2010 – A Year in Review – What a Ride!

It has been an eventful year. I left a stable job where I had worked for over 13 years (LiveWorld) for podcasting / blogging, and then eventually started a new job (TripAdvisor.com). My house went from being an “empty nest” to having my 91 year-old mother-in-law, a niece and her dog and my son (returning from college) join us. Oh yeah, and I turned 50.

Travel

I was on the road for about 4 months including 2 months of business travel to Boston where my new job is. My personal travels took me to Hong Kong, Maui, Los Angeles, New York, New Zealand, the Green River in Colorado and Utah, the Rhine River (Switzerland, France, Germany and the Netherlands), and Egypt. I had to turn down trips to Thailand and the Caribbean because of timing issues.

Amateur Traveler

In 2009 the AmateurTraveler.com site had 125,696 visites (227,861 page views). In 2010 it grew to 225,823 visits (413,931 page views). The Amateur Traveler audio podcast had 1,058,301 downloads. The video show had 317,804
downloads. If I add in This Week in Travel and The Bible Study Podcast all my podcasts had 1,750,082 downloads for the year. When you consider the average Amateur Traveler is a 30 minute show 1,058,301 downloads is 61.9 years of audio content. That seems like rather a lot, although my goals for the year had been to break the 2 million mark. Changes in how shows are promoted in iTunes did not help.

I took Amateur Traveler from a well-paying hobby to an under-paying job (5 figures, but 6 would be better) and then back to an expensive hobby (as I took all of the ads off the site as part of a non-compete agreement with TripAdvisor and hired my son to edit the show since I have a full-time job again).

I hosted the first Amateur Traveler tour to Egypt with photographer Ralph Velasco. I really enjoyed the trip and the people who came although I had hoped for more participation. The trip was not a financial success.

Odds and Ends

I spoke at the TBEX (Travel Blog Exchange Conference), although a late start and a hard stop made for a hectic panel discussion. I taught a short course for the local college on blogging for profit.

Conclusion

I took what turned out to be a career break and had the time of my life. I love my new job and my family and friends (both online and in “meat space”). I chose the picture above not only because black water rafting through a cave was one of the best adventures of the year but because it was also somehow emblematic. This year was a wild ride, I could not see where I was going but I seemed to have been enjoying the ride from the goofy grin on my face. I expect next year to be calmer… but then again… most of what happened this year I did not expect last year.