Happy Blog Anniversary – Year 3!

Guess what time it is? That’s right, time for another blog anniversary post! Somehow three years have flown by since I started You Had Me At Solo.

Three Year Recap

The first year I focused a lot on solo travel (makes sense since it was the pandemic). It was my last year in college and I had ~almost~ wanted my university to go online so I could do the year remote while traveling. (I now work a remote job so…wish granted?). Instead we went back in person, which was def for the best, and traditional travel wasn’t really an option anyway. Enter solo travel. I mostly visited local attractions and only posted when I did something, as opposed to sticking to a schedule. And wow has my writing evolved – I do love my beginning posts but they def read as college essays.

In year two I pivoted to focus on local travel. I had graduated college and moved back in with my parents which was not exactly glamourous. Focusing on local travel gave me an opportunity to enjoy and explore and appreciate PA. I also started experimenting with what I was writing about by branching out beyond solo travel (reading, starting my first full-time job, reducing waste, etc.).

This past year was dominated by a lot of sustainability posts. I switched jobs back in September away from sustainability and missed the feeling of constantly being in the loop on environmental issues and solutions. In response, I ended up researching and writing about these topics a lot more in my free time. Only four of my posts this year didn’t have anything to do with the environment.

I love looking back and seeing where I’ve been, how my writing and adventures have evolved, and am always looking forward to where I will go next.

Blog Anniversary Goals

Last year I set a couple goals for myself (because I’m nothing if not a goal setter) so let’s see how I did:

• I wanted to write 20 posts – this is my 18th. I’m okay with that. Life gets busy and I really liked the posts I wrote.
• Increase site traffic – last year’s site traffic was 350 visitors, this year’s was 550 visitors. So that’s crazy and cool :))

Other milestones:

• This year I wrote my first Earth Day post
• I solo road tripped two more national parks
• National Get Outdoors Day was my most popular post of the year

As I have mentioned before, my blog is something I love doing. It is my motivation to keep searching for local adventures and learning about all things sustainability.

So Happy Blog Anniversary and here’s to yet another year of exploration, conservation and You Had Me At Solo!