Don´t take me wrong...I am not - yet - that kind of people looking back with worries to their years and deciding that now - and now only - it is about time to change something. Like slowing down, having a real job, with a hefty life insurance and a lovely daily routine. Some of those things may cross one´s mind, especially when you are living in a society who praises to idolatry predictability.
But no, that´s not the kind of leap of faith I took...
Let me take you to some facts. I started to blog long before blogging was a fancy thing. For me, the chance to independently publish my content online, without any kind of outside involvement, it was what I was waiting for since leaving the political journalism world behind. It did not start with travel but ended up with the most enjoyable writing of all, as it combines my love for the written word, the curiosity towards other places, my history background and my love for travel. And yes, one can have many loves...
Since moving to Germany, travel blogging was my way through my new life, the life I built for myself, starting from zero, and growing slowly. Through my travels I was not only seeing places, but also hearing stories, discovering histories and getting to know people. My German skills improved considerably during those times and so did my grasp of my new country.
At the same time, I started to pay more attention to the visual part of my writing, improving my photographic skills and sharing my works online either on Instagram or Pinterest. Also, my Facebook page grew over the years and enjoyed connecting with my fellow Millennials.
Although travel blogging was never my full time job, I wanted to learn how to better manage different tools and algorithm challenges, helping me to get some precious advertising contracts and building an audience and a community of like-minded people in Berlin and around the world.
But my life took different pathways and had to put my travel blogging on hold for some good amount of time. Me, who almost since I know myself couldn´t pass a month without a travel somewhere, ended up with over a year of no travel at all. When I was checking my social media on a while and looked over my photos it sounded like someone else´s life. I loved that life, but was not sure if I will ever be able to have this life again. And have a life at all.
During those times of doubt I didn´t give up on life, although life was playing a bit with me. I focused on growing up some previous niche blogging that lead me to great opportunities in the world of publishing. I follow up different business lines of work that wanted to explore for a long time but wasn´t very confident to do it, opening up unseen opportunities in the realm of languages where I always felt at home. And yes, I still learn languages, with at least five more I added to my current list of interests. And counting...
Every year when I had to renew my domain name, I was faced with the question: Is still worth maintaining this blog? The traffic kept going, and I was not ready to kill it yet.
As usual when I find myself in life-threatening situations, I felt grateful for the chance I was given and enjoyed my new friendships, challenges and opportunities. I took over more healthy habits like training regularly and jogging every few days. It helped me to see the world in a different way and to challenge my very unhealthy life habits I was enjoying before.
But I always knew that at a certain point I will be on the road again. Therefore, since over a year, I started slowly to be back in the field, still as a side business, nevertheless a business. In the last 12 months I was able to visit one new country - Latvia - and a new city in Poland, Warsaw, travel across Germany as far as Mainz, Heidelberg and Zwickau, and discover - after more than two decades - new Berlin stories.
But times have changed and the world of blogging and social media is changing as we speak. There are new channels that may take over old ones - See you on BlueSky too, but I am still using my Twitter/X but mostly for purely informative reasons - and new trends that dramatically changed the landscape. The medium is the message, but the audiences changed and so their expectations. Visual content is slowly taking over worded blog posts, but in more elaborated and creative ways.
A threat? Not at all. It just allows to expand the limits of creating content, either in complementary ways, or just by creating new stories using diverse storytelling techniques.
Therefore, my wake up call and the leap of faith. Which was enormous for me, because my time is extremely limited in terms of focusing on projects that may need a longer amount of time to accomplish, But, with the right encouragement from the right people and keen for adventure, I did it again: I decided to start creating and publishing videos, travel-related videos as for now.
In full honesty, it was not a completely new step for me. I used to have my YouTube channel IlanaTravels for time immemorial but it was rather as a side, random activity. As I started to post my first video from my new travel vlogging life, it took me so much time to figure everything. For each second had to check over and over again, while learning on the go to use various video editing systems.
And I remembered how, in my journalism times, I promised myself to stay away of any kind of video production: I am super active and taking care to details does not match my temperament. What about trying this time to keep those problems under control as well?
I kept doing it, learning to use lettering and tumbnails and taking classes and taking part to challenges and deleting and...looking for formats and thinking about a script. The more I am doing it, the more I enjoy. Although sometimes the algorithm and the feedback doesn´t match my initial enthusiasm. I keep being proud of my achievements, especially when everything is done under pressure and with so little time to spent.
To challenge myself even more, one year ago I also opened a TikTok account, which is growing very slow but I am grateful for the lessons learned every day.
So, my travel story goes on. With awesome travel plans and collaborations in the making for the next months and some equally fantastic Berlin stories planned, I am again that happy fish in the travel waters. There is an enormous amount of knowledge and experience to catch up and many posts to write, but again, I don´t want to give up what brings me joy.
I am grateful for the support I receive until now and for the inspiration, and I am ready to share my stories, again and again. For business inquiries you can either contact me by email - my blog name @gmail.com. I am also on LinkedIn and feel free to connect for more business related offers and contacts.
Thank you very much for reading and stay tunned for lots of interesting content.
Now, time for work...! See you soon!
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