3 years ago, on May 1, 2014, we hit the Publish button and gave life to Drink Tea & Travel, a small piece of the internet that has since changed our lives more than we could have possibly imagined.
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Back in 2014, we were living in Australia, working our 9-5 jobs with nothing more than a dream to leave it all behind and travel the world for a living. We (although Max wasn’t very involved in the beginning) started the blog as nothing more than a hobby, a way to keep thinking and breathing travel while living a 9-5 lifestyle, but within just a few months, we realized that it can become so much more than that.
Traveling Soon? Here is a list of our favourite travel providers and accessories to help get you ready for your upcoming trip!
We worked on the blog part time during the majority of the first year, putting in hours upon hours into creating content from our travels around Australia and South East Asia. We published 160 posts and managed to attract 60,000 unique visitors to the site. It was a great start!
With the success of Year 1, we were inspired to keep going and shortly after our first “blogaversary”, we quit our jobs and decided to jump head first into the life of full-time travel blogging.
Traveling full time did wonders for our blog. We now had many more experience to share and adventure stories to tell! In Year 2, we grew our audience, connected with like-minded influencers, and got our first taste of working with tourism boards, hotel chains, tour companies, and brands that we have previously only admired from afar.
In year 3, we took things even further…
A change in travel style
Just a few months after celebrating our 2-year “blogaversary”, we commissioned our first Reader Survey, which helped us learn more about our readers and their travel preferences. We were fascinated to learn that even though we often focused on budget travel in our articles and posts, a lot of our readers actually defined themselves as “flashpackers”, willing to pay more for comfort in their travels. We took that into consideration and started adding more tips and advice for those looking for a more comfortable travel experience.
We soon realized that we too were evolving in our travel style. As we earned more money from our blog and our other income sources, we too started to invest in comfort on our travels.
But the changes didn’t stop there…
As we spent more and more time on the road, we realized that it was no longer enough for us to travel for our own pleasure. It was no longer enough for us to inspire others to travel. We wanted to do more. We wanted for our travels to have a bigger purpose, a mission that goes beyond just galavanting around the world. So we made a commitment to pursue a more sustainable travel lifestyle, to traveling more responsibly, respecting our hosts, reducing our environmental impact, supporting local economies, and choosing eco-friendly suppliers.
So with this evolved mission, we enter into Year 4 and are looking forward to sharing more of our new mission with you in the months and years to come.
Many more followers
In the last 12 months, Drink Tea & Travel has grown by over 140% vs previous year, and now sees on average 50,000 unique visitors every month. Here are a few more stats for those that are curious about the nitty gritties:
- Over 385,000 unique users visited Drink Tea & Travel throughout the year, that’s an average of 32,000 monthly visitors.
- Over 78,000 visits over the last 12 month were from our loyal readers, which represents about 20% of our total audience. Thank you, guys!
- Our readers viewed almost 645,000 pages on the blog in the last 12 months. Although our posts about Australia and Costa Rica remain the most popular traffic drivers on the blog, posts about other countries like Indonesia, Myanmar, Cuba, and Brazil are also starting to pick up steam.
Along with growth on our website, we have also gained many more followers on our social media across all channels. Our Instagram is the account that has grown the most, going from 3,000 followers in May 2016 to over 21,000 followers today.
A New Writer
A few months ago, we announced a new addition to the Drink Tea & Travel team – contributing writer, Diana Rosario. Diana is based in New York City and has taken on a role of our eyes and ears when it comes to North American travel and our in-house expert on traveling while maintaining a 9-5 job. She’s also got a ton of previous travel experience to share!
She’s already written a number of wonderful articles for Drink Tea & Travel and will continue to contribute to our blog monthly.
Lots of New Content
In the last 12 months, we have published 168 posts, responded to over 300 comments, and gained thousands of new followers who we think (or we hope) share our travel philosophy.
Here are the top 5 most popular posts that were published on Drink Tea & Travel over the last 12 months.
- What You Need to Know About Wifi and Internet in Cuba – an overview of the most frequently asked questions about internet for anyone planning a trip to Cuba.
- The Ultimate Europe Trip Itinerary for First Time Visitors – a roundup of our favourite cities that we think are worth a visit on your first trip to Europe.
- Our Suggested Cuba Itineraries: How to Plan 1 Week, 2 Week, 3 Week or 4 Week Trip to Cuba – no matter how much time you have to visit Cuba, this post will give you all the info you need to plan a perfect trip.
- Sunday City Guide – What to do in Montreal, Canada – our contributing writer, Diana shares her tips and advice for visiting Montreal
- The Complete Guide to our Photography Gear – take a sneak peak into our bag and see what equipment we use for photography and videography on the road
The launch of video
One of the biggest endeavours for us over the last 12 months has been our Weekly Video Series which we launched in July 2016. We started off with a few videos of Costa Rica and continued to shoot as we traveled around Cuba, Brazil, Croatia, Colombia, Mexico, and most recently, Chile.
Max has been the driving force behind this massive undertaking and he’s getting better with every episode. If you haven’t had a chance to check out this work yet, head over to our YouTube Channel or …
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We release new videos every Tuesday!
THANK YOU
Last but certainly not least, we wanted to take a moment to acknowledge and thank every single one of you for your continued support, your feedback, your comments, and for continuing to follow our adventures on the blog and on our social media channels!
We couldn’t do what we do without you!
Here’s to another great 12 months of Drinking Tea & Traveling!
Your are one of the most resourceful blogs that we consider relying upon. We hope to see you going higher
Travel is a very great gift from God and that is what we have learned from your blog. Thanks for such a good write-up. Truly an amazing piece of writing.