A Blogger’s Insecurities

Days on cruise:  317

Our blog first was created in late 2008 just after we completed a one-month trip to Africa with Bob’s sister Lynn and her husband David. That trip, we only posted a link to our Picasa web album after the trip was over, no words. Since then, as we traveled every winter for 3 years to Mexico, then began our Loop journey 15 months ago, it expanded to include lots of stories of our activities, experiences and thoughts on whatever we were doing. Like most bloggers, we wished for more “comments” so we’d know what readers thought, even though the primary purpose of the blog was to keep a journal for us, and keep our immediate family and close friends informed about our well-being.

Over the 4 years of active blogging, our readership has grown, presumably because our topics have become more varied from RV-ing in Mexico to Looping on a trawler. We have a “site meter” attached to the blog which sends us reports each month offering lots of data about our readership.

As the screen shot below show, our readers numbered 118 the day we completed our Loop,  the next day 45 had viewed it by the time the report was generated.

 

That was a not uncommon range this past year, though it grew over the course of the year, except during the six weeks in November and January when we went home for the holidays.

It’s astonishing to us how much data this site meter offers, including what countries and cities readers hail from, or at least where their ISP is located.

We’ve enjoyed writing blog posts and adding photos to commemorate our travels. For our Christmas gift, daughter Mackenzie gave us an IOU for a bound, published version of our Loop blog, and we expect to enjoy re-reading it in its’ entirety when we’re in our 90s, no longer adventuring, and can’t recall any of the details without such a tool to remind us. Meanwhile, it might become our primary coffee table book. Thanks for reading along!