Goodbye 2022 Hello 2023

Let me start off by saying Happy New Year and I hope you had a festive holiday period. The new year brings around what feels like a fresh start to me. I know there are many people who believe NY resolutions are overrated and I do agree with the fact you can set and work towards goals at any time of the year. However, I find myself to be very reflective in the month of December which allows my mind to evaluate what I want from the next year.

One of my goals for 2023 is to grow and tweak Seas the Travel into something I can be super proud of. As today’s post is going live on New Year’s Day it seemed fitting to have a nod to say goodbye to 2022 and hello to 2023, a yearly round-up shall we say.

And boy I am excited about what this year could hold! I learnt in the last couple of years that time is not to be taken for granted and that living in the moment is the best way to lead a life of happiness. So realistically I have no idea what this year holds for me and that’s exactly the way I want it, full of endless opportunities and choices that can shape my year however I wish.

One thing I do know about 2023 is that I’m lucky enough to be spending the first half of the year living out of a backpack, hopping between countries in Latin America with my boyfriend Josh and writing blog posts all about it. This leads me to why this very travel blog exists, mainly because I am addicted to travelling and writing about it.

*Warning* This is a very waffly post.

Seas the Travel: The Origin Story

Coming to a cinema near you…

In order to tell you why I started this blog and why it means so much to me, we have to go on a little (and by little I mean fairly long)backstory…

I actually started blogging roughly around 10 years ago, which is wild to think about and also very cringe now I look back. When I was a young teenager and typing my thoughts into the internet, it was more Tumblr-style teenage angst posts than the normal travel-based posts I find myself wanting to write now.

But even though I would rather burn my eyes out than see those posts again, I discovered I enjoyed writing down my ramblings and I most certainly loved designing websites. Fast forward through the next few years and I hit a rock with my self-confidence, I was diagnosed with dyslexia, told often that I would amount to nothing by teachers and students and just generally lost a lot of my spark throughout the final years of high school, which lead to not much more on the blogging front.

My life then throw a massive 180 when I said “hasta la vista England” and got on a flight to Australia by myself at 18. I was never originally planning on going alone, but life happened and you know what it taught me so much about myself. 

When I found myself with spare time in Australia, I would head off to the local library and type up my antics from my most recent adventures and eventually, I started a small travel blog. I didn’t end up sticking with it for very long, but those posts I still have those today and feel very grateful that I have them to look back on and remember such a special trip.

When it was time to come back to England I still had no idea what I wanted for my life but I was damn sure it was something rooted in travel. In the next few years I found myself jumping from job to job, (fun fact about myself I have actually had more jobs than years on this planet) I was still taking occasional trips abroad with friends and even went interrailing for 3 weeks in the summer of 2017.

In September 2019 I found myself in a decent-paying job and had finally saved up enough money to head out on my next backpacking adventure. So once again I packed everything up and headed to Bangkok for the start of my solo trip through South East Asia, I stopped in Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and the highlight of that trip the Philippines. This time instead of writing my ramblings on a blog, I journaled my way through the adventure, a sort of private travel blog. 

I came back from that trip just in time for Christmas 2019 and immediately started looking into how I could make the change from short-term backpacking trips into my lifestyle, I knew travelling the world was all I wanted to do. I read all the online guides to becoming a Digital Nomad, researched all the countries that allowed British passport holders working holiday visas and started to formulate a plan.

I had the best year planned for 2020, I was starting off my year at a Spanish school in Salamanca, then had plans for a European summer trip with friends and then in October, I was going to start a new backpacking trip from Mexico all the way to Colombia and obviously blog all about it.

And then well 2020 happened and the lifestyle I so desperately wanted become more and more unattainable. Just like everyone it took me a while to adjust my mindset to accept the fact I was stuck in a life and a country I didn’t want to be in. But over those pandemic years, I learnt to not sweat the stuff you can’t control and that life will always be there to derail a good plan.

I also found myself with a lot of time on my hands and what do I always come back to, blogging…

That is the backstory to how Seas the Travel began, it was October 2021 when I pressed publish on this blog and I’m so thankful I did. Through difficult times it gave me something to work on and focus my energy into. And after a year of writing up posts about backpacking adventures from my past, I finally started a new adventure in November 2022.

My aim for this blog all along was to inspire others to travel and see the world and once I’d convinced you that travel was good for the soul, I was here to be your travel compass. Sharing travel guides, travel inspiration, hostel reviews, travel tips and all things backpacker life.

And all though no one other than a few family members and I actually reads Seas the Travel. My life so far keeps leading me back to this one thing I love to do, travel, take photos, write about it, and make it look pretty on a website. So I’m not quite ready to let go of that dream travel blogger lifestyle just yet…

What to Expect from Seas the Travel in 2023?

more adventures

Kicking off the new year in Guatemala with plans to head down into El Salvador in early January continuing through Nicaragua -> Costa Rica -> Panama -> Colombia. From Colombia we would like to explore our way through South America ending in Brazil, we are currently unsure of the route we want to take, so let me know if you have any suggestions. 

I have dreams and hopes of returning to Australia this year but it’s quite dependent on our budgeting skills and whether or not we can find reliable online work. We have also thrown the idea of spending the summer hopping around some European countries but again no plans are set in stone. 

So who knows where we will end up in 2023 but I’m quite confident it’s going to contain a lot of adventures!

MONTHLY ROUNDUP EMAILS

One of my blogging goals for 2023 was to start an email list for two reasons. Number 1 so you can subscribe to get notified every time a new blog post drops and Number 2 for my new monthly round-up email, starting 30th January 2023. You can expect my travel stories and antics from that month as well as a round-up of my blog posts and all things Seas the Travel.

Weekly Posts

You can expect a new blog post to appear on Seas the Travel every Sunday in 2023! I am definitely still trying to find my place in the travel blogging world, the more I research the more I discover everyone needs a niche inside of a niche and I’m not too sure what mine is yet. So whilst all blog posts will stay travel related I’m definitely wanting to experiment with my writing/content styles.

more active on social media

I am notoriously inactive on social media however I made steps to change this towards the end of 2022 and want to continue this throughout 2023. My block with social media was always overthinking and worrying about what other people would think. But If I don’t promote my blog on social media, I may as well send it to the internet grave now. So I’m going to put on my big girl pants and scream about Seas the Travel all over Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook and Pinterest in 2023.

Seas the Travel 2022 Highlights

Also worth a little shout-out is my Gallery page, I have been working on my photography throughout 2022 and even took a travel photography course in the summer. My photos aren’t perfect however I can definitely notice a difference between my older photos compared to this trip’s photos. So I would be forever grateful if you checked it out!

And that wraps this post up, thanks for reading my rant, to be honest, I’m surprised you made it this far. I’m ready for the new year and all the adventures and challenges it might bring and can’t wait to share that all.

Let me know what your proudest moment in 2022 was or what your big plans are for 2023 in the comments below.

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