Taking a pause from blogging

I’ve been taking a pause from blogging at TagAlongTravel for the past several months. I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve accomplished with this platform and where I want to take it from here. My mixed feelings about the blog’s future have been nerve-racking, but recently, I resolved that I’m okay with the ambivalence.

The big reset: before and after the pandemic

Before

I started TagAlongTravel in 2014. I had resolved to tag along on my spouse Steve’s business travel as much as possible while running my communications consulting business remotely. It’s a stretch to say this decision saved our relationship, but it did ease the strain of being apart for the equivalent of two weeks a month. Thanks to the pandemic, the world is waking to the possibility of working from anywhere, but in 2014, it was an uncommon arrangement, and I wasn’t sure it would be a success. 

I had a few goals for the blog: 

• I wanted to learn the ins and outs of blogging and social media to inform my consulting practice. 
• I thought it might be possible to offset some of my travel expenses through corporate sponsorships. 
• I knew the huge potential social media held for community building, and I figured many other spouses were in the same situation. It would be interesting to connect with others. 
• Maybe it could be an additional revenue stream.

For six years, I chronicled what it was like tagging along on business travel and staying behind. I wrote about relationship issues, reviewed travel destinations, and featured stories about how others managed work travel and the challenges that come with it. 

I achieved my goals for the blog to varying degrees. I’ve gained a readership community, had tourism boards comp trips and attractions, and wrangled a few sponsorship opportunities. 

I quickly realized, though, that building the blog to the point of it being a robust revenue stream was not within reach. I wasn’t willing to spend the countless hours advancing a blogging business requires and it would have meant putting my successful PR practice on the back burner. It didn’t make financial sense. Still, I was happy with TagAlongTravel being a fun side hustle.

After

Then, in 2020,  just after we returned from a month working remotely in Mexico City, the pandemic hit. Lockdowns killed worldwide travel, and we barely left our Winnipeg neighbourhood for two years. 

I continued to write posts during the pandemic—featuring hometown destinations, past trips, virtual destinations—but with Covid’s dark shadow cast upon everything, my heart wasn’t in it. 

As we settled into those endless days of social distancing, virtual meetings, and finding comfortable masks, it became clear that the world was undergoing a seismic shift. The pandemic and other world events cast the climate crisis in an ever-harsher spotlight. Now that we had all figured out how to make virtual events successful, was it even ethical to travel for work? The very future of business travel was uncertain.

Today, as we emerge from the worst of the pandemic (I hope), it’s clear that Steve and I won’t travel for work as often or to as many different places. Our travel plans will involve longer stays to locations that are easy for us to work remotely. 

The big question: where does that leave TagAlongTravel? 

It’s been about six months of a back-and-forth conversation with myself about whether to leave the blog behind. There is no external reason to stop travel blogging, even with post-Covid realities. I’m just not sure I want to. 

Right now, most of my consulting business focuses on content marketing, blog writing, and editing. That wasn’t true at the start of TagAlongTravel when my projects were more varied. Now when I have time to write for myself, it’s not appealing because tending to the blog feels too similar to my workday activities. 

On the other hand, I don’t want to see the years of effort to acquire readers go down the tubes because I love the community of folks who follow along on social media, and documenting trips is a terrific way to remember them.

Tired of the back-and-forth, I’ve resolved that taking a break, however long, is the right decision. It’s ok to be ambivilent.

The big test: travelling without blogging about it

This past May, Steve resumed limited work travel overseas, and I joined him on a trip that started in Reyjavik, Iceland and included stops in Karlsruhe, Germany and London, UK. Sandwiched between was a week-long cycling trip through the Alsace region of France.

I planned not to blog about it to see how that would feel.  I did share the trip extensively on my social media channels, so it wasn’t a total break.

Strolling through London while not thinking about blogging.

Frankly, it felt pretty good not having to take notes on our trips’ locations, attractions, and noteworthy restaurants. I am enjoying not feeling the pressure to spend 20+ hours sorting out blog post outlines, writing and rewriting for better SEO, choosing and formatting photos, and everything else that goes into creating good content. So far, the pause feels pretty good.

The big reflection: giving thanks to my blog

Blogging at TagAlongTravel has given me many incredible gifts and opportunities, including:

• Teaching me skills such as SEO, blog content structure, A/B testing, and how to use social media engagement and advertising to grow readership.
• Inspiring me to take a video shooting and editing course. Creating content for my YouTube channel was a heap of fun!
• Doing things we wouldn’t think of otherwise if it wasn’t for FAM trips, blogging conferences, and sponsored activities.
• Meeting countless terrific people in the travel and blogging community online and several in-person on our travels.
• Having blog subscribers and social media followers join me virtually on my travels. They are a terrific bunch of folks. 

The big reveal: the blogging pause continues

I’m not ready to completely abandon TagAlongTravel and plan to keep up with its social media channels, although I might wander away from strictly travel content. If you follow me, I hope you’ll stick around. Otherwise, I’m going to settle into my blogging pause to see how my feelings unfold. 

Thanks for being a TagAlongTravel reader. If you have any thoughts to share about this post from a blogging or blog reading perspective, I’d love for you to leave a comment.