The Ultimate Guide To Boosting Your Blogging Strategy

The Ultimate Guide To Boosting Your Blogging Strategy

Yes!

I'm finally writing about my biggest passion of the last two years (besides travel, minimalism, food, pugs, and finally, Taran): BLOGGING, to bring you 40 simple steps to making a better blog!

I believe that I was always destined to write, from a young age; I wrote anything from poetry to short stories to songs even. But when I was a teenager and trying to find my creative outlet, blogging was in its infancy. I had no idea that one day this would be my thing.

We grew up together, blogging and I.

I liked the idea of journalism, but I also always wanted to help people, provide advice or guidance, but did I have a single clue via which channel I wanted to do that? I truly didn't, until 2 years ago.

This blog is one of the best things I have ever gone through with, from its small beginnings to what it has grown into today.

I've had so many ideas about blogging advice jumping around my brain for months.

The last 2 years have been a major learning curve for me as a blogger. Even the last 2 months have brought me reams of new ideas. I now read about blogging more than I read about travel which might seem odd to admit as a travel writer.

No offence to my fellow travel bloggers! I love peoples travel chronicles and advice, but when I get downtime from travel, I use my days to hone my blogging craft.

I have slowly figured out some solid ways to boost my own blogging strategy, through trial and error, lots of time on social networks and other blogs.

Ready to totally up your blogging game and follow 40 proven steps to success?

Below is an 8 part guide, which centres on the different areas of blogging strategy.

1 - Review your blogs user friendliness
2 - Engage with other creators in your community
3 - Review your newsletter strategy
4 - Build a deep and sincere relationship with your audience
5 - Utilize social media scheduling tools
6 - Create great content upgrades
7 - Audit and repurpose old content
8 - Improving your writing

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1. Review your blog's user friendliness

We often get disconnected from the user experience of our readers when we are in a routine of writing, publishing and sharing.

How often do you actually sit and use your website as if it wasn’t your own? Do you ever take a moment to actually enjoy your own stuff, whilst also critiquing it?

Use your website instinctively and intuitively.

This isn't about analysing your writing quality, that we will discuss in a part 8; this is purely about design elements, technical issues and general user-friendliness.

Write down anything which sticks out to you as needing immediate changing, from small details, to overarching flaws. Note what is working well and see if you can build on this across your site to deliver a more consistent and stream-line look.

Struggling to critique? Consider this:

Are your most recent, and most popular blog posts easy to find?

Your blog might have a deep archive filled with content that doesn't match your current style, theme or message. In time you probably intend to edit or remove these posts, but meanwhile, you want to ensure that your new readers come into easy contact with what you know is 100% current, as well as your evergreen content. We personally use a gallery tab on our homepage which shows 5 of our most read posts. We then share our most recent content nearer the bottom of that page. We also have a category in the top navigation bar for latest and popular. We basically make it super simple for anyone to find the content we want them to see first.

Are your sharing buttons well-placed for optimal visibility?

If people love what they find, at almost any place on your site, can they easily share that on multiple social networks? We favour using AddThis to display our sharing buttons on the left side of the page for desktop and at the bottom for mobile. We originally relied on social links at the top of the page, plus a floating follow widget that followed the page as you scrolled down, as well as sharing links at the bottom of the post. I have noticed a lot of popular or high-quality blogs who do this is also, only including share buttons at the very bottom of a post. I do ideally want people to read all the way through a post before sharing, but not everyone will read the whole she-bang before they feel the desire to share it. I like the placing of our buttons because they don't detract from the bulk of the text whilst also making it very easy to share the post.

Can your readers easily ascertain who you are and what you do, without having to read your 'About' page?

Something we have tried to do here at Nomad'er How Far is ensure that we use a bio on the homepage, and at the bottom of every post, using our keywords to get across our blog's purpose. We also created categories for all of our blog posts displayed along the top bar, so that readers can get a quick idea of the key things we are all about, no matter which section they land on. Our homepage uses an video in the header if you are viewing on desktop. We also have our sidebar present on every page, displaying our logo, names and social channels.

Do you use one readable font type across your site for a simpler viewing aesthetic?

We go through phases where we hate our font and want to change it, we often stumble upon a dream font somewhere online and then can't find a worthy match. For now, we are mostly a-ok with this font because we know it's readable. We did however make our font smaller, which makes our longer posts much easier to take in. We also now use our Heading 1 and Heading 2 correctly, as this has a lot to do with improving SEO; our blog title at the top of the post is always Heading 1, and any subsequent sub-titles, Heading 2. This is something we had just brushed aside until recently and is such an easy mistake to make, we genuinely felt a bit silly when we realised what we were doing.

Is your colour scheme and layout easy on the eyes?

We have used the same colour scheme since day one, although I did gently encourage Taran to lighten the background because I love black on white, whereas he thinks the pop of colour is better. It is actually good for our blog because it visually complements our logo image, and is a continuation of our branding.

Focusing on these elements of design have helped me spot a number of things that needed addressing on our site; I found that many of my blog posts weren’t using the best header images, and I also found weird glitches in fonts, where my bottom bio was all messed up. I couldn’t believe I'd missed this stuff before, but I hadn’t been looking for it.

My forever solution to this problem is to regularly audit my content. I go back through the archives, pick old posts and edit them to ensure they follow the design of our newer posts.

HOLD UP, we will discuss this more in Step 7.

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2. Engage with other creators in your community

Lately I have loved being social, present and chatty across our social networks. I'm a chatter box by nature and I have to kerb this so as not to babble all the time. Like I was about to, just then… So recently I have massively upped my game across the board, from Facebook groups, to twitter conversations, to talking more to the bloggers who inspire me the most. I have also become addicted to podcasts and I now use my walk to work for lots of inspirational brainstorming time.

As bloggers we can become solitary figures, locked down to our laptops, typing away endlessly, and trying to go it alone in creating great stuff, and sharing it. But I have to remind myself that blogging is fundamentally, my hobby, so I should try and enjoy it more. Sure I get days and even weeks where I avoid everything to do with my blog, which I call, my blogging overwhelm. But right now I am striking the balance between engaging often and brightly, with my fellow bloggers, as well as creating meaty content.

I especially love talking to and sharing the stories of those who are just starting out in blogging, travel or minimalism, because we were all new to this once upon a time!

5 Things To Consider:

Do you regularly share others content, which you have read and can truly advocate?

I believe its more important to share other people's content less frequently, and focus more on the quality of what you share, furthering the message and purpose of other bloggers you personally respect.  As bloggers I believe we want to encourage each other in our quest to produce truly engaging and life-changing stuff. But also, it makes sense that you don't deliver to your loyal followers something that you can't provide 3 solid reasons for why they should read it. You don't want to fill up the feeds of your fellow bloggers and your audience with things that aren't worth their precious attention. Plus, if you share absolutely anything, of any quality, it does nothing for your credibility as a voice worth listening to.

Have you created a spreadsheet to collate your favourite posts from other bloggers or websites?

This is a massive time-saver that I recently brought in, so that I can save any links I have read and shared, and make it easier to re-share them again in the future. I also utilize Pinterest and Feedly, for when I want to source new bloggers or content worth sharing; I look at my saved pins and newsfeed, and pick a few things to share on other platforms. Yet again, this saves time and carries forth a message in-line with your own, curating social spaces that are unequivocally suited to your niche or target reader. 

I have also been making better use of IFTTT, which if you haven't heard of, is a neat site which allows you to connect different processes through what they call 'Recipes'. I've connected our Twitter to my google drive, so that all the tweets I post are saved into a spreadsheet; this helps make twitter sharing quicker in the future.

Are you regularly commenting on other creators posts, offering positivity and friendship?

I develop blogger and youtuber crushes constantly when I find people who are hitting it out the park with their stuff. I don't necessarily mean established and well-liked individuals, I mean people similar to myself, who are maybe not yet pro-blogging, but headed that way. This might seem like a purely social activity not geared to improving your blogs success, but it truly is. 

Some of my favourite podcasters, some of whom are super successful personalities, often bring on fellow creators to share their wisdom, and these people aren't just their guests, they're their friends. When you move forward in your creative journey, it makes sense to bring others along with you, to complement one another in your different outlets, and make the long process of growth far less lonely. But also, by being massive and consistent supporters of our fellow creators, we foster mutually beneficial friendships, not short-term business connections. 

Do you play an active part in Facebook communities in your niche, offering advice and opinions, not just links back to your website?

I try hard where possible to help others via the various Facebook groups I am currently in (including a minimalism group of around 7000 people), but more often than not, I am the one seeking help. I am still a relatively new blogger, and there is an awful lot that I yearn to understand. Thankfully, these communities are full of people willing to share their wisdom, open to building others up, because its the cool thing to do. We are all in this together, and whilst competition exists, there isn't ever going to be one standout winner in this game. If you are someone who wants to succeed and become the top in your field, and you choose to chase this in a selfish and one-sided manner, you're not really here for the right reasons. Sharing IS caring.

Have you reached out to any of your blogging companions via email to discuss a collaboration?

I personally struggle with this one usually because of time limitations; I'm so caught up in my daily life and blogging routine, I neglect to broaden my content variety by inviting others onto the blog or reaching out to guest post on other sites. I just never get down to writing out thoughtful emails to people who I genuinely want to collab with out of fear that they will either say no, or simply be too busy, in which case I feel bad for bothering them aha! People-pleaser disease. I am definitely going to be working on this big time in the coming months.

This idea, as well as the other 4, will benefit your blog in terms of content variety and authority, but at the core, it’s a fun and important part of staying sane in the blogging game.

We're all here to cultivate something special and real aren’t we? Being engaged and creative within the communities which we rely upon and want to be successful in, is a key part of that.

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Step 3. Review your newsletter strategy

We currently use Mail-chimp, because, duh, it’s free...up to a certain point that we are nowhere near reaching.

We have seen a huge rise in our newsletter sign ups in the past 2 months. We believe this is directly linked to the addition of a call to action to join our email list, placed in the middle of our longest and best content. We don’t have a welcome mat or a pop-up (we find these mildly annoying even if they do apparently convert to list growth) but so far, increasing the opportunities to join the list across our blog posts has more than sufficed.

For the longest time we sent out a weekly newsletter pulled from our RSS feed. This is surely a pretty boring email to receive, plus these often end up in people's promotional folder, not even their main inbox. It's great for our readers who need reminding we exist, but, it doesn't provide extra value to those who have willingly handed over their email address in the hope of getting something great.

Recently we made some changes based on the fact that we suddenly had this growing audience on our email list who had signed up assuming they’d receive bonus content, and we simply were not delivering on this.

We still keep to only 1-2 emails a week, but we now bulk out the RSS email with a conversational style of email. We share more personal info that links well to recent blog posts and we try to give a little extra detail than what our audience finds on the blog.

But the biggest change has been the addition of a mid-week email. I create a relatively long-form email which will relate to a recent post, and make mention of my minimalism eBook. In-depth and thought-provoking, this email levels a question at readers in the end. The answer to that question could well lie in the product you are promoting be it free or paid, or in the very least, it makes your readers think, and interact.

You really cannot underestimate the connection you can build with your reader via email, so consider these 5 ideas:

How often do you email your list, and what are you current open rates?

We review our analytics for our open rates and click-throughs via Mail-chimp, and it's always a good way of measuring which email format is working best. But because we only alternate between an RSS-driven email, and a more long-form chatty one, there is little room for drastic comparisons. We generally use this as a rule of thumb for if we need to up our game further, for example, by creating a better email subject line in future emails.

Do you often share something valuable, and bonus, making the members of your list feel like they are part of an exclusive club?

We send emails to our small (but steadily growing list) which are more conversational to encourage more interaction than the average blog post might do. We also expand on our current posts, or discuss something relevant but not yet published on the blog. We have also brought in content upgrades only available by joining our list, but in the future we will periodically send out content upgrades to our list, as well as incorporating an opt-in to a landing page, which will be a piece of evergreen content.

Are you including a call to action at the end of your email, plus 1-2 links within the text?

Research into getting your emails not flagged as spam might suggest against too much link dropping in an email, but you should still include at least 1-2 links within the text, otherwise you are missing out on a targeted traffic-driving opportunity. I definitely keep it to a minimum however. I also add a call to action to the bottom of the email which relates to the key topic or takeaway of that email and directs readers back to my website or product.

Is your sign up link visible across your site, during your content and at the end as a call to action?

Our list growth can be directly attributed to the increased visibility of our sign up link, now included in the middle of posts, often at the end, and in the side-bar. We have seen a 1000% growth in our list. Yes, 1000%. For months we only gained 2-4 new people a month...to now getting 2-4 a day.

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And you know what, we haven't used any annoying user-interrupting methods or pop-ups to achieve this growth! It is purely from having more sign-up links across our posts, combined with a couple of content upgrades in some posts, but only a couple so far.

Have you made this sign-up link enticing, but not promising of too much that you can't deliver?

We generally keep it short and simple, and we ask, 'Like What You're Reading?', so when people sign up, it's a vote for YES, your stuff is good, and I wanna hear more.

We don't promise a specific type of email as we are still in the process of improving our email content strategy and don't want to make false promises. We believe its mostly important to have a great piece of content, because then you gain list sign ups based on the quality of your writing and the message this infers, that whatever your emails contain, it will probably be good.

I know this blog post is a long read. I mean, LONGGGGGG, so I have also created a printable checklist for all 40 steps:

Sign up to our newsletter and get it sent to you instantly!

See what I did there ;)

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4. Build a deep and sincere relationship with your audience

Of course your email list, your social media sharing and your actual blog posts all go a great distance in building your audience, but do they facilitate a deep and lasting connection?

Do you convert one-time visitors to long-term readers? Are you true to yourself and yet true to your audience and their needs?

42% of the world’s population now have internet access, and right now, around 3 billion people use a variety of devices to access it, but not all of whom are reading blogs (stats courtesy of we are social). That’s a lot of people all searching for inspiration and information, online. But then again, there are also 6.77 million people producing blogs.

But how many of these blogs are in your niche? And how many of them are producing content of a consistently high quality? Well, for starters, you need to be confident enough to say that you are... You need to be sure (via step 1 and later, step 8) that you are producing stuff worthy of an audience.

But really, it doesn’t matter what the numbers say, or how scary your level of competition is. You can still make a place within an over-saturated marketplace if your blog impacts a few people each and every day; you are going to gradually increase awareness, grow your audience and become a useful resource to a small but valid part of those 3 billion people.

Do you reply to comments promptly, address the commenter by name if possible, thank them, and think before you respond?

This is pretty much the most basic thing for audience engagement. We don't receive a constant stream of comments so its relatively easy for us to do this for every comment, always. I get its harder for larger blogs to keep up with but I still think its a worthwhile practise. I know you can't drop everything to immediately respond to a comment but even taking 10 minutes twice a day to do so, is still prompt enough for most people.

I really dislike it when a blogger replies to my comment with a perfunctory response that shows they speed-read my comment and probably found even that level of interaction an inconvenience. I think it all boils down to knowing your purpose; do you write for yourself, for your audience or to generate customers? For many creators, you are basically nothing without your readers, and you would be speaking to a brick wall if none of them felt like respected commenters.

Do you pepper your content with provocative questions, or statements, to make your readers think and respond?

We used to end every post with a question but it didn't really work, and maybe that's because we were focusing too much on this one question, neglecting all the points in our post that might have got our reading thinking, and wanting to speak. And it's not about asking more questions than you answer, but it is about placing a couple of well-worded sentences, which might even contest the point you are actually making. I believe we should assert our advice and be confident in it, whilst still showing a consideration for other perspectives. For example, in this post, we delivered a firm stance (albeit on a mildly trivial topic) but we still suggested ideas in support of those of the opposite stance. That brings me nicely to my next point...

Do you write about something from a fully-informed place, and use secondary sources as support?

I think its very important to not just use disclaimers (more in point 5) and refer to external sources across your blog, in places where you recommend products or specific ideas, but also, you should expand your readers knowledge on a topic, beyond the points you yourself present as truth.  I make good use of social media to drive this but I also try to refer to external research in a blog post, sometimes that I myself conducted. I find this helps me to not make assumptions about the pains of my readers, or deliver unrealistic advice. Also, in certain posts when I am delivering a perspective from my own personal experience, I use my own situation to help my readers avoid the same outcomes. If we simply sound off about our own pains and basically put out negative vibes, what value does that provide others?

Are you honest and true to yourself in your creative output?

This might be hard if you cultivate a persona based on indomitable strength and success, who prefers to always keep up the appearance being an iron-clad authority in your field, and nothing else. But most of us show some level of weakness because it appeals to our audience, and because we want to keep it real. We want to be a respected authority but we don't want to steer so far away from sharing our imperfections that we lack personality and hold back our truth. This is important for building reader connections because we come across as real people, with real concerns, and the solutions to match, who care about our readers lives more than just being business-like 24/7.

I always go back to my reasoning for beginning this blog, which was to chronicle a phase of my life which I knew would be momentous. It then changed over time because I realized that I could marry my desire to be a helpful advice-giving person with my minimalist travel adventures, and maybe, just maybe, turn it into a part-time job. My fundamental goal starting out was centred around creativity, expression and honesty, something I never want to stray from in the pursuit of blogging success. My audience, every day real people (not companies), and the truthfulness of my content, is of my up-most concern. That brings me smoothly to the next point...

Is your blog over-run with self-promotion, external ad's and sponsored posts?

I talked about this topic super in-depth a little while back because it had been majorly bothering me. I get that plenty of the biggest and best blogs out there will have ad's and self-promo in abundance, and that great content can co-exist alongside these things. But for a number of reasons, this can really turn off your readers and distance you from them. I want to be drawn in and delivered something of value on the blog I have chosen to read, and I want to be offered, in small subtle ways, invitations to develop my knowledge, which may be via your affiliate, eBook or course. But I don't want to click on a link, having been tempted by a Pin or tweet, to then find a website I can barely load for all the ad's its running. I won't even read the post in this scenario, I will click off before my browser implodes (my tiny laptop is not built for much).

If you aren't striking a nice balance between furthering your professional goals, and also delivering a readable website with consistent and high-quality content, your readers will suffer, and eventually, you will to. We would love to build an income from our blog, because we're nomads and work is not a stable facet of our lives; we basically need to find a way to make a sustainable living to keep on travelling. But you know what, we currently both work casually and part-time (we often end up washing dishes or doing housekeeping) and we go without, every week, but we still pay our website fee, and we still invest all our free time into this blog. We have turned down numerous sponsored posts and limit our ad's to 2/3 sidebar spots at current, because we have a clear idea on how we want to do this blog.

Our passion costs us time and money that we don't really have, but that's love folks. Love for our audience, love for helping them, love for our creativity, and a belief in a bigger purpose to what we are doing here.

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5. Utilize Social Media Scheduling Tools

So this step goes hand in hand with engaging in your communities.

Do you use an automated and efficient sharing process for your own content and that of other people?

Our favourite tools for sharing (and engaging) include Tailwind for Pinterest. We invested in the full paid version because not only is Pinterest our number one traffic source (thanks to some semi-viral minimalism pins that no longer fit our style and look kinda ugly, ha!) but it’s also my favourite place for curating and sharing content I love and can learn from.

I share some pins right away but schedule about 70% into our Tailwind queue. This means I am constantly building our boards at a rate I couldn’t without the scheduler. I also love Tailwind for the analytics as it shows the virality and engagement score for your boards and group boards. This helps us know where our tribe is most active and where we should pin to most regularly.

We use Twitter regularly to chat with fellow bloggers and know it’s where our professional circle spends a lot of time, along with Facebook communities. So I love to use Tweetdeck combined with my twitter lists. Twitter lists are actually my favourite new thing that I have been using to make the crazy nature of Twitter, easier to navigate. I find this is the easiest way to see the latest content from my favourite bloggers and quickly add it to my scheduled tweets, which I then specify to go out at a specific time and date. I try to space these out across the week, and to post early in the morning and late at night (I tweet live during the day).

I see Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter as a great way for curating content that I love, as well getting my own messages out there.

We also use Tweet Jukebox to send out a list of our key important links each week. We edit the tweets weekly as Twitter isn’t a fan of duplicate tweet content! We include things like our Patreon sign-up, our email list sign-up, YouTube channel and 2-3 of our best evergreen posts.

It’s quite obvious that if we are ever-present and providing valuable sharing, beneficial to our readers and our comrades, then we will also create more awareness for our own stuff.

But that’s not to say that the key reason for a solid sharing strategy is to ultimately lead to our own growth, but its a cluster of activity that helps elevate your brand as well as lift others up.

5 things to think about:

Are you automating and spacing out your sharing as much as you can?

Tailwind is great for this purely because everything is added to a schedule which posts your pins to nominated boards in intervals which you can specify. Also, via Twitter and Tweet-deck, I like to live tweet/re-tweet/like throughout the day and have 4-5 things pre-scheduled to go out at other times, so that I am present across the different time zones, and can build engagement in my sleep. We also schedule Facebook updates to ensure our content is seen by the time-zones that our largest demographics come from. 

Do you utilize free tools as well as premium sites to help you share consistently?

We love Tailwind but its currently the only paid tool we use. We utilize all the free tools previously mentioned such as Tweetdeck and Tweet-Jukebox as well as Canva and free stock photos for our sharing designs. We are always on the look-out for new free tools because we are still a small-scale operation. But the main justification in our minds for forking out for Tailwind is because Pinterest is our biggest traffic source. If we have any intent of growing then some investment in our social tools is necessary. I believe even bigger bloggers can seek out frugality in the running costs of a blog, but realistically your social tools should reflect your audience size and how well you can manage it and grow it. Don't spend money on social tools if you can do most of the work on the free ones.

Have you looked at your Twitter/Pinterest/Facebook analytics to see if your current schedule is working?

As much as I love Twitter, it is a tiny source of traffic for us. But Twitter has a bigger purpose as we use it for building and maintaining our relationships with other bloggers as well as learning stuff from our favourites. I still have a regular sharing strategy because I know that if you have a large audience on a social network, then some of that audience will be made up of your readers. Being present in a variety of channels that your readers might want to find you is a solid idea, but, we can always play around with social strategy to ensure we balance out being engaging with our counterparts and engaging with our audience. Its important we regularly check if we are reaching certain goals via our current social activities, whatever those goals may be. When your goal is measurable, such as gaining new readers, then reviewing your analytics will help you know where to always show up. When your goal is building business relationships, then it makes sense to change the way you interact on certain platforms.

Could you alter the way you contribute to your social spaces to better meet your core goals?

One thing we have done recently is delete pins on Pinterest to make sure our boards are continually of good quality and engaging. We also like to ensure we are chatty and honest on Twitter so that our followers and fellow creators see us as more than just link generators. Furthermore, we like to do live videos on Facebook as this is a rapidly growing feature that we want to take advantage of to actually share the travel side of our blog. Basically, each social space is different and can be curated to show different sides of your blog and your personality, when used correctly.

Have you looked at expanding your reach to different social networks e.g. Stumble-upon, Google+, Snap-chat or Periscope?

We have taken a few light steps in Stumble-upon and are still none-the-wiser to Periscope so this step is advice we too need to act on. I think it's all too easy to stick to what you know works or to believe that you are already adequately reaching your audience, but you could at least experiment in these different spaces. Your audience are often trying out new social networks, so it's probably wise that you follow suit. But you can still have a strategy in mind, and look at the optimal ways to deliver value in these new spaces, not just replicate your strategy from other social networks.

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Step 6. Create great content upgrades

I'm super new to this, mainly because when we were travelling non-stop (before we took a travel pause to work and save up) I had barely enough time or internet to upload a post let alone create a content upgrade.

I have tried recently to focus more on this because not only is it an incentive for email list sign-ups but it provides your audience with double the value they expected to receive. You deliver something great, and then some. That 'then some' can set you apart, or just better imprint you in the memory of your readers.

Even if I don’t always read or use the content upgrade I might find on my favourite posts from other bloggers, it is suggestive of a quality and committed creator who wants to help me as much as they can. And, they want to do it mostly for free.

5 things to consider:

Would some of your older posts which still deliver traffic benefit from an email list content upgrade?

I am currently in the process of creating some content upgrades for older posts, be they just a downloadable PDF (which requires email sign-up) or an activity workbook, but for me, its a slow process. The best way to go about this might be to review your top-performing posts and see if they might also convert readers to email sign-ups. Do these posts max out on value or could value be added with an upgrade?

Are your current content upgrades converting in some way, and if not, how could you make them better?

We recently published a post in our super popular minimalism section which included a content upgrade. It has resulted in a few email sign-ups but not a whole lot. I think the best way to overcome this is to give the post some time to grow its audience (being that is reasonably new) and see over time if it converts to sign-ups. But if it doesn't convert we will probably adjust the sign-up link text to make it more enticing. We might look at the placing of the sign-up and ensure that it will be seen as a highly relevant solution to the problem discussed in that part of the post.

Have you isolated the best content for upgrades or do you place them across all your postings?

It might seem that placing upgrades on all your posts or just the ones which get the most views is the way to go, but those posts might not actually be suited to an upgrade. I think its probably wiser to spend time on one amazing upgrade that is completely useful within a given post, even if it isn't a highly popular post. This is a great way of improving an older post and driving new traffic to it, meaning that when you go to re-share it on social media you can make mention of the new awesome content upgrade.

Are your content upgrades actually good and something you yourself would want to download?

Taking on the challenge of bringing in content upgrades can add a lot of stress but not necessarily a lot of value. If you allocate a lot of time to develop your upgrades, and want it to build your audience engagement significantly, you want your sign-ups to receive something they will be more than satisfied with. Focus less on developing multiple upgrades for multiple posts and instead, build occasional upgrades which are extremely in-depth and useful. It takes a lot of time and energy to construct a blog post that people will love and share, so it makes sense to not try and add to this commitment by creating too many sub-par upgrades.

Have you considered creating one great upgrade applicable to more than one blog post or topic?

I currently publicize my eBook as a great supplement to my minimalism posts but of course anyone can buy this, they don't need to sign up to my email list to get it. But, you could introduce some short-term incentives for existing products in your inventory, by creating a discount on a paid product, only available via your email sign-up. You could then insert this into relevant posts, see how it performs and adjust it accordingly. If you want to create new products, be it a free eBook or course for example, then these should be something solidly relevant across your whole site.

Providing discount incentive sign-ups on paid products might seem like a bit of a pushy and salesy thing to do, but people can take the offer, or leave it. If you put lots of effort into creating a brilliant product worth buying, which you want to generate passive income on, then a content upgrade will help you do so; you already did a lot of hard work to create your product, make sure you give it the best chance to succeed.

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Step 7. Audit and repurpose old content

Those of us that have been in the blogging lark a while are probably regularly auditing our websites, reviewing our traffic, SEO, keywords, meta data and imagery, then making slight improvements to our content along the way.

It’s something I have been majorly lacking on recently; being engaging and social leaves little time for this which I find quite a daunting task. Having produced our blog for over 2 years, there are a lot of pages and posts to audit and edit. There are some things I know desperately need fixing, some I am too afraid to look at, and then others I know could really boost our blog if updated.

The benefit of a blog audit is to know where you are at, how your blog is performing across the board and thus establish where you need to change things. When an audit is combined with repurposing, you can create new content from what you already have, potentially boosting your traffic and improving your brand cohesiveness. Many of your best blog posts will have been buried somewhere down the line, unless they have taken on a viral life of their own. And so many could do with updating to ensure any new visitors land on content that is totally in-line with your current keywords, voice, visuals and of course, your email list sign ups and content upgrades.

In part 1 we used our blog as if we were a reader. We may have isolated different things we needed to immediately change or edit. But within part 7, we can now set aside time to audit, edit and repurpose, one post at a time, one day at a time.

5 ideas to think about:

Are your recent and popular posts the best they can be, in terms of spelling, grammar, layout, visuals, social sharing imagery and of course, calls to action?

We always make sure to review each week which of our most recent and popular posts are gaining the highest traffic, and we proceed to re-read them, edit and ensure that we didn't miss anything when we originally published them. There's nothing worse than a new post gaining great virality, and only then do you realize it isn't the optimal representation of your best creative practise. We combat this by re-reading a post when we go to share it, be it 1, 2 or 3 weeks later.

Have you got old content with great potential but which needs a total revamp?

We most recently altered a super old post which was garnering fresh activity on Pinterest. The post itself is 2 years old, and highly simplistic compared to more recent posts on the same subject. Instead of removing it or changing it drastically, I made sure it was grammatically correct, created a new pin and matching header image, and added a comment at the top inviting people to read our more recent and in-depth posts on the same topic. I basically invited people to the stuff I would prefer they read, which is broadly better, but the post itself still holds some value, so I of course encouraged readers to continue. This post then saw a surge in traffic even though I didn't re-share it in all its up-to-date glory. It most importantly lead readers to the rest of our content on the topic, simply by adding the new opening sentence.

Many of our older or original blog posts lack several things we now include as standard. They don't simply look weird and wrong but they are either extremely short and basic, or just not in line with our current style of delivery. But if we took the time to write on this topic way back when, surely we cared about the idea or thought it was worth discussing. So part of our current auditing process is to pick things from deep in archives, which probably get no reads at current, and completely revamp them, change the publishing date and re-share.

Are you categorizing all your posts clearly meaning people can easily find your different content, not simply your most popular or latest posts?

Of course its important to always re-emphasize your latest creations and direct people to your most popular stuff, because, well, we know there's a high chance they will like it. But we should also make sure that our readers can actually get into our archives and can easily read further into a specific topic if we have talked about it numerous times.

We make sure we have a search bar in our side-bar so people can look up anything on our site. We also have our posts categorized which then display along the top-bar. This helps readers spend more time on the site, which of course builds a deeper connection and helps elevate your brand over time. We are not the sum of only our best offerings, or only appealing and worth reading based on our most recent stuff. Our blogs grow and develop over time, and some people want the chance to experience that, know us on a deeper level and extract value across all our creations.

Do you link to older or similar posts in several places, also including a list at the end of each post for relevant suggested reading?

I don't do this enough, but somewhere I recently implemented this, was on our 'Start Here' page. Instead of just talking about our topics, I straight away list 5 useful posts that people should read, which takes them through our blog purpose and ethos. Our tag-line states that we changed our spending habits, embraced minimalism, ditched the 9-5 and started afresh, so we list 5 posts which help our readers do the same. We also list relevant internal and external links to posts which expand on the given topic (or one particular point within the post). Sometimes one post is highly relevant to another but slightly different in topic matter, but by linking to a relevant read, you are making yourself appear like a bottomless pit of interesting info.

I feel like people are more responsive to a bulleted list of links, titled by what that blog post is about, not simply peppered through as in-text links, because they can sometimes get lost in the process of reading. I have admittedly used in-text links in this post purely because this is a super long read with those links only supplemental to the actual points.

Have you looked at repurposing certain pieces which might work better in video, audio or infographic form?

Blog post repurposing and auditing can go hand-in-hand I believe. If you find a post that could work better or could engage a different audience via another form, then consider why and how. Don't try to convert a blog post into another format just because you can, try to locate things which can be expanded on or explained better in video, audio or infographic form. There are many ideas on what you can repurpose your stuff into, with Darren at Pro-blogger and Melyssa Griffin offering great advice on this tactic.

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Step 8. Improving your writing

After all that's said and done, you have looked at the ways you can improve website user friendliness, engage more with fellow creators, refine your newsletter, build a deeper relationship with your audience, simplify your social sharing, devise great content upgrades and improve old blog posts.

You want to boost your blogging strategy, up your game, and just get better at what you love to do, via these proven methods for success.

You've ticked many a box, but this step pales the others in comparison.

If you don't have great writing, you have nothing. Well, you have something, just not something worthy of you or your audience. But you do have something you can build up, change and improve.

No matter what in the blogging game, you can always improve!

I am constantly working on all the other steps but I realized recently that I don't spend enough time educating myself on how to write really, really, well. One thing which got me thinking more deeply about this was a free email course I joined a few weeks back. 'Unboring Your Writing' from Rosie Morley at Hedera House, and its been a great experience for me. I'm sure there are plenty of courses out there and I'm eager to find them too.

Rosie's course got me thinking about my writing beyond the actual story; she got me thinking about the active voice, expletive constructions and contractions, in ways I never had before. I recommend it for anyone who wants to give their writing some real attention.

When forming a blog post, do you edit as you write or let your thoughts flow without a pause?

I recently began brain dumping, something I read about when seeking some blogging inspiration. Basically, you write non-stop, letting everything come out in its organic state, without editing yourself in the process. This seriously helped me with the major blogging block I was having, but it also went against my normal mindful way of writing. I would usually go slower, editing each word even before I had wrote it down, which I now realize works well some of the time. However when it feels right, letting yourself go with the flow, tumbling out your words, and altering it later on, helps bring forth some real gems. If we over-edit ourselves during the writing process we might stunt our creativity and suck the soul from our writing.

Beyond your grammar and spelling, do you structure your sentences to be concise and clear?

I have been known to write crazily long sentences, full of words that don't need to be there. This was a major criticism of my work during my Uni studies, and I think it will always be an issue. But, by spending a bit more time during my writing and editing process, I have learned to craft my sentences better. I now include a mixture of shorter and longer sentences, made easier to read with the right punctuation placement. I have also learned to space my paragraphs to make certain points more impactful. I have also placed more focus on ensuring I don't repeat myself too much and focus on having multiple valid sentences that all have a good reason to be there.

During the editing process, how often and for how long do you re-read your post?

If you stare at one particular word long enough, it starts to look strange. The truth can be said of blogging, that if you read through your own block of content repeatedly without taking a break, it starts to not make sense. You also might fail to spot key errors or notice areas you could expand on or refine. When I finish a blog post, I leave it alone for an hour, or even a day, and then return to it. If any new ideas have come to mind in that time, I will make room for them. I will re-read my post and of course check for grammar and spelling, but also make sure I have said all I truly can. I don't want to press publish and realize 5 days later than I skimmed over certain vital points because I was rushing.

Are you getting across your natural personality and language, tweaking it for a broader reach?

I am generally someone who likes to laugh, to try and be funny, and to wax lyrical. I try to combine all this to create content with personality and value but I don't want to over exaggerate my natural traits and alienate readers. I do this by peppering my post openings with small personal details, delivered in a concise yet conversational manner; I get to the point of the blog post quickly but not without first setting the scene and clearly communicating my vibe and tone. I couldn't write any other way because I am unapologetically me, but I'm not so silly as to think that I can be myself to the nth degree. If you are writing to help, guide and inform a broad sect of people, you have to speak in a way that makes people want to listen.

Do you regularly use a set of specific words to bolster your branding whilst also expanding your vocabulary?

In Rosie's email course, she mentions that we should use certain words or phrases recurrently which helps to define our style and branding. I try to employ certain terms consistently in this manner, but I also like to shake things up by expanding on the descriptive terms I might use, especially in my travel-related stories. This creates a nice balance of language that is predictably 'my style', combined with something fresh, clever and interesting, for myself, and my readers.

If you want to truly up your blogging game, you should want to expand on your knowledge and language, so you can craft better stories that people will want to read, love and share.

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Thanks for reading!

Hannah and Taran here. We hail from Southern England, where we met online and are now realizing our mutual passion for travel here at Nomad'erHowFar. We discuss Nomadic Living, Simplifying your Life and Long-term Travel, to empower, motivate and inspire our readers. Get to know us here!

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Our Biggest Challenge Yet As A Travelling Couple.

Our Biggest Challenge Yet As A Travelling Couple.

For almost 2 months now we have been settled down in Noosa, Australia. Our bedroom has lime green walls and a cat that sits on the windowsill the same time every night. The sun shines most days and the winter wind is making its way through.

The reason we stopped travelling was because we needed to earn some more money to keep going. Working travel is not funded by fairy dust. Whilst its a pause made out of necessity, it has been a great time to work on our blog and my book.

Why Noosa

We hopped on a train, and then a bus, for a few days by the beach after a week in the big Brisbane city. We had been here only a day, enjoying this place that we hadn't really seen properly, even though we passed through it one night last year.I had a good feeling, and could see myself settling here. There's definitely a buzz, also a beautiful beach, all combined with a safe small-town vibe.

And so, I rushed out a few emails at 7am one morning on our 2nd day here (I was super productive thanks to jet-lag waking me up at 5am), and I got so ridiculously lucky because by the next day I had a job.

I wasn't just applying for fun, I was acutely aware of our decreasing bank accounts, so now seemed as good a time as any to stop and earn. But getting a job that quick? it certainly doesn't happen that way out here usually folks.

And then, a few hours later, we had a room in a house, that has now become home.

I couldn't believe it, I had never had such a quick turn-around from unemployed and anxious, to having an income again, and feeling secure. I was so relieved. Taran was happy to have found a spot with some good surfing and water sports nearby. It seemed like we were going to have a really cool few months even if we weren't on the road where we truly wanted to be.

Fast forward a few weeks, nearly two months, and I still have my job, which I'm enjoying, whilst saving up a little bit and paying my bills.

Taran on the other hand, remains unemployed, having had not so much as one interview.

Despite his decent resume and his constant trying, its been impossible. Many of the people we have been in contact with are useless at calling back, replying to emails or are just saying no.

It has really brought us down.

It is really not an understatement when we say that this has been the biggest challenge for us as a travelling couple, so far.

In 3 years of being together we have always been equal partners. We share the costs of our lives together, and we treat each other on special occasions. We are obviously minimalists and money isn't a big motivator for us, but still, we have both been relatively secure and able to enjoy our time together.

Right now, we are so unbalanced in our situations that it has almost ruined our relationship.

Poor Taran is trying super hard to find work, whilst doing a hell of a lot of work on the blog. I help him where possible, and we spend time looking for opportunities together, I then help write emails and perfect his resume. We are trying to deal with this crappy time as a united team. But it's been extremely hard to do this.

I am currently paying the majority of the rent each week. I buy all of the food despite Taran eating a small portion and a limited menu.

We go without constantly.

My mobile phone is 90% broke and needs replacing desperately but I cant afford it.

We never get to do anything, go anywhere further afield, or even just treat ourselves.

We are basically living a relatively small, extremely quiet and restrictive life in a place where we shouldn't be. This wasn't what we signed up for.

We should be doing all the awesome water-sport's Noosa has on offer. We should be exploring the quaint and beautiful towns surrounding the sunshine coast. But most importantly, we should be saving up enough to sustain our travel dreams.

We aren't just travelling on a whim, we fully committed to this lifestyle two years ago. We both gave a lot up back home to come to Australia. It hasn't been a light journey, its been up and down, but never has it felt so stressful as it does right now.

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We fight even though its the last thing we want to be doing.

The tension between us has peaks and troughs. Sometimes we feel fine, we muddle through, and we focus on the positives. Then other times I feel so frustrated and believe that we are just wasting time, and money, paying rent whilst not building our savings.

The only way we have survived thus far is by being honest and by talking things out as much as possible...

There have been some hard conversations, like me telling Taran that I doubted him and his efforts, and then him evidently showing signs of extreme stress at his situation, which has put us into a cycle that can only be broken by one thing: Taran getting a job.

Why don't we just leave town?

You might be wondering, why don't we just leave Noosa.

There's a number of reasons...aside from loving our house, and the time that settling here has given us to work on the blog, and me, the right environment to write my book.

But also, I am not willing to leave a good job in order for Taran to find one elsewhere. I had such a tough time in a previous job in Australia, that I just want to live out this lucky time to its fullest.

Maybe that's selfish but it fills me with major anxiety to walk away from a good opportunity, with not a lot of savings, having essentially wasted 2 months, and yet be no nearer our goals.

I committed to my employer to at least 3 months, and I had a figure in mind for what I wanted to save up; we both did. And we won't have achieved that, not by a mile. But there is another valid reason to stay put.

For tax purposes, it is beneficial to remain in one place for 6 months in Australia to ensure maximum tax rebate come the end of the financial year. To be considered a resident for tax rebate purposes this is generally a requirement. I am just trying to make our life a bit easier down the line when we go to try and recoup the thousands of dollars we will have paid in tax.

If we stay here and work for 6 months, we won't simply save a lot via our earnings, we will be saving up lots in tax too.

We haven't yet lost all hope or succumbed to the idea that we have to start over elsewhere.

We know that an opportunity could arise at any moment, and our worries could be gone, just how it happened for me.

We have however realized that based on present circumstances, its possible Taran will actually have to leave me. He may have to move further away to find work. That is not what we want, obviously.

Space is sometimes good, absence can make the heart grow fonder and all that, but when you set out to experience travel with the person you love the most, being torn apart by money, is a very sad prospect.

We are already thousands of miles away from home. We are already isolated from the others who we care about the most. We are already limiting our experience by not having the funds to enjoy our temporary home. We are struggling enough, we don't want to throw separation into the mix. But it might have to happen out of necessity.

We didn't sign up for this, but its real life.

I think the distance could be painful and I could end up wanting to leave my job sooner than I can. I just generally fear what the time away could do to us if I am being completely honest, especially seeing as we don't just work together on the blog, but we are best friends.

We keep each other laughing, happy, entertained, grounded and creative. We give each other encouragement and energy.

We can be really good for each other, but right now we aren't...

I really hope this situation changes soon and that we will have good news to report back. I also hope we can overcome the stress this has put on our relationship, and that we can become equal again, because for money to force us apart, that would truly truly suck.

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Thanks for reading!

Hannah and Taran here. We hail from Southern England, where we met online and are now realizing our mutual passion for travel here at Nomad'erHowFar. We discuss Nomadic Living, Simplifying your Life and Long-term Travel, to empower, motivate and inspire our readers. Get to know us here!

Be social and come follow us across the virtual world!

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Sell Out or Miss Out? [The Travel Blogger Problem]

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I can see this post being received in a couple of ways. They’ll be a few who will agree with me, nod their head in sage agreement. Some might agree even though they are kind of the subject of the blog. Then they’ll be some who are downright offended.

And I welcome them into the discussion.

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Sell Out or Miss Out? - The Travel Blogger Problem

Travel blogs have gained popularity and thus commercial value in recent years. As a result, there is a trend toward a formulaic style of travel blog, designed to market the blogger as a good salesperson, in response to what is supposedly commercially appealing. They use their blog as a way to sell themselves, doing what it takes to get freebies, press-trips, product placements and sponsorship deals. Cause’ obviously that’s the only way to afford travel right?

Photo of attractive individual in a perfectly photographed shot, check! ‘As seen on…’ various websites, check! A tagline about your unique approach to travel, check! I get it, any travel blog aiming for the big-time needs bold branding, and wants to demonstrate their gravitas by highlighting their total online domination.

But since when did a travel blog become less about great content, genuinely useful tips and above all, storytelling, and more about marketing, bragging, image, and money?

Blogging grew from a niche hobby people were embarrassed to admit to, to a fully-fledged business model, with successful blogs on every topic out there in the world wide webs. Over time amidst the rise in blogging popularity, a dumbing-down of sorts has occurred. People begin a blog with the express purpose of it becoming their job. Now with thousands of travel blogs out there, bloggers end up rehashing (side-note: check out South Park episode, '#REHASH') content shared by other blogs, barely making any effort to cultivate an original voice. They become a content pumping machine without much regard for quality.

Admittedly, some people think there isn’t an original thought in existence these days, so what hope does the blogging world have?

But in pushing for the further commodification of our blogs, are we not also bastardizing what can and should be a beautiful expression of life-changing adventure?

Definitely loving that I got to use the word ‘bastardizing’ there.

Maybe I am bringing too much of my own prejudices into this. Maybe I am just envious of the success of others. Maybe I have to accept the fact that anyone can start a blog, and that they certainly won’t all care about content as much as I do. Maybe I am just a hateful individual who vomits in their mouth several times a day whilst looking at other travel blogs. Maybe. But I do believe it’s a positive thing that many of us are able to make a living off of our talents, because some of us are actually talented. Then again I know why I began blogging, with no thought of money in mind, and I always remind myself that each time I write. I always ask myself if I actually believe in what I am sharing, and I always do, considering I write a travel blog not advertising copy.

THE UN-RELATABLE TRAVEL BLOG

Often when visiting the more popular blogs (and the ones trying to be), I am made to feel like I just can't join this group of people who are generally quite pleasing on the eye. The back of my head with its curly ginger locks looking at a view just isn't that aspirational. My hairs really average. A focus on image and appearance is understandable in the fashion/beauty blogger realm, but ours?

Well, I suppose people can't help if they are attractive, but then again there is a widespread attack of the filters and overly posed photography across many travel blogs.

When I see articles pop up on pinterest, or see a blogger has made it onto some trashy news site, my attention is often drawn to the appearance of the bloggers, not their ‘amazing’ story. That’s because they look like frickin’ supermodels.

Our best attempt at a piss-take model shot haha!

They don’t look anything like I do when I’ve just hiked 3 hours up out of a rainforest, or even just walked 2 minutes to the shop in the Australian heat. I rarely see much of the sweat and sun-tan lotion combination that is the key everyday look of the average pale traveller in hot exotic land (disclaimer: this is not pitch for free sun-lotion).

Even on the blogs created by so-called relatable budget travellers, it can still feel like they are pandering to being a marketable product void of edge and self-awareness.

I can’t imagine Christopher McCandless posing up a storm whilst listing his achievements boldly and intimidatingly, alienating those regular folk who just want to read a well-told story and look at some pretty pictures. Nor can I imagine him purporting to be unique or special, as if he is doing something nobody else is doing or has done, when in reality, there are a lot of travellers out there (not all of whom travel into the Alaskan wilderness and eventually die). Very few travellers ever blog about it, some just travel, embrace it, enjoy it and don’t feel the need to try and make money out of it.

Of course its great to share and be proud of your achievements, if you put in the hours being creative, you deserve the joy of sharing that. But when your achievements all lead back to numbers and figures, then you just aren't that relatable any-more as a travel blogger. Just remember how it felt that day you had 1 visitor and then that day you had 100. That's still pretty cool. And much more a common occurrence for most bloggers.

Others, like us at NomaderHowFar.com decide to share things. In a selfish sort of way, we like to believe our words make a difference. We write out of compulsion and love, whilst also hoping to find some modicum of an audience, to engage people, and potentially inspire them. But I cringe at the idea of ever representing ourselves as anything other than normal people.

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GAINING FINANCIAL FREEDOM THROUGH BLOGGING

We are not against the idea of travel bloggers earning an income via blogging which enables them to keep travelling. But of course when they do, it kinda takes them further away from the members of their audience who aren’t being paid to travel.

We are naturally very open to the idea of making an income from our blog. Why? Because obviously we don’t want to spend our entire travel life going from one short-term and uninspiring job to the next. It’s often quite demoralizing. And let’s face it, if a company wishes to pay for my lifestyle of choice, then I am not going to throw it back in their faces. But I also won’t compromise my world view for a payday.

But a major reason why it might be nice to earn a bit, is because we bloody love creating. We love writing, taking photo’s and making movies.

Whitehaven Beach was an amazing place, this is the view in the evening when all the tours leave!

We pour love into all that we do, but money (or the lack of it) won’t alter the way we do things. Even though the short-term jobs we take on, pull us away from our creativity and temporarily ground us, blogging is still the thing we do most evenings and weekends, out of pure passion. It has been for two years, and we have never made a penny from doing it. But its a priceless collection of memories for us, and the connections and conversations we have as a result, are pretty awesome too.

Some of the bloggers that I genuinely do put on a pedestal, are not the ones that everyone would immediately recognize by name. They are the ones who found success naturally and over time, their own small pocket of opportunities and travel experiences, which does technically mean their blog is also a business. But the humble manner, and content-focused way in which they conduct themselves, is done with so much more elegance and integrity, it feels right to aspire to them.

It’s refreshing to witness their success via their continued creativity and engagement with their audience, as opposed to seeing them shout from the social media rooftops, just how great they and their blog are.

WHEN EMULATING SUCCESS ANNIHILATES INDIVIDUALITY

I suppose it is a double-edged sword. We witness bloggers gain commercial success, we look at the way they sell themselves, and we copy them.

We all dream the same dream and end up resembling a queue for the X-factor auditions; we all have our own life stories of hardship and how travelling is the dream we just have to live out. And the other edge is that we try to write stuff which will be frequently clicked and read, based on the algorithms of trends, social media sites and hashtags. We create differently, we alter our natural output, do some nipping, tucking and censoring, occasionally raising feathers with attention-grabbing posts when we believe it will equal clicks.

We iron out the kinks of our own individuality, because we think it’s the only way we can be successful.

Conversely, we over-push the thing about us that we believe is unique, and thus create a vast distance between story-teller and reader.

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION TO THE TRAVEL BLOGGER PROBLEM?

So you want to make a living travel blogging but you don’t want to compromise your integrity? Well, that might be a bit tricky. The marketplace for bloggers is a competitive world, and the advertisers and companies helping them make money, are pretty much all looking for the same thing; a marketable blogger of the aspirational kind, who can get high traffic that will provide a return on their investment.

If you can get high-traffic and commercial success whilst being your completely honest self, to the nth degree, then more power to you.

If you have the passion for storytelling, but still decide to follow the blueprint of others, and focus on the money, then you need to regain perspective on not just blogging, but the thing you are blogging about; travel. The truth and purity of that dream, the purpose behind it, goes way beyond your blog.

Long-term travel is something people have done and will continue to do for a long time. They will have amazing, challenging and complex experiences, and yet, many of them won’t make a commercially successful blog in the process. They won’t sell out, and they will certainly not miss out.

For more food for thought, check this this awesome piece 'Travel Bloggers are Lying to You'

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Thanks for reading!

Hannah and Taran here. We hail from Southern England, where we met online and are now realizing our mutual passion for travel here at NomaderHowFar. We discuss Nomadic Living, Simplifying your Life and Long-term Travel, to empower, motivate and inspire our readers. Get to know us here!

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Our Goals for 2016: Growth and Travel Plans

Our Goals for 2016: Growth and Travel Plans

Originally we had a wix site, which was shocking. Then we moved over to squarespace. This was our first blog post ever. Bless...

The first year we just wrote about preparing to travel, because it's what we were living and breathing. The second year we started sharing our travel stories, as we hit the road in Australia. Now into our third year, we want to take things to the next level.

Yep, that was what our website used to look like...

We love our blog. We love being creative, and communicative, and love the interaction and inspiration. We simply wouldn't blog and make videos if we didn't enjoy it. But we'd like it to expand in ways that are even more creative and engaging.

Its a very British thing to do, play down your goals and achievements. We wouldn't want to seem a bit over-zealous or hopeful, or as if we actually have self-confidence and self-belief. We succeed but we do it quietly, most of us anyway...But we are not defined by the culture in which we grew up in, being international travellers, people of the world, so I am going to step out from the shy, reserved trope of an English person and be bold and honest with you.

We want big things for nomaderhowfar.com this year. And we want to continue enjoying Australia, and see the rest of this ginormous place.

• We want to increase page views, partner up with companies, causes and brands that we believe in, feature more guest bloggers, and feature on other websites.

• We want to try out new cool relevant travel products (we have our first product review coming soon).

• I want to get published somewhere other than on our website, as much as we love it and our audience. I love writing and reaching readers who i can interact with, so writing on some other platforms seems the right way to go.

• I want to work in social media, building great followings for other bloggers and companies, having learned so much in the past two years about consistent and quality social media strategy.

• Taran wants his videos to gain a broader audience. He spends hours creating these beautiful visual stories, hours editing the footage and hours sharing it, and it deserves a bigger audience. Especially with some of the absolute shit that people in their millions watch every day. I may be bias but I am the first person to say if I think his video isn't right, and he'll be the first to tell me he doesn't like something I've done.

• We want to keep producing original, topical and personal content. Sharing our travel stories, and our thoughts on all manner of topics that we care about.

• We want to get some more stunning shots and footage on our go-pro and our newer canon addition.

• We hope to meet some of our fellow blogging comrades and nomads.

• I want to finish, publish and release my e-book on minimalism. On the back of that release I'd like to create a consulting service designed to aid people with introducing minimalism into their lives.

• We both want to continue to travel Australia, meet its awesome residents, as well as our fellow travellers from all over the world.

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Maybe it seems like we are hoping for too much, that our goals for the blog are cliched or predictable. But we are encouraged toward these goals by the fact that we have witnessed a steady consistent growth in audience and page views. February saw a record-high of 12,000 page views. We get so excited to see that more and more people are hopefully being guided or inspired by our content. And that is what drives us.

At the core of all our goals is that fact that we obviously love travel, it is what we do, what we gave up our previous lives in England for, so we would like to keep doing it, capturing it, and sharing it, for as long as possibly can.

Blogging goes hand-in-hand with our nomadic lifestyle, so we hope this beautiful partnership only grows in 2016.

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Thanks for reading!

Hannah and Taran here. We hail from Southern England, where we met online and are now realizing our mutual passion for travel here at NomaderHowFar. We discuss Nomadic Living, Simplifying your Life and Long-term Travel, to empower, motivate and inspire our readers. Get to know us here!

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Nomads in Noosa: Taking a break from travel?

Nomads in Noosa: Taking a break from travel?

We had only been back in Australia 1 week, and we found ourselves in Noosa, looking at houses and applying for jobs. Then suddenly one of us had a job, and then we had a room in a house to call our own.

It wasn't part of our plan for when we came back from England. In fact we had no plan, which became clear as we spent a few days relaxing in Brisbane totally unsure of our next move.

Noosa was somewhere we had briefly stayed over night, and so we had never seen the beach, said to be one of best on the east coast. So it was a definite sign, a few days of planning in Brisbane and still none-the-wiser in where to go next, when I noticed that a friend of ours was living there. Off to Noosa we went!!!

One of the views along the Noosa national park coastal walk.

When we arrived we found a bustling holiday town, with a super pretty river full of people kayaking and paddle-boarding, leading down to a super sweet beach, the perfect mix of gentle lapping waves and a bit of surf action. Something just felt right about the place. Enough to make me think about living here for a while, looking up house-shares on gumtree, and wondering how much it would actually cost. We also met an awesome young couple at our campsite, Elise and Jordan, who both seemed to love Noosa. They took us on a hike the next day, then we went and ate burgers on the river front. They were there to encourage us and take us around Noosa, helping us decide to put down some roots.

That same morning, the 2nd in Noosa, I had happened upon a job ad on gumtree for housekeeping at a local luxury resort. I applied thinking I didn't stand much chance, yet a few hours later I had a phone call with an invite to be interviewed. We then viewed two houses that same day, choosing the second, a large spread-out and airy house in a nice residential area just 15 minutes from town.

Waking up early the next day in our new bed, a mix of stubborn jet-lag combined with nerves, I went to my interview in my newly acquired dress (thanks to a mad shop dash courtesy of our new buddies, Elise and Jordan), and 10 minutes later I had been hired!! Say whattttt! I was so relieved and a little dumb-founded.

I wasn't super confident, and there was definitely no marvellous display of perfect interview etiquette. I must have just fitted the bill on paper, plus the manager was clearly a busy lady used to making quick decisions. She said to my colleague, referring to me, that she had 'a good feeling about this one'... Admittedly I am only in housekeeping, it isn't rocket science, but I am actually liking it so far. I get to work in a nice quiet hotel, with friendly staff, and I get paid to clean. I get paid for doing one of my hobbies.

The environment is so much better than the previous one we worked in on Fraser Island. Everyone is supportive, motivational, friendly and just chilled out. The tools we are provided with to clean make the job vastly easier. Any housekeeper will understand what I mean when I say 'YAY!' about cleaning floors without mop buckets and using non-toxic chemicals; it's basically awesome.

What's more, the hotel is right beside the beach, and is on the famous Hastings street, a strip of super nice bars, restaurants and my new favourite haunt, Boost juice. I loving spending time before and after work enjoying the beach, cooling off and soaking in the late summer Noosa vibe.

Meanwhile..

Taran is still on the look-out for work but being here, getting ourselves a base from which to be creative, is hopefully going to push the blog to the next level. The last few times we had a base, back in Bundaberg for instance, we were able to create lots more content, and engage with our audience more regularly. We actually had time to not just post sporadic or quick posts but to enjoy writing, sharing, chatting to other bloggers and reading their inspirational stuff.

Travelling might be the opposite of stopping, setting down roots and working, as if you never even left home to begin with. But every now and then it provides a needed break, a moment of pause in which you can experience somewhere like a true local. And every place we live, every job we have, every few weeks where we can pad away on our laptops working on the blog, we are still living out a reality we dreamed of and worked toward for a year. Home might have been England for 25 years, but for now, it can be a little bedroom in a beachy holiday town somewhere in Australia. And then before we know it, it will be somewhere else entirely. Most likely our trusty tent.

The beauty of travel is not always found in constant movement or change, sometimes its in living somewhere long enough to love it, but not long enough to hate it.

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Yo!

Hannah and Taran here. We hail from Southern England, where we met online and are now realizing our mutual passion for travel here at NomaderHowFar. We discuss Nomadic Living, Simplifying your Life and Long-term Travel, to empower, motivate and inspire our readers. Get to know us here!

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Enjoying Without Destroying [Experiencing Fraser Island]

Enjoying Without Destroying - Experiencing Fraser Island

We recently arrived back onto mainland Australia having spent 2 months living on Fraser Island. We feel so privileged to have lived there, the sound of the waves hitting the beach, our daily soundtrack, and a swathe of shining dots, the sky we slept beneath.

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We saw snakes, dingo's, cicada beetles and goanna's regularly; we shared our camp ground with an array of wildlife, all of which we had to get used to.

Most backpackers get a brief (often hungover) glimpse of the island via the super popular 4x4 tag-along tours. Many love it not just for the drunken antics but for the obvious beauty of champagne pools, Eli Creek, and Lake Mackenzie. Other tourists also love careering along the beaches, which are very much a highway in the busy season, setting up camps alongside the shoreline.

But unfortunately, some visitors to the island treat it like they might treat a theme park; everything there to entertain them when in reality it is place of spiritual and cultural heritage, not a playground. It's as if the natural wondrous beauty of the place comes second to the loud drunken sometimes damaging fun they all try to have whilst there. What is it about being on a remote deserted tropical island that makes anyone want to sink a carton of drink and then throw the beer cans into a bush?

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The incredibly long '75 mile beach'

Backpacker tours only really cause issues due to the high volume of people coming onto the island, every day. Groups of excited young people, all making friends and skulling a few stubbies, they are frequently told how to behave on the island, by the tour guides, many whom adore the island and treat with the respect it deserves. I'm not saying its as simple as a bit of littering or some drunken noise, but its how the tourists somewhat tarnish Fraser. However it is essential to the protection of places such as Fraser, that people are able to visit and see them, and that in turn, there are rangers patrolling and watching out for the island and its animal inhabitants. It just seems that some visitors could treat the island with more care, and not ruin it for those who want to witness its beauty.

There have been a few incidents over the years due to idiotic drunkenness, such as some backpackers who were found swinging a snake around. Not only dangerous and beyond stupid, but also, very cruel. Fraser is the home of these snakes and dingo's, they were here first; it is their one and only home, not a zoo.

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The resident Python we named Pippy!

The dingo's across the island are all tagged and if you approach a dingo and don't follow the guidelines on how to keep these wild animals, wild, then they will attack people, and are almost always tracked down and destroyed as a result. Don't leave food within their reach, don't allow your children to approach them, in fact, don't approach them at all. If they want to come over to see you, maintain a strong stance, keep eye contact, and don't show too much interest (or conversely, fear).

Dingo's might appear cute or like any old dog that you might approach in the street, but they have killer instinct. If you get bit by a snake or attacked by a dingo, chances are, you did something bad to begin with. Or maybe you were just unlucky. Either way, your actions in the island environment have a big impact on the safety of both you and the animals.

So basically, the easiest way to not be a douchey tourist, is to observe and appreciate the nature that places like Fraser posses, but don't interfere; don't bring selfish or brash human thinking into the animal kingdom.

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I guess its a statement you can apply to so many places across the planet, that in visiting them we bring with us the things which eventually ruin the beauty we came to marvel at in the first place. It doesn't have to be that way. We just need to bring some sense, respect and thought along with us, to keep the beauty alive, not be part of its destruction.

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Thanks for reading!

Hannah and Taran here. We hail from Southern England, where we met online and are now realizing our mutual passion for travel here at NomaderHowFar. We discuss Nomadic Living, Simplifying your Life and Long-term Travel, to empower, motivate and inspire our readers. Get to know us here!

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5 Essential Steps to Travel

5 Essential Steps to Travel

When I think about how much really fulfilling living I have done in the past 1.5 years of travelling, its overwhelming.

So many days have gone by that have been actually pretty life-changing. From being super relaxed in the tranquil heaven of Whitehaven Beach to having an adrenaline overdose jumping out of a plane recently, its been exciting and challenging.

That's not to say its been months of constant awesomeness.

There's been some real moments of difficulty. We have had to deal with a horrible boss in a stressful job, and there was 3 months where we worked outdoors on a farm, and that was definitely a major leaning curve.

Either way, I wouldn't swap a moment of it for having been at home, where the days always passed too quickly and too routinely in a way that left us both lacking vitality and passion for life.

Travel has reignited something within us both, and we want people to have the chance to experience the same.

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Here are 5 essential steps on how to bring the magic of travel into your life:

Fix Your Finances

Before you embark on an adventure, be it 6 months or be it forever, you want to have your finances neatly tied up.

I don't mean writing a will, I mean paying off all your debts. In the year before Taran and I left England, I cleared around 1500 pounds in credit card debts. I did this through sheer determination. I made it so that my income was directed at my debts straight away, throwing as much as I could at them each week.

Unexpected income meant unexpected extra debt clearing!

I used the snowball method whereby I cleared the smaller debts first, which spurred me on. It helped that I was living at home, and was thus able to keep expenses low.

If you really want to get out of debt, then you do need to consider cutting back wherever possible. Sometimes it means 2-3 months of absolute suffering and then maybe 2-3 months of mild discomfort, but it is worth it for the sense of freedom and relief when you can finally say that you no longer owe any companies any money.

Building A Savings Account

Once you have paid your debts, this is when you can focus all your energy on building a healthy savings account to allow you to begin your travels.

Taran and I set up premium bonds, which meant our savings were kept entirely separate from our bank accounts. It also meant we got entries to the draw that means you can win anything from 25 to 25000 pounds. 

It goes without saying that of course you need money to go travelling but you don't need as much as you might think.

We took around $10000 dollars between us, which when broken down was about 7000 from me and 4000 from Taran. That 7000 when back into pounds is around 3500. It really isn't an unreasonable figure to save. And the reason I say this is because I was running my own business, earning between 700-1300 a month (and one month only 400). My job was very changeable and so my income was unstable. And yet I was able to clear my debts and save up a good portion of that money within around 6 months.

I could have saved more, had I taken on new clients or got an extra job, or even just spent less. Where there's income, there's a way. It certainly is possible to save up a decent fund for any trip length, if you are willing to adjust your spending habits and make small sacrifices.

De-cluttering Your Home

My favourite part of the run-up to travelling was getting rid of my possessions and organizing my bedroom.

This was a really logical step for me, in getting prepared for my future, one that would be far more minimalist and frugal. I loved rifling through old photos and mementos, and found it super satisfying ridding myself of clothes and random things that I never used. I even did a car boot sale which gave me a little bit of pocket money, but was mostly just a fun way to give my stuff a new home.

I found that this step was integral to helping me see why I was making this big life change; why I was throwing hundred of pounds at debts I had previously avoided and why I was going without things in favour of saving.

I was steering my mind away from a path previously marked by materialism and a focus on acquiring things that I believed would make me happier. Thus this step was therapeutic and calming. I couldn't wait to actually pack my bag and walk away from the lifestyle of excess that had entrapped me in the past.

Making Peace With People

So this is a rather unconventional step not revolving around money. In the lead-up to our travels I made a conscious effort to leave my friends and family on solidly good terms.

I wanted to mend rifts and reconnect with those who mattered most to me. I wanted to feel like I was leaving behind people and relationships that were healthy. I wanted to go out into the world feeling that I could be free but also have people that I could talk to and share this life-phase with.

I was conscious of people understanding that I wasn't abandoning them or unable to relate to their life choices any more, I was simply following my heart.

Your life can't always revolve around the routines of family and friendships because if you, at the centre of it, are not content with your lifestyle, then you are foregoing the chance the fix that by staying with them.

Travel doesn't have to be permanent and home will always exist, but instead of a weighty anchor it can be a place you think of fondly and return to when you have experienced what you need to in order to feel fulfilled.

Plan Where To Go

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You don't need a 5 year travel plan, but maybe a 6 month one is a good place to start.

Deciding on the first destination is important for many reasons, not simply for getting excited about all that there is to see.

You do need to plan for medical and insurance, as well as maybe topping up your vaccinations. I had to organize for some mandatory medical tests that I get for free on the NHS in England, so I made sure I was in tip-top condition before we left.

We knew that we wanted to see all of Australia, and so we found out what was the best way to get the maximum time out there. It worked out that us being aged 25, we were able to do a working visa which gave us 1 year, and if we did specified work, we could get a 2nd year. So we planned for maybe 2 years in Australia, and that is what we told all our families and friends much to their initial horror.

We worked out where was cheapest to fly into and when was cheapest to fly via kayak (and nowadays we'd use google-flights). We got a vague idea of hostel prices and food, to predict how far our savings might stretch. But in reality you can't be sure how well you will go financially until you are there. If your a hotel kind of person, checking rates is an essential part of travel planning, HotelsCombined provides awesome accommodation deals to help manage your travel finances.

Australia has obvious appeal but also the ability to work as we travelled, and in short-term positions, was a key part of why began there.

The most important thing is to figure out what you want out of the places you plan to visit, and launch from there when deciding where to visit and for how long.

Travelling isn't ever a perfect journey of endless smiles, although there are many days where I have felt so deeply happy I just wish I could bottle the feeling and sell it. Instead I just come here and blog about it.

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Thanks for reading!

Hannah here, one half of NomaderHowFar. I love reading, the beach, proper fish and chips, and a good cup of tea. But I mostly like to chat about minimalism, simplifying your life, the beauty of travel and sometimes I get a bit deep. Get to know us here!

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We Found Heaven on Earth (Whitehaven and the Whitsundays)

We Found Heaven on Earth:Whitehaven and the Whitsunday's

There are corners of this world where the beauty is so pure and breathtaking, you find your anxieties, fears and your entire reality, disintegrate.

They're just too perfect, too natural and real, for any of your everyday concerns to matter. One corner that has had this affect upon us is Whitehaven Beach, the Whitsunday Islands.

Soft white silica sands, and a haven in every sense of the word, this sun-soaked azure paradise was somewhere we really wanted to visit before arriving in Australia.

Famous for the crystal waters, abundant with turtles, dolphins and other sea-life, if you only have a short time in Australia, it is a must-see.

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We may have only just returned from a stunning island (Fraser, lower down the Queensland coast) but we knew this one would be special, so we headed here as soon as we could.

There are the usual backpacker tours that run all around the Whitsundays, most of which involve 2 days of island-hopping, with everyone crammed onto a boat, unable to experience anywhere for too long.

We got pursued by one of the tour salespeople whilst walking along Airlie Beach main street, vying for our business. He tried to say that you couldn't camp on Whitehaven, but we just smiled and walked off, knowing that the next morning we were booked onto a boat bound for the island, and the permits were all in place. Ignorant or just trying to fool us into handing over cash for the easy option of a backpacker tour, we were so glad that we had done our research into this place.

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Getting the independence to camp on the beach seemed pretty amazing compared to spending $500 to share a tiny boat with 12 others, and only getting to spend around an hour at each destination.

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We used a water taxi to get to Whitehaven (we used Scamper, who arranged permits for us, which cost $155 for a return trip, plus $40 for a camp kit which has everything 2 people might need, plus $15 for stinger suits) and pitched up for two nights in the small camping ground. By camp-ground I mean the patch of land set back only a few steps from the waters edge, with space for very few tents, sheltered by a smattering of trees, and frequently visited by guana's and wallabies.

The site itself is $5.50 per night, a standard permit cost in a national park in Australia, which is super reasonable considering you get the privilege of sleeping, eating, drinking (and using a relatively luxurious long-drop toilet) on one of the most pristine stretches of beach in the whole of Australia.

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Some curious guanna's made their presence known straight away, trampling around the site to see what goodies we had brought.

During the day we snorkelled and just revelled in the beautiful warm ocean. At one point a boat which was anchored just off the shore, was also providing shelter to hundreds of little fish, all of whom went crazy for the fish feed that was thrown overboard at us!

We truly were away from it all, wrapped up in the quiet sounds of mother-nature, the gentle lapping of the ocean, an expanse so clear it doesn't feel real.

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Hannah with a fish for a head!

In fact it feels so smooth and clean to swim in, it's a struggle to get out. Although you wear a full-body stinger suit if your going to swim out properly, as this area is notorious for the Irukanji, a deadly jellyfish. It may look a bit daft but the last thing you want on an island is sting!

I know its probably odd to bring a laptop to a deserted island, but I knew once the dark evening descended I'd probably feel inspired to talk about it all!

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We were 3 of only 5 people in the camp-ground, and thus the only people on the whole island overnight, bar a few boats moored just off the shoreline, the only things punctuating the landscape with their lights and engine noise.

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DAY 2

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On our second day we did a 2hr walk along the beach to reach the end point, a famous expanse of shallow waters often seen on postcards and mostly photographed from Hill Inlet. We didn't fancy the mountainous climb in our flip-flops so we just did a pleasant flat walk, followed up by more snorkelling.

We saw lots of stingrays but they are so flighty we could never get too close. We also saw some tiny sharks! Tiny as in the size of large fish as opposed to the size of a boat...

We both got a bit burnt on the walk back, the sun beating against our backs. We decided to brave a quick swim without our stinger suits and its just ridiculous how water can feel so smooth and soft.

That night after dark we walked again down to the edge of the sand, dipped our toes in the dark gentle waters, and just marvelled at the beauty around us. I even got a bit teary-eyed. It is simply stunning beyond what I could of expected or what I can get across. You really have to experience it to understand that its more than just a pretty beach.

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So I guess you could say we quite liked Whitehaven, just a bit.... it truly has stolen our senses and given us some peace, if only for two days, but we'll probably think about it forever. It will be the happy place we go to in our minds when we're on another 13 hour coach ride (we travelled from Rainbow to Airlie overnight and our feet are still swollen from the long trip).

It truly is the most beautiful place we have seen in Australia, alongside the Blue Mountains and Port Stephens.

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Thanks for reading!

Hannah and Taran here. We hail from Southern England, where we met online and are now realizing our mutual passion for travel here at NomaderHowFar. We discuss Nomadic Living, Simplifying your Life and Long-term Travel, to empower, motivate and inspire our readers. Get to know us here!

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Paradise Lost (Leaving Fraser Island)

Paradise Lost - Leaving Fraser Island

Its 10am, a warm 28 degrees in Rainbow Beach, Australia.

Myself, Taran and Sean (our mate from England whose currently visiting and travelling with us) are sitting beside a pool, taking cover in the shade after a few too many rays yesterday. Only 24 hours ago we were still on Fraser Island, a special place that had become home over the last 2 months. We lived in a safari tent, just up from a beach, on the grounds of an extremely popular holiday resort (and the only privately owned campsite on the island). We worked hard for 2 months, pulling a few long stretches with very few days off, and do you know what, it simply got old. Living on a tropical island got old.

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The only place we could get signal...

We just couldn't do it any more. Maybe it was the fact we had come from a farm, another remote living situation, straight into an intense workplace, also in a super isolated spot.

We just got to a point within our 5th month of being away from civilisation, where we just needed to re-join it. Not least to come back to our passion of doing this blog. We had half-decent internet at the farm and we didn't feel entirely disconnected from the website, but there's a lot that goes into this blog, and only now, having come back to 'mainland' (as it will always now be referred to since island living) can we fully absorb back into the swing of it.

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Not to say we wont be doing some full on travelling having worked hard for 5 months. We are off to Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays in the coming days, to experience the extreme beauty that is Whitehaven Beach.

But for a brief moment, we are resting up, enjoying the chilled vibes of Rainbow Beach, whilst being able to just decompress a little. It definitely does something to you, being isolated, spending all your days with a tight-knit group of individuals. When you re-join the masses back on mainland, its jarring, comforting and bizarre all at the same time. We suddenly have free time again, time stretching out ahead of us that is ours, that we can mould and plan as we wish. We are away from the stresses of working in a busy resort during peak season, finished with what was a more difficult phase of our 10 months in Australia.

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Some evenings, after a packed day, I'd lay down to read or relax after work, and sink into a deep sleep. Then at 6am I'd groggily wake up for another 12 hour day, feeling a bit of a dread for what I knew would be another crazy day. It was draining, but also fulfilling and fun too. The team were such a great lot, all working hard together to get through our hectic days. We could all relate with missing our families and friends; island life isn't really conducive to messaging let alone skyping home. So that added to the homesickness I felt for the last month or so, which prompted us to hand in our notice a few weeks before we had originally planned to leave.

It feels like the right decision to have made, as I sit here feeling reinvigorated and back in touch with the creativity that has been absent for a while now.

Admittedly, our bank accounts aren't as bursting as we'd of hoped, nonetheless there a bit fuller. Enough to travel some more, relax a lot more and blog a hell of a lot more...

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Now check out our best photographs from Fraser Island!

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Thanks for reading!

Hannah and Taran here. We hail from Southern England, where we met online and are now realizing our mutual passion for travel here at NomaderHowFar. We discuss Nomadic Living, Simplifying your Life and Long-term Travel, to empower, motivate and inspire our readers. Get to know us here!

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Living And Working on The World's Largest Sand Island! [Fraser Life]

Living And Working on The World's Largest Sand Island! - Fraser Life

Just 2 weeks ago we got some awesome news, we had secured paid work on Fraser Island! Now we sit here a few days in, having seen our first Dingo, amazing night skies and having hanged with a sleepy python.

We only got here last week and yet we continue our record of managing to see all the famous Australian animals some people manage to evade the entirety of their time here.

Back to where this all began...

Having accepted this hard-fought for job opportunity, we would be leaving our farm-life and pretty much beginning new work right away. It was a whirlwind of change, and it was a rushed goodbye. I would of happily stayed on the farm longer, in our lovely home. But another beautiful setting was beckoning us on.

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Arriving on the island via a tiny plane, it was a pretty amazing way to show us the vast sand island that sits adjacent to Rainbow Beach and Hervey Bay. A rickety 4x4 ride later and we found ourselves at our new home. Mixed feelings of apprehension and enthusiasm meant our first few work days were a bit intense. Lots of new things to learn as well as people. Hospitality is something fairly new to us both, although it suits us quite nicely.

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I work in the store (which is also a coffee shop, cafe and reception desk). It is the centre of the camp's operations, and it is a super well-stocked shop, so you are never ever short of work to do. Taran is in the yard, doing maintenance and cleaning across the site. We no longer see each other all day as we did on the farm, so its always lovely to return to our little two room tent each evening. No TV's or luxuries here, just our laptops to play games and write blog posts on. No internet either. Well its available, either at cost, or at the top of a sand-dune out the front. But when its not easily there on tap you use it more wisely. And you don't waste time scrolling through nothingness!

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Sharing our tent with a few ants and some spiders (which remain outside and are remaining alive to act as our fly-guard team) we live nearby the other workers caravans. It's a mostly British team, so I don't think we will ever feel lonely whilst we're here. I did have one moment not long after we started work, which bordered on panic. My brain was already working at full capacity trying to take in all my new surroundings and responsibilities, and suddenly, I found myself thinking 'I'm on an island. I'm trapped, I can't get off'. It sounds funny even to myself now, but at the time I was a bit overwhelmed.

Travelling has been all about changes, making transitions and starting over, and each new change has brought us new skills, knowledge and fun! Sometimes we've approached a new change with too much fear or too much excitement, neither emotion based in reality. You usually find something much different, sometimes worse, but mostly better.

Nothing has been a waste of time on our trip so far. Everything has been purposeful. Even the weeks on end where it seems like you are doing little to nothing, those weeks make the ones where you work yourself silly much more bearable.

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We hope to see all of this sandy paradise bit by bit over the next 3 months, all the while just enjoying our good fortune. Living on a remote farm to living on an island, we aren't doing this Australia thing in half-measures. And we've never been happier.

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Thanks for reading!

Hannah and Taran here. We hail from Southern England, where we met online and are now realizing our mutual passion for travel here at NomaderHowFar. We discuss Nomadic Living, Simplifying your Life and Long-term Travel, to empower, motivate and inspire our readers. Get to know us here!

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6 Months of Travel In 6 Stunning Photo's

6 Months of Travel In 6 Stunning Photo's

March 26th, it all began in Melbourne. City life was all we knew of Australia for the first fortnight. By that time we were ready to see something a little different, and a little bit more special.

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Port Stephens

...is a beautiful place that we had the pleasure of staying at for 10 days. Having broken away from the pace of Sydney and Newcastle, we camped beside a kangaroo at an awesome bush hostel, and spent an evening on the deserted beach, which was when the above sky happened. Some nights later a brutal storm hit, causing a power-cut and widespread problems across New South Wales. We were trapped, although in no hurry to leave this quiet yet beautiful spot.

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The Blue Mountains

...were our first taste of one of Australia's natural wonders, and they did not disappoint. Swathes of green as far as you could see, with peaks of mountains meeting the clouds. It was peaceful and unforgettable. Katoomba was also great, such a quintessential mountain town, with the Flying Fox hostel being our most favourite hostel in Australia yet.

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Bellingen

...was somewhere we were recommended by the hostel owners at Port Stephens. A small but lively bohemian town, situated on the edge of the Waterfall Way, this place was breathtakingly beautiful and yet a fairly well-kept secret. It's national park-land had lots of waterfalls nestled amongst it's hilly rainforests. It did rain a lot in Bellingen, but we will always remember it fondly; we met some great people and experienced a truly eclectic hostel.

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1770

...is a super small beach community, but attracts a large crowd for its gentle crystal waters, perfect for fishing or dolphin-spotting. We camped at a great site, right on the edge of the sand, and took some of our best photographs with our go-pro. Travelling with our Brisbanite mate Rachel, she brought us on a mini-road-trip that allowed us to see this special spot.

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Macadamia farming

At the end of July we settled on our WWOOFing location in Queensland, working towards a 2nd year visa whilst getting to experience rural Australia. Kangaroo's outside your window each morning, utter peace and quiet (apart from the cockatoos), and working amongst the trees, it's been different to the rest of our travels, but really rewarding at the same time.

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Rainbow beach

...was a Saturday escape from the farm, where we could let our hair down, and paddle in the warm spring seas. Turquoise waters, sand dunes leading up to stunning panoramic views, and all followed up by a cider and fish and chips; we had such a fun day here. We also visited Tin Can Bay which is just down the road, where we fed wild dolphins their breakfast!

We've had plenty of moments in the past 6 months where we've stopped, taken a deep breath, and stared in silence (and that's not just in the middle of an argument). 

Beautiful has been the most over-used word to date on this blog, but we really have seen some stunning sights, taking them in patiently, trying to capture each and every detail in our memories. 6 months doesn't seem a long time; it really it feels like we've only just found our stride, and yet we've been amazed time and time again.

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Thanks for reading!

Taran here, one half of NomaderHowFar. I'm fond of psychedelic rock, photography & videography, forcing Hannah to do crazy things, and I'm also partial to the odd gaming session. Oh and I love to travel :P Get to know us here!

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Sydney: Bugs, Friends and Bondi

Sydney: Bugs, Friends and Bondi

Sydney, Wednesday the 1st April at 7pm, a muggy evening, and these two sweaty, tired travellers reach our next destination, lug our packs to the train station, then struggle to find our first accommodation, a couch-surf with a guy called Nurman, in a Sydney suburb called Hornsby.

We are so happy to finally arrive at Nurman's lovely apartment, to have some hot showers and then amazingly, a healthy home-cooked meal. Nurman was super welcoming and warm, making us feel instantly at home. It was crazy to think that this exchange of kindness and hospitality involved no money, just a mutual interest in each others lives and good conversation, as well as the gift of some yummy muffins from us.

Our first day of exploring Sydney began at a bank. Boring admin to open our Australia accounts, ticked off our to-do-list of 'Grown-up Responsible Stuff'.

Then after losing each other in Woolworth's, thanks to the mad crowds of lunch-seekers, we made it to the calm and peace of Hyde Park, where the local pest birds, the White Ibis, invited themselves to our picnic. We nicknamed them Pecky's. They were much more novel than your humble English pigeon, thanks to their bizarrely long beaks and skittish but brave manner. Like the tourists that we are, we fed them tid-bits, encouraging their pesty ways.

A walk around the Anzac Memorial and peaceful reflection pool, we then explored the rest of the park, as well as the Cathedral, dipping our feet in a fountain. It was around 23-degrees but very humid, so we were missing the beaches of Melbourne at this point.

Approaching the harbour via the Botanical Gardens we were able to see some huge spiders, hear some squawking tropical birds and feel like we were even more further afield than Australia.

Then we went into the New South Wales art gallery, mostly to escape the heat, but actually found it quite relaxing to look at some famous paintings from Australian and British artists of the 18-1900's.

Then strolling along the rough water's edge, we came up on the famous Opera-House. Taran looked at me, and smiled, having one of those 'We are actually here!' moments.

Sadly this was our last night at Nurman's in our lovely bed, the next day came our first Australian hostel, Tokyo Village, in central sydney. We met up with our friend from England, Ashleigh, who made the next two rainy days awesome, all of us holed up in the stuffy somewhat dirty hostel we had booked at the last minute.

Our first night Taran spotted some kind of small cock-roach bug crawling across his laptop, and then our friend slept-talked, saying "'I've just seen a ghost', so an interesting first night to say the least...

Despite the shower-room that was more like a swimming-pool, and the toenails we found sitting on our dorm floor, we had a fun time watching a random horror movie, drinking ciders and playing cards.

Then came our third Hostel in the backpacker location Kings Cross, Eva's Backpackers, a totally different experience to Tokyo Village. Clean, tidy and welcoming, with an awesome roof-top to look out over Sydney, this place was a breath of fresh (clean) air. And clean showers!

The next day started hot and sunny so we finally made the backpacker pilgrimage to Bondi Beach. The water was surprisingly warm, and it was pretty awesome having our first proper play in the Australia ocean. Then the storm clouds rolled in, and we went for a coastal walk, taking refuge under some cliff-rocks, whilst Taran braved a mini-waterfall.

Sydney was all about making new friends, seeing old ones, exploring all that was typically touristy, making us quite relieved to escape into the Blue Mountains next...

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Thanks for reading!

Hannah and Taran here. We hail from Southern England, where we met online and are now realizing our mutual passion for travel here at Nomad'erHowFar. We discuss Nomadic Living, Simplifying your Life and Long-term Travel, to empower, motivate and inspire our readers. Get to know us here!

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Melbourne: 4 Seasons In One Day

Melbourne: 4 Seasons In One Day.

UPDATED JUNE 2016: We have now been in Australia over 16 months, catch up with our latest adventure.

24 hours of plane travel, two movie's, several hours of broken sleep, 4 meals, 1 stop in Singapore, 1 long bus ride and we made it into Melbourne! Check out our first Travel Film!

Our first days here have seen us fall asleep by 7pm, wake at 5am, and spend much of our day slowly walking and exploring.

Jet-lag is real, and annoying! But we are enjoying what time we have spent out and about in Elwood (the neighbourhood we are staying in) St. Kilda, and the CBD.

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On our first day, having got a bus into central from the airport, we kind of wanted to escape the bustle and the traffic, so off we trekked through the centre down to the beach.

Much of our walk was looking at the characterful little homes and wide, tree-lined streets. Marvelling at everything mixed with tiredness, we still were a bit dazed at this point.

So it really was something to behold the first moment we stepped onto the Australian sands.

At the end of the streets and across a busy road, there sat the deserted and pretty coastline.

Out came the flip-flops, brand new and ready to be worn to absolute death.

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And so we continued walking on to our first accommodation, a little house in the suburb of Elwood.

After a brief stop for Hannah to be sick (yes, actually throw up onto our first Australian beach), we had a little rest on the warm sands, as the breeze shocked us a tad. Australia was not quite delivering on endless summer weather, but many people had told us that Melbourne has a temperamental climate and we were visiting it in Autumn.

Eventually making it to our Air b'n'b stay, what greeted us was another characterful little house, a cosy mattress to pile onto and a very chilled out vibe. Alternatively, if you prefer a hotel, check out HotelsCombined for some great deals.

Dragging ourselves back up off the bed was a task, but food was needed desperately at this point.

That night we fell asleep at about 6.30pm, utterly failing at preventing jet-lag...

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Awesome tasty vegan food at 'Lentil As Anything'

The next morning after a 5am wake-up, we both relaxed and eventually set-off for a walk around the local area, off towards St. Kilda, where we had lunch at 'Lentil As Anything', where you decide how much to pay based on what you feel your meal was worth... interesting concept, probably drawing many a cheeky person. But they discourage low donations with a sign, so in the end lunch was a decent $12 each.

We then went into the St. Kilda botanical gardens, a really relaxed little corner of paradise set amongst concrete suburbia.

Once home we fell asleep early again!

The next day saw us get the train into the centre, giving our feet a bit of a rest, where we meandered around the local hot-spots such as Federation Square and Hosier lane, stopping for lunch, choosing a very exotic local cuisine, Subway...

We then found a Woolworth's, which in Aus is a big cheaply priced supermarket, where we bought some random food stuff to keep us going.

Yes, food is seemingly more expensive out here, but when you make the effort to shop around and not go to convenience stores, making sure you stock up on the basics for breakfast and dinner, you definitely can save some pennies.

That evening we managed a respectable bed-time of 9.30pm...there's not a whole lot to do in the evenings which doesn't involve spending money, and we've found that staying in an Air b'n'b as opposed to a hostel, whilst a cheaper option, means you have much less socializing to stave off the late-evening boredom of being a stingy backpacker.

Today we stayed local and decided to walk along the coastal path, and we definitely found the best view of Melbourne.

It was also pretty hot, so it was shorts out, hoodie's off and sun-lotion on, the absolute perfect day for a beach stroll.

We happened across a part of the beach where tons of dogs were lolloping around happily in the water, which made me giddy and excited like the dog-obsessive that I am.

Later on, sitting on some rocks, sipping ciders looking across the water to the city, it was probably the best moment in Melbourne thus far, and the end to a beautiful day..

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Thanks for reading!

Hannah and Taran here. We hail from Southern England, where we met online and are now realizing our mutual passion for travel here at NomaderHowFar. We discuss Nomadic Living, Simplifying your Life and Long-term Travel, to empower, motivate and inspire our readers. Get to know us here!

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