10 Years of Blogging

jana meerman neuschwanstein castle germany (33)

TEN YEARS. A DECADE. 3,653 DAYS. That's how long I've been writing this blog. My mind is blown by the sheer scale of that amount of time. It's bonkers.

I don't want to make this an extortionately long blog post that summarizes every single thing that's happened to me blog-, social media- or travel-wise because then you'd probably still be sitting here reading until we hit the twenty-year mark, but I did want to take a moment just to reflect back on the decade since I first launched this little passion project of mine. I'll link to lots of the cool stuff throughout, so you can dive as deep as your heart desires.

If you'd like to read a bit about the previous part of my life pre-blog and get up to scratch on how I came to be, you can check out my About page.

Now, we can begin...

2014: the year it all began

On 23 April 2014, I sat down at my desk in Canada. I had just wrapped up my exams at the end of my second year of university. I planned to spend my four-month summer break in Europe, living with my aunt, uncle and cousin in England, where I was born, working part-time to fund the trip and bouncing around to a few other countries while I was there.

My mum wanted a way to keep up with me... and so this blog was born. And in the beginning, it really wasn't great. It was poorly designed, hosted on Blogger back in the day and I never even included photos in my original blog posts!? I treated it like a diary for my mum to read. Well, it turns out a few more people wanted to read it, too.

The very first blog post has since been unpublished from my site, simply because I don't like it anymore. Instead, the first blog post you'll find is from the day I spent with my aunt in Oxford.

At some point after I got back from my Europe trip, I added a few older posts and backdated them from pre-2014 (from Canada, the USA, Germany and Denmark) because I consider them an important part of my earlier travels.

At the end of 2014, I visited Hawaii for the first time with a uni friend. The following year, photos from that trip would be used by Bluenotes to promote their Discover Summer contest.

Over the past decade, I've also spent a lot of my time updating and editing my old posts including how they're written, formatted and the photography editing, so none of them look the way they did when I first hit publish up to ten years ago - and thank goodness for that!

2015: the year I fell in love with hiking

I continued to use my blog to write about my travels, hikes and roadtrips around Canada during the weekends and my holidays while I was in my third year of uni.

I'd dabbled in some hiking before, but 2015 was the year I truly fell in love with it. After having to give up my dream of being a prima ballerina on world stages in 2012 due to a fractured spine and a broken ankle, it took a few years of struggle to find something I felt as passionate about as I had about ballet.

Getting to document my experiences in the mountains has brought me a profound amount of healing and joy. Every single time, something about putting one foot in front of the other to climb up a mountain and come out on top just works for me. The mountains have been a constant source of strength ever since.

This was the beginning of sharing my hiking guides on my blog, something I've now undertaken in twenty-eight countries across five continents, each lovingly put together from my own experiences on the trails.

Autumn rolled around and hiking season settled down into its winter hibernation, albeit with one winter hike in Whistler to pull it briefly out of its slumber. My interest in sharing my experiences not only on my blog but on social media only grew. At some point, I switched from the Blogger platform to WordPress, arguably the best website hosting platform out there. I was still on the free version, but already found myself learning as much and as fast as I could; in fact, everything I know about blogging is self-taught and self-researched.

My photographs gained some traction on social media, with my shot of Nairn Falls in Pemberton winning top ten in the Viator Summer Staycation contest and my shot in the pumpkin patch being featured by #HelloBC and garnering thousands of likes (which was a big deal back in 2015!).

2016: the year I graduated uni

In the beginning of 2016, I was contacted by a small sustainable fashion start-up, Balance & Co., to join them as an Ambassador. This involved receiving some beautiful items from their collection in exchange for photos of me wearing them on my adventures which I did dutifully for all the months I was partnered with them.

In March, I spoke on a panel for a NightShift Street Ministries gala discussing how hope and beauty helps us move beyond the struggles of emotional and physical pain.

In April, I started my first full-time job working as the Head Administrator of the dance academy which I had previously trained at. I would go on to keep this job, working full-time, for nearly three years with a goal of saving money to travel the world.

In August, I finished my final semester of my university career and celebrated it with a roadtrip from Vancouver to Calgary visiting the world-class national parks of Banff and Jasper in the Canadian Rocky Mountains with my then-boyfriend. I was posting so much on Instagram, sharing the stunning snapshots of our long days in the road surrounded by some of the most beautiful nature I'd ever been witness to. People began to reach out to me in my DMs and via email asking for my advice on planning their own trips through the Rockies. So, I wrote a complete roadtrip guide and to this day, continue to send it to people. That roadtrip with the accompanying blog post was a turning point for me.

My parents moved to California that autumn (where I also got to spend Christmas) and in November, I officially graduated university with my Bachelor's Degree, an accomplishment that was one of the biggest challenges I've had to face but an experience that has stood me well all these years since. I was officially "on my own" with no university and no parents based in Canada to fall back on.

The real world awaited.

2017: the year I landed my first collaboration

I rang in the new year with my then-boyfriend at his family cabin in Whistler and was contacted by Fjällräven® to write a blog post featuring some of their winter gear in exchange for one of their iconic Kånken backpacks. What a thrill to hold a physical object that I had earned solely for the photography and writing I had done.

2017 would also turn out to be the last birthday I would spend in Canada, marking the beginning of a still-running tradition of spending each birthday in a new country.

In March, I went to spend spring break in Cyprus with my aunt, uncle and cousin and, with it being somewhat of an obscure destination to reach from Vancouver, flew with long layovers in London, Vienna, Luxembourg and Frankfurt.

I mean, I've traveled all my life, but I'd say 2017 was the year the travel bug truly bit and I can wholeheartedly say I've fully succumbed to it ever since.

So much so that a few months later I found myself back in Europe again, this time solo backpacking around France. It was my first properly solo trip without someone to meet me on the other end, it was my first time backpacking, and it was my first time staying in hostels. I made friends on that trip that I am still close with to this day.

Sure, it was only two weeks, but I explicitly remember coming home from that trip and having my mum pick me up at Vancouver International and when she asked me what I'd learned, I said:

I can do anything I set my mind to.

I found myself on the second annual summer roadie with my then-boyfriend and together we drove across to Alberta and then headed south and into the United States to explore Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park before returning to the true north and visiting Waterton Lakes National Park where we would attend the wedding of two of his university friends.

I was garnerning a bit of a reputation on social media for my roadtrips, and so I started hashtagging all of my roadie posts with #JanzOnTheRoad.

That trend has since spread to everything I do, and you can now find all of my Instagram posts sorted diligently into the following additional hashtag collections all using Janz, the nickname I earned back in high school:

I returned from the roadtrip and decided it was time to go all in on the blog thing, so I painstakingly transferred my entire website from WordPress.com to a self-hosted WordPress.org site. I bought a Pipdig theme (which I still use to this day) and I immediately started letting loose my creativity on perfecting my blog, a passion which has not yet ceased and continues to be the main thing I find myself doing in my spare time.

Jumping ahead a few years here, but during COVID lockdown, I wrote a full guide on how I started my blog, in case you're interested in reading that.

Okay back to 2017 and my seriously restless feet which saw me convince my parents to travel to Sri Lanka for my first trip to Asia. It was so wildly different to any travel experience I had yet had and reminded my strongly of a quote I have shared on my favourite travel quotes page by Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963):

To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.

2018: the year I quit my job

I rang in my 22nd birthday in the USA with my parents and then-boyfriend, celebrated with a roadtrip down the iconic Highway 1. Sometimes I still can't believe that my mum and dad live out here.

In April, I started offering digital marketing management for small businesses on the side of my full-time job and learned plenty about understanding others' visions and turning them into a marketable digital reality.

In May, realizing that my blog should represent more parts of me beyond just my travels and hikes, I launched my book list to document one of my greatest lifelong passions. The list is incomplete as it doesn't include the many hundreds of books I read pre-2018, but I've diligently reviewed every book since. I've even found a way to wind my travels into it, as I share exactly where I found the book, whether that be the free bookshelf of a hostel in New Zealand or a secondhand bookshop in Thailand.

I went back to California again in July and, with my parents, explored more of the state with a trip out to Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, my camera by this point permanently attached to me.

The third annual August roadie kicked off, this time witnessing us driving down the coast of the United States along Washington, Oregon and into California, before u-turning and heading up into Idaho and back across the border into Alberta. It would also turn out to be the last annual August roadie because...

...in October, I decided I was ready.

I handed in my notice at work, set a final working day at the end of December and booked a one-way flight to Australia. I had originally planned to move to Calgary to be with my then-boyfriend earlier in the year, but those plans had fallen through and so new plans materialized in their place.

In November, the Oregon Historical Society reached out to me and asked to use one of my images of the Oregon Coast from our summer roadie for their new Experience Oregon Exhibit, a permanent exhibit that "offers unprecedented opportunities for visitors from all backgrounds to connect to Oregon’s rich and complex history. Developed through extensive research and in partnership with Oregon Tribes, educators, content specialists, and historians, Experience Oregon brings to visitors stories from a broad array of perspectives." If you ever find yourself in Portland, visit the Oregon Historical Society at 1200 SW Park Avenue and let me know if you spot my photo!

2019: the year everything changed

Okay so about that whole "six weeks" thing? Yeah, I actually haven't been back to Canada since. Not even to visit. It's been five and a half years, and counting.

I landed in Australia and backpacked all around it for a month before then my then-boyfriend, who I'd left behind in Canada, called me while I was going through security in Sydney Airport on my way to Uluru in the Australian outback and told me that it would be best if we broke up because I would regret coming home to him. Obviously I was heartbroken and distraught and completely alone down under...but in hindsight, it absolutely turned out to be the right move because he lovingly let me free to live the life I really wanted.

I celebrated my 23rd birthday with a bunch of strangers in a hostel on the beach in Byron Bay, Australia and then, instead of going back to Canada, I instead booked another one-way flight; this time, to New Zealand.

He returned to Belgium soon after and I turned my attention to my next adventures: a month in Indonesia with Ela who had worked with me in the hostel in Kaikoura, followed by island-hopping through the South Pacific from Fiji to Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

It was while I was sitting in a cafe on Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu one hot afternoon that I decided to write down a list of all the countries in the world. My total count comes out at 270, and you can read my reasoning as to why there are quite a few more on my list than the official 197 according to the UN.

I returned to New Zealand in September and it truly felt like coming home. I applied with a temping agency and landed a six-month contract position in Wellington working for the transport agency of the government (and used to go around telling everyone that I "basically" worked for Jacinda Ardern, one of my idols, hehe). This allowed me to continue traveling around the North Island on weekends in the van I bought with my then-boyfriend (who had returned from Belgium), top up my bank account again and get into a bit of a routine after non-stop traveling. I joined a gym, was working a 9-5 and I loved it.

We finished the year with a spontaneous trip to California to spend Christmas and the New Year with my parents. Thank goodness we made that last minute decision, because it would end up being the last time I would see my parents for eighteen long months as the COVID pandemic descended on humanity and border closures kept us apart.

While I was in California, I sat down to write my first ever annual travel roundup. It was my first year of full-time travel, having left Canada behind a year ago at this point and with no plans of heading back, and I wanted to document everything I'd been up to. You can read the 2019 travel edition here.

2020: the year that everything changed again

The year honestly didn't start out great, but COVID wasn't even in the picture yet. I wrote a blog post about how to hold it together during globally hard times and it had absolutely nothing to do with COVID. Anyway, turns out it would remain relevant for many years to come and was later shared by Stuff, New Zealand's largest news agency.

I bought my very first "real" camera, a mirrorless FujiFilm X-T1, in Wellington for my 24th birthday present to myself. It's still the very same one I've used ever since.

My contract at the New Zealand government ended in March, which marked a whole year since I'd been living there already, and we planned to travel around the North Island for a month before moving to Europe together. Before we could do that, my then-boyfriend's visa was running out so we had to leave and return in order to get him a fresh stamp in his passport. So, we were off to Samoa.

The day before we flew, our flights were rescheduled as COVID began to creep its way from a far-off minimal fear to a very realistic one right on our doorsteps. We still made it to Samoa and just about made it back. The borders to New Zealand closed the day before we returned, EXCEPT for flights coming back from the Pacific Islands. So all our plans completely changed, we didn't go back to Europe in April and instead we moved in with a family in a tiny town who offered us their granny-flat after meeting us in the parking lot of a grocery store.

And, as most people did during lockdown, we baked banana bread and did yoga, but I also started a YouTube channel and wrote guides about how to start a blog and manage emails and write to-do lists. Restrictions began to ease after two months of lockdown, we traveled around a very quiet tourist-free New Zealand in our little van and eventually, five months later than planned, when flights restarted, flew to Belgium to begin our next chapter.

Within six weeks of moving to this French- and Dutch-speaking country, I had managed to land a fully remote, English-speaking job at an international climate foundation, which I'd found through LinkedIn. Without knowing it, it would be the perfect job.

The next COVID wave was then upon us and border restrictions returned. I wouldn't get to leave tiny Belgium for a long nine months. I still shared with optimism my 2020 travel round up, and what it lacked in country count, it more than enough made up for in wild experiences through one of the most surreal times of history.

2021: the year I moved alone to Austria

In the beginning of 2021, I received my Dutch passport. Turns out I'd been Dutch my whole life, but never knew it because the Dutch are well-known for not supporting multiple nationalities. Unless you meet a whole stack of exceptions and have to send a heavy stack of paperwork to the embassy to prove it... then you might just be eligible to become Dutch AND keep all your nationalities AND baffle the passport application department. With my British passport having been truly shot down the pan with Brexit, having a Dutch passport in hand was absolutely invaluable and my ticket back into the EU.

We spent my 25th birthday in Ghent, my first (and hopefully last) birthday spent in Belgium.

By May, I was single (again) and heartbroken. I decided that I didn't want to live in Belgium alone and I suffered through the entire break-up by myself what with border restrictions preventing my parents from coming to me and vice versa, so I decided to move (again).

In the three months between making this decision and actually leaving the country, I took my first trip abroad since moving to Europe with a long weekend in Luxembourg, remembered how much I missed traveling and then immediately booked my first flight in nine months and spent a week by myself in sunny Malta.

I also added Google Ads to my website which, each time they're viewed and clicked on, provide a percentage of revenue back to me. This was my first foray into the world of passive income, a space I still have much to learn about.

Finally, after eighteen horribly hard and lonely months apart, border restrictions between the US and the EU eased and, with a negative COVID test in hand, my mum was finally able to come and stay with me. We immediately embarked on a trip through Poland together, a trip which I vlogged diligently in its entirety. Those videos did particularly well, even through the trip was challenging at every turn, perhaps because it was still considered early and cautious to be traveling again and because it was not the typical place you'd be finding travel vlogs about.

I wanted to live near mountains and I wanted to live somewhere I could speak the language (German or English). With my remote job and my EU passport, I could pretty much go anywhere; I ended up in Austria. I didn't even see my apartment before I signed my lease.

Five days after I moved to Austria, I went to work remotely from Portugal for three months. I guess I would consider this the true beginning of my fully remote lifestyle; I've since worked from twenty-three different countries remotely, and I love it.

Having a full-time, remote job has enabled me both the stable financial income and the freedom of movement to be able to live and afford the lifestyle I want. Many people say it's down to luck, but I think I've worked hard to design the life I want. Getting to share the perspective as a proper full-time digital nomad was also a fresh and exciting space and I felt honoured to be a part of it.

I came home in mid-December for a few days in wintery Salzburg, which absolutely did not feel like home yet as most of my things were still in boxes from Belgium. Then, after two years away, I got to spend the holidays with my parents in California after the US borders finally reopened just in time.

My 2021 travel round-up became my favourite one so far, with so many new countries finally making it onto the list.

2022: the year I was away more than I was home

2022 dawned and I was back in Austria, but only briefly and to ski for the first time in Europe after bringing my skis across the Atlantic from where they'd be patiently waiting for me in California. In fact, 2022 would see me being abroad for far much more time than I was home. My time was spent on five continents and in a whopping twenty-seven countries. I was determined.

The tradition continued and I spent my 26th birthday visiting Slovakia for the first time with a solo long weekend getaway to Bratislava, easily reachable by train from my home in Salzburg.

I then spent a whirlwhind of a year mostly working remotely, combining my full-time job with my passion for being out there in the world. I spent three months based in Spain, traveled through Europe, came back home to Salzburg for a month of resetting in the mountains, and then headed off to spend a few weeks in Ecuador and the Galápagos with my parents for my dad's 60th, my first time in South America.

The company we traveled to the Galápagos with, Andean Trails, shared a snippet of my complete guide to the archipelago on their blog Coral Galápagos Cruise: A Traveller’s Review.

Not long after I returned from South America, and nearly lost my tripod on a hike in Salzburg, I was off to spend two months in the stunning Türkiye, starting with five weeks living in a hostel in Istanbul, working remotely by day and exploring Europe's largest city (even though part of it is in Asia) by night and on the weekends. I was fascinated by this country.

I was home for a week, and then it was off again to spend the last two months of 2022 traveling through nine countries in southern Africa. It was my first time in Africa and simultaneously the most thrilling adventure and also by far the hardest trip I've ever undertaken.

All that to say that 2022 topped the charts on the travel front, and I poured everything I had into my blog and YouTube, sharing my many adventures and mishaps from around the world. My 2022 travel roundup was epic.

2023: the year I started my own company

I rang in 2023 quietly and alone on the river in Salzburg watching the fireworks explode over the fortress. The year did not start well and I had no friends in Salzburg, so I made it my main goal throughout the year to prioritize myself, cultivate a wonderful and supportive community around me, and make progress in areas that were important to me. I took a chance and downloaded Bumble BFF and have since made some of the most wonderful friendships with women in my life thus far.

I had planned to spend more time at home, but my restless heart continued to push me to travel far and wide. So, rather than stay put, I aimed to focus my travels on the people I cared about dearly, instead of just the destinations themselves.

I began the year with a wintery trip to Switzerland and then got to spend my 27th birthday with my mum in Prague in February. In the spring, I spent a month galivanting across Europe, visiting Madrid, Northern Ireland and roadtripping around Ireland, before stopping in London, Cambridge and Brussels on my way back home.

I then spent April and May traveling through six countries in the Middle East, joined in Oman by Ina, one of my dear friends from Salzburg, followed by a whirlwind 30 hours at home before a week in Budapest. Oman has swiftly secured its spot in my top favourite countries and apparently it has inspired many of you to travel there yourselves; my blog posts from Oman continue to achieve organic high rankings in Google, with my guide to Wahiba Sands the first result. This both dumbfounds and makes me swell with pride.

I returned home to the exciting news that Twinkl had selected me as one of their Top Travel Blogs of 2023.

I visited Morocco in September, a trip cut short due to the horrific earthquake which struck at 11:11 on Friday 8 September, killing nearly 3000 people. We were lucky and had been in one of the safest parts of town, but the next morning, just steps from our front door, we began to witness the immediate aftermath of the quake. We were some of the very first people on the scene. The normally bustling Medina, full of people shouting to sell their wares and barter for goods, was unusually quiet.

I spoke to locals, and photographed what I saw. Every photo was taken with permission. As we began to document what we were witnessing, it was clear that there was a gap in international news sharing on-the-ground updates. I posted what we were seeing to my Instagram stories, which very quickly were viewed thousands of times. My footage was quickly picked up by international news outlets from what felt like every country across the globe - from Brazil to Japan, USA to the UK, Australia to Hungary and most places in between, as people were desperate for updates and information. I captured what I could, focusing on the reality of what was going on on the ground.

I returned to Morocco in November to finish my trip and honour the resilience of this beautiful nation.

In between, I spent a few days in Hamburg, traveled to Norway, and popped up to Amsterdam for a long weekend to catch my parents - the greatest supporters I could have asked for - on their trip to Europe.

I also used this time to launch my very own company here in Austria, Jana Meerman Co., with its own LinkedIn page alongside to celebrate my professional achievements.

My trip to Norway then resulted in my first ever hotel collaboration with the Sommarøy Arctic Hotel which was one of the proudest and most exhilerating moments of this whole blog journey so far. I sent an email pitch a few days beforehand and getting the positive email response in return made me nearly cry with joy. This partnership saw me witness the northern lights for the very first time in my life, an experience I will never forget.

So as you can probably imagine, the 2023 round-up was incredible. I summarise each of my years at the end of these blog posts with a word that I feel embodies the experiences I had. For 2023, I chose together.

I also had some noteworthy statistics, ones I can't actually quite wrap my head around. In 2023, I had 78,000 visitors come to my blog and garnered 6 million impressions across the internet. That BAFFLES me. The fact that I created something that has had an impact on so many people, whether for trip planning or purely for inspiration, is both humbling and mindboggling all at once.

2024: the year it all came full circle

2024 started off with a nice bang as I hit 1000 subscribers on my YouTube channel. I didn't share as much on YouTube in 2023 as new passion projects unfolded and took up much of my creative energy, but it is a space I still hope to come back to one day.

I spent a week on Gran Canaria in Spain for my 28th birthday before a month in Thailand, my first time visiting. During my trip there, I was thrilled to partner with GetYourGuide to create a guide to visiting the iconic Hong Island.

I returned to Europe and also to winter and spent a long weekend exploring, photographing, relaxing and skiing in the little principality of Liechtenstein in partnership with Hotel Turna. With each successful partnership and collaboration, my confidence builds and I am so proud to have been able to share something I love with the world.

And that brings us to today, 23 April 2024. A full decade since this wild adventure began. One I could have never envisioned turning from a little passion project into the thing I am most proud of in my life. It has been quite the journey - both literally and figuratively. Every message on Instagram, every comment left under a YouTube video, every email I've received, every partner who has collaborated with me... I am profoundly grateful for it all. May you always stay inspired and may you always find joy out there in the big, wide world.

Jana Meerman

Hi! I’m Jana, a Dutch-German-British-Canadian with a dream of seeing every country in the world. I am a storyteller, photographer and adventurer passionate about documenting and sharing my travels.

Find me on: Instagram | Facebook

2014: the year it all began

2015: the year I fell in love with hiking

2016: the year I graduated uni

2017: the year I landed my first collaboration

2018: the year I quit my job

2019: the year everything changed

2020: the year that everything changed again

2021: the year I moved alone to Austria

2022: the year I was away more than I was home

2023: the year I started my own company

2024: the year it all came full circle

Other Posts You May Like

My Breast Reduction Surgery

So, I’m Moving to Belgium

Reflecting on my 2019 Travels

Life After Dance

Leave a Reply Cancel reply