 2021 was a year of domestic travel. Our visits to the national parks really paid off and our website travel approached “normal” levels during the summer months.

More big news…Tim quit his job in May to work full time on the website. He has taken over a lot of projects that were piling up on me and we feel extremely fortunate that we can do this together.

During the summer and fall, website traffic was still great (we averaged between 1 million and 1.7 million page views per month), but the Delta and Omicron variants of COVID-19 made many travelers wary, so once again, that was reflected in how many people were making travel plans.

We also continued with domestic travel in 2021, never stepping foot outside of the USA. We went hiking in Sedona and spent 7 weeks in the summer, visiting Alaska and Hawaii.

In the fall, Tyler started college and Kara began her college application process.

Tim and I discussed plans to visit Europe in the fall, but climate change is another thing that we take into serious consideration when we travel. If we take an international flight (or a long flight from Maryland to Alaska), we plan to spend several weeks at that destination, because of the carbon footprint of a long flight. We couldn’t leave Kara home alone for that length of time, so our fall trips were limited to local trips to the national parks.

Denali National Park

2022…Travel is Back in a Big Way

2022 was a BIG year for traveling, not just for us, but for many people around the world. International travel skyrocketed and we took our first trip to Europe in over two years.

In 2022, we had two big trips: a 6 week hiking trip in Europe where we visited the Dolomites of Italy, Chamonix, France, and hiked the Walker’s Haute Route, and a long road trip through Italy.

The Walker’s Haute Route is a two-week trek from Chamonix, France to Zermatt, Switzerland. This route takes hikers from Mont Blanc to the Matterhorn, crossing the French and Swiss Alps on foot. It was an extraordinary experience.

In the fall, Kara started college, making Tim and I empty nesters. So, as soon as Kara was settled on campus, Tim and I took a five week trip through Italy, so we now have over 100 articles about Italy on our website.

As more people traveled, website traffic continued to grow on our website. In 2022, we averaged 1.2 million visitors per month, with over 2 million website views per month.

Hiking Tre Cime di Lavaredo in the Dolomites.

2023…Our Best Year Yet

2023 was an incredible year for us, on so many different levels.

Tyler studied abroad in Sydney, Australia from February to May. He picked this location because he loved our time in Australia on our around the world trip, and he simply wanted to go surfing. During his time in Australia, Tyler got certified in scuba diving, went skydiving, and took trips to Bali, New Zealand, and Cairns, where the highlight was a multi-day scuba diving tour of the Great Barrier Reef.

Tim and I took advantage of Tyler’s locale, first spending 5 weeks road tripping through New Zealand, one of our favorite countries from the around the world trip. Then we joined Tyler in Sydney for a week and explored the South Australia wine regions.

In mid-May, the three of us flew home together, visiting Samoa and the National Park of American Samoa on the way.

Kara is thriving at SCAD, majoring in User Experience (UX). We also take advantage of her locale and spend long weekends with Kara in Savannah. In the summer, she took her first road trip, visiting New England with a friend.

In the fall, at the request of many of our readers, Tim and I took a 5-week road trip through mainland Portugal. We had planned to visit Portugal in 2020 but we all know what happened to travel that year. In 2023, we finally made it to Portugal, and it was well worth the wait.

As far as our website is concerned, 2023 was a record breaking year. We averaged 1.5 million visitors per month, with over 2.5 million website views per month.

2024… A Challenging Year for Travel Bloggers

For many travel bloggers, the amount of website views we get is highly tied to search results in Google. At the end of 2023, Google unrolled its first Helpful Content update. This big algorithm change was designed to push spammy websites to the bottom of the list and give better search results to users. Big companies like Reddit, TripAdvisor, and Conde Nast got a huge bump from this. Smaller websites lost a lot of traffic, in some cases over 90% of their website views, essentially putting them out of business.

Throughout 2024, Google continued to roll out these algorithm changes, which affected not only us, but pretty much every website on the web. Search results in 2024 were terrible and not helpful at all. We began doing our searches on Bing, since we could no longer find the information we needed on Google, not without scrolling and sifting through several pages of search results.

And it’s not just the Google algorithm changes that are affecting how many people find our website. With the rise of AI, more and more people are turning to AI models to help them plan their trips.

We took a big hit in 2024, losing about 45% of our website traffic. And we made it through better than most. There are a lot of traffic blogs, those who do write high quality, helpful content, who lost nearly all their traffic, and had to call it quits. Luckily, we did not fall into that category.

It was a very discouraging year. And it leaves us (and other bloggers) wondering about what the future holds. Another sweeping algorithm change could knock us out and as more people turn to AI less people will be using sites like this one. Will we still be doing this 2 years from now? 5 years from now?

We spent the last few months of 2024 focused on revamping this website. Tim and I spent a huge amount of time learning Google’s new rules and we hired SEO experts to evaluate our site. Kara, who is now a UX major in college, redesigned our website from top to bottom. Our ‘new’ website was unveiled in December.

We did all this, not only to make up our lost ground on Google, but to bring you a better overall experience on our site.

Where Are We Now?

I don’t want to jinx it, but the website redesign and the updating of our site looks to be paying off. Now, in early 2025, our metrics in Google are improving and we are getting a nice bump in website traffic. We are keeping our fingers crossed that this trend continues through the remainder of the year.

We don’t have much travel planned in 2025. I still have a ton of content to publish from prior trips, plus there is still more work to be done on the website. It will be a quiet year for us, but one we are looking forward to.

What Have We Done Wrong?

It takes a lot of time and effort, and even a little bit of good luck, to be a successful blogger.

I have not done many of the things you’re supposed to do to have a successful travel blog, but somehow it still worked out.

I never took an online blogging class. I have never been to a travel blogging conference. We have never had a paid trip with a tourism board. And remember, I ignored the importance of social media for almost two years.

We don’t travel full time. Tim worked full time, outside of Earth Trekkers, until mid-2021. You could say that we do everything “wrong.”

But somehow, we now run one of the highest-traffic travel blogs on the internet. 

What Do We Do Right?

We are workaholics. Tim and I are pretty boring people when we are at home. Every spare second we have we are working on Earth Trekkers. At night, we don’t go out to dinner or zone out in front of the TV. We are working on this website. One of the main reasons why Earth Trekkers is doing so well is because we work every single day on this website.

I do my best to write good content and fill that with vibrant, inspiring photos. 

My goal is to write enough good enough content to keep you coming back for more. We want to be the gold standard in the travel blogging industry.

We plan for and pay for all of our travel, which is much different than many other travel bloggers. By doing this, we know exactly what it is like for you to plan your trips. It is an expensive, time consuming process. We pass on what we learn to you, to streamline your planning process and to help you pick out the best destinations.

Also, by paying for our travels, our opinions truly are our own. Since we don’t take free or discounted trips, we have no issues writing our true and honest opinions. We ask for no special treatment when we travel (we don’t even make it known that we are travel bloggers), so that we can pass on accurate information to you. 

We also don’t accept guest posts or write about places we haven’t visited. Everything on this website has been written and experienced by us. So, when you have a question, we can answer it. Many of you are “repeat customers” and you trust us, and we want to keep it that way. 

We also donate 5% of our earnings to charities that focus on environmental conservation. It’s important to protect our oceans, endangered species, and wildlife, and to help combat climate change.

Tongariro Alpine Crossing, New Zealand

So, What about Tim?

You always hear from me. I write the posts, I write the newsletters, and I’m the one in charge of social media. Yes, I am the main voice of Earth Trekkers, but none of this would be possible without Tim. By working full time, Tim has paid our bills and our travel expenses, giving me the opportunity to put so much time into this website.

However, if you have ever sent us an email, then you know that it’s Tim who writes back. This is something that he loves to do.

Since becoming a full time Earth Trekker, Tim’s main focus has been planning our trips, answering emails, writing posts, and working on several different projects that we have in the works.

Tim is like the man behind the curtain and the whole thing would fall apart if he were not there. Tim doesn’t get the same exposure that I do, but he is just as important to the running of Earth Trekkers as I am.

Feel free to say hi to Tim in an email (or in the comment section below). It would put a big smile on his face. 🙂

The Future of Earth Trekkers

This year, Tyler graduates from college, so it could be his last summer living at home with us, and I want to enjoy that as much as possible. There is a good chance he will be going to grad school in the fall, but that is still to be determined.

Kara has one more year left in college and then it’s really up in the air where she will end up working.

With two kids in college, Tim and I have more time to travel, without the need to squeeze travel into school holidays. Tyler and Kara are now taking trips on their own and adding their experiences to this website. 

And Finally, We Would Like to Say Thank You!

Earth Trekkers wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for you. It’s your visits to this website that keep us going.

Every time we get a comment at the end of a post or an email in our inbox, it’s like getting a little gift. Tim and I love hearing from you, offering you advice, and helping you travel better. Never hesitate to reach out to us.

So, from the bottom of our hearts, Thank You!

Happy travels!