Hi! This is Oli, editor and founder of Travel Bugs World. Welcome back to our year in review for 2020. Part 1 of our year in review was about our life and travels. This post is about our virtual travels and the achievements of Travel Bugs World.
If you missed Part 1, read it here – Year in Review: Lockdowns, Staycations & Life Lessons
Now, if you are ready to read about Travel Bugs World’s business side, let’s jump right in!
Virtual Travel on Twitter
In a year when we couldn’t travel internationally, and with limited domestic travel options, our saving grace was talking about travel on social media and on our blog.
We have used Twitter for the last three years to promote Travel Bugs World and engage with fellow bloggers and travelers.
Every week the travel community shares their travels, allowing us to virtual travel around the world. Further, it allows us to talk with like-minded people about our past travels and build our travel bucket lists. Additionally, it provides us stimulation, motivation, and inspiration for our blog.
In 2020, a year when people could not travel, Twitter was a lifeline for many. And Virtual Travel was the second best thing to traveling.
This year on Twitter, we hit 30 thousand followers, we continued running our trending travel chat #FlashbackFridayz, and our popular chat #ThankfulThursdayEveryday.
On some weeks our #FlashbackFridayz hashtag had 15 million impressions and 2 million reach.
TravelBugsWorld.com
2020 was the year many travel bloggers decided to stop blogging. Without travel, how can a travel blogger blog? Some adapted and included other niches or changed niches.
For 2020 we were not full-time travelers, nor were we full-time bloggers. We wrote less often but wrote about things relevant to us. It included finishing drafts from travels in 2019 and New Zealand travel.
Also, we started a few new series – blogging tips and resources for bloggers, favourite countries, and our staycation series.
More posts are coming! Don’t miss out. Subscribe here!
Staycation Series
Our staycation series was so well received that it inspired and motivated us to continue blogging in 2020.
We were further excited when our staycation post 73 In-home Staycation Ideas During Lockdown trended in Google and ranked high on the 1st page for many keywords.
Most important was that we wrote a post that helped so many people through a difficult time. Many bloggers also reached out to say they had so much inspiration from us for their own staycation posts!
And that post and our follow-up staycation post, 54 Things To Do On A Staycation in Your Home Town are still trending on Google. Both these posts are now our highest-read blog posts on the blog.
Most Read Posts
Despite travel restrictions, we were happy to see a significant increase in our traffic during 2020. People read our travel tips, as well as destination articles. Besides the staycation series, our other most-read posts of 2020 are –
How to Stay Healthy While Travelling
Christchurch to The West Coast New Zealand
Eight reasons to go to Thailand’s Koh Phangan Island now!
Best Road Trip Tips for Your Vacation
Incidentally, we are proud that in 2020, we had readers from 134 countries!
This year we saw an increase in organic traffic from search engines. 57% of our traffic came from this source, most of it from Google.
We were also featured in several snippets at the top of the Google search and Google Discovery, to our delight.
Additionally, in 2020, we received several emails from Google notifying us that we had trending content.
Sponsorships
In a year that people were not traveling, limited funds were available for sponsorships.
Our sponsors contribute to our website’s running costs and help us stay online to offer free travel inspiration, motivation, and tips. Therefore, we are thankful several companies approached us for sponsored posts this year.
In particular, we are grateful for the support from tourism boards and grateful they supported bloggers during a year when investment in travel writing was a long-term one.
In fact, our favorite sponsored post, Human By Nature in Kerala Backwaters revived our love affair with India. We are now planning a trip back there as soon as it is safe to do so.
Support Travel Bugs World
Travel Bugs World is reader-supported. Thanks to our sponsors and affiliate income, we are able to pay for the running costs of the blog.
If you would like to support us to publish more travel content, you will find a few of the companies that we recommend, and use ourselves, in the list below. If you wish to use these companies, we greatly appreciate it if you use our links. We may receive a small commission to help the site’s running costs, at no additional cost to you.
Travel Resources
Booking.com
Booking.com is our No. 1 choice for booking accommodation because they offer a huge and diverse range, with no hidden costs and substantial discounts. They also offer free cancellation options.
GetYourGuide
Get Your Guide offers a massive range of activities, tours, and cruises. If there are things we really want to do at a destination, we book in advance through them to make sure we do not miss out. Especially useful during the high season.
World Nomads
We realized the importance of travel insurance halfway through a trip one year when we saw someone have a moped accident. World Nomads were the only ones we found at the time that insured halfway through a trip. We continue using them ever since, due to how easy it is to set up.
Thanks so much for reading Part 2 of our year in review. If you have always dreamed about starting a blog, make this year your year and start now. We recommend –
Bluehost
We had done a lot of research before we started blogging. The truth is you don’t need the bells and whistles. Just go for one of the cheapest options that offers 24-hour online chat support. Bluehost has worked great for us. Start your blog today!
Grammarly
Don’t let your message get lost because of grammar errors. Grammarly checks your spelling and grammar, and you can also check for plagiarism.
