Monthly recap: January 2016

This year I’m going to try something new – a monthly recap at the end of each month. That way, I hope to keep track of my progress through the year as well as to try to inspire you to take action and follow your dreams and happiness. 

January has been so overwhelming! So many new and exciting things happened but there were also some downsides. My year started off in the mountains, led me to Prague,  included tons of study books and a passed exam. Let’s see what happened in January 2016:

TRAVEL

Besides my New Year’s Day in the mountains of Bulgaria with friends I’ve travelled only to Prague this month. I spend one night in Vienna, the next day on a mini road trip travelling from Vienna to Prague and one full day in Prague. Even for just 2,5 days on the road the trip was way more …. than I expected. 

Prague was covered with snow and more beautiful than any picture I’ve ever seen… Before Czech’s capital we visited Mikulov and Kutna Hora and we were more than take a peak of those Czech’s gems, too. I described our adventure from Vienna to Prague in a blog post and if you are interested, you can read more there. 

The downside: I spent 55 EUR shipping costs for almost unnecessary wi-fi device I used during my trip… this is worth at least 2 short weekend trips here in Bulgaria. Lesson learned!

BLOGGING

The sweet little diary of mine on the web has experienced one of the best months so far. January 2016 brought us the highest monthly traffic so far – 19,061 unique users. Many thanks to all of you who read my stories, tips and ideas about travel in Europe!

Most of this success is due to a few reasons: 

• Being part of Trivago’s blog Checkin list of Top 16 Travel Bloggers to Watch in 2016  – it was such an honor to be recognized by one of the biggest websites for booking hotels.

• Getting featured in Holidaylettings’ list of 15 Sensational Travel Photos from 2015 – I was invited to submit any photo of my travels and I chose my favourite one from Lloret de Mar in Spain which I took back in April/May 2015.

• Providing interesting and useful travel content to my readers – I’m happy to continue to write about my travels with the main goal to help  you discover a destination in a new light, to inspire you to travel more and to show you that you can ditch the excuses and follow your dreams… 

Apart from that I also had my first press/fam trip related to my blog. My trip from Vienna to Prague was organized by Daytrip – a great team of people who provide city transfers in Europe with sightseeing along the way. I’m totally in love with what they offer and can’t recommend them enough. You can read more about my first press trip here or check out the Case Study I did about it. 

Most popular blog post: One Day in Prague in 15 Photos

Most popular Instagram photo: 

Snowing in Prague <3 #EuropeDayTrip #prague #visitczech #travellingbuzz

A photo posted by Maria, Travelling Buzz ✈️ (@travelling.buzz) on Jan 29, 2016 at 12:47pm PST

Favourite thing to read: The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden (a great Christmas gift I read for in a week or so) and How Giving Up Refined Sugar Changed My Brain (Not really travel related but exactly what I needed to read, you’ll understand why later in the post)

The downsides: Despite the great results I didn’t have much time for my blog in January as I was busy studding for an exam. I still have articles to finish. Also, my blog’s DA and PA fell with a few points which made me think about a long-term strategy and stop accepting sponsored posts for a while. 

LIFE 

Three main focus points in my life in January 2016: study, eating healthier and new work projects. 

• Study: As I mentioned, my January was filled with tons of study books for my exam on February 1st. As a kind of perfectionist, I tried to be as ready as possible for that exam and fortunately PASSED IT with a very good grade. The exam is for a doctorate study in Economics of Tourism. 

• Eating healthier: I tried hard to be healthier this month. I reduced the refined sugar and anything sweet in general (bye, bye dessert), I also reduced milk and milk products (but not yoghurt), bread and meat. My idea is to give up on them with time and see how it goes. Do I feel better? I still can’t say exactly how I feel about it. I know I feel hungrier all the time and it’s a fact I haven’t had a cold for a long time. I also don’t like the taste of meat and don’t crave desserts or anything sweet anymore. My favourite things to eat in January: sautéed potatoes and boiled vegetables! Yum!

• New work projects: I continue to work as a Marketing Assistant in the travel industry with a great team and company here in Bulgaria. The plus is that I work part time and from home. That lets me have time for my other projects, study and personal development. And I’ve worked on some new exciting projects this January which I’m going to tell you about in the next months. 

FEBRUARY

February 2016 is going to be the month for catching up on work and blogging. I didn’t have much time for both of those in January so I will be focusing on them. I still have one more exam on Feb 12th so studying is still part of the agenda. I also started a Facebook marketing course so that’s also going on. 

I’m still not sure if I’m going to travel anywhere in February. However, I really think I need some time on the road because I haven’t been myself lately  with all the stress around my exams and the working piling up. So, I will definitely think of some short trip at least. 

If you want to follow my journeys, check out my Facebook page! I will be happy to connect with you there!