Another Year… Another Blogiversary!

Time just flies, doesn’t it? It’s hard to believe that a whole 2 years have passed since I launched the “primetime” version of my little site here! This day marks that anniversary and it’s fascinating to look back over the years and see just how far things have come since then!

It was February 15, 2010 and I was just days away from leaving on my truly epic Asian Adventure that would take me through 6 countries plus Hong Kong. I had a small personal blog (that originated way back in 2006 when I was a student in Thailand–if you want to see just how far my writing has come, take a looksee at some of those old posts that were far more “journal” style…) that I was aiming to take “mainstream” for my trip.

Did I have plans for what I’d do with the blog when I got home? Nope. But I’m still here! Even if sometimes I get a little busy and can’t always write regular posts…

You can read more about the history of my blog and what my first year held in last year’s Blogiversary post, which I closed by saying that I couldn’t wait to see what the next 12 months would hold. Now that those have past, let’s review how this year was, shall we?

A Year of Blogging in Review

In the past year, I really got into my mantra of traveling ultralight. I’ve finally gotten to try out my new ultralight backpack, which at a mere 32 liter capacity makes packing a bit of a challenge, but has immense rewards! I’ve also shared some of the secrets that let me pack so little.

I’ve contributed to an art project with my unique interpretation of “home” and waged war with United Airlines over their awful service and, much to my surprise, actually won thanks to my use of Social Media.

And I wrote one of my most personal posts ever… a moving tribute to grandmother, an epic traveler in her own right, who passed away in 2008. She was the entire reason my family visited Bhutan in 2010, as she wished for her ashes to be scattered there.

A Year of Travel in Review

The last year held a surprisingly large amount of travel for me, much of which I was not even remotely expecting! Flashback to last spring and I was bemoaning the fact that my only “real” travel experience of 2011 would be a trip to the TBEX conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. Determined to have some adventure on this trip, I spent a little time in Seattle and ended up doing a little Vancouver Island road trip with fellow bloggers What’s Dave Doing and Skinny Backpacker to this amazing little town called Tofino, a great place to get away from it all!

But much to my surprise, this would be a tiny fraction of my travel exeprience in these 12 months! A few months later, work beckoned and I’d be spending larger amounts of time in various American cities. Charlotte, Rochester, Buffalo…all with little side trips thrown in (Charleston, SC, Asheville, NC and Toronto, ON to name a few). Then there was time in the San Francisco Bay Area to visit my family…

And then? Perhaps most unexpected of all…my 6 weeks spent traveling around the Middle East. This was definitely the kind of adventure I’d been yearning for and on this trip I’d hit up Israel and Jordan with a completely unplanned trip to Egypt. I visited so many, many historic sites… Jerusalem, Petra, and The Great Pyramids of Giza to name a few, that it was just mindboggling! Want to read more about this trip? Stay tuned…

So there ya have it! My past amazing 12 months in review! And I promise that eventually you’ll get to read about all of these awesome places! And if my past 12 months were this interesting, I’m super excited for what the future may hold!

A Word of Thanks

Before I go, a word of thanks… I want to thank YOU for reading, for if nobody read this blog I probably would have given it up a long time ago… So thanks!