Heeeyho Readers! Got this question bugging me for ever!
Most Hivers I know are here for nearly a decade, which means hundreds of posts have been created throughout our journeys. For most of us (too), our blogs are to a vast extend a digital record of our lives during this period. Rants, trips, birthdays, struggles, meetings, accomplishments, marriages — we've seen it all. It seems natural that our writing style and interests have changed, after all, we are always evolving and our evolution reflects in our texts.
Have you ever scrolled back to evaluate how your blog has evolved?
That's one post idea that's been bugging me this week; I couldn't wait to ask the community. Let's see how many of us have managed to stick to the same theme (I believe photography-related bloggers are the most consistent ones).
My journey
I started off as a brockpacker traveling Patagonia without money. Brokenness still follows me, though not much traveling lately. Handcrafts have gotten me excited more recently and is the driving-force behind my motivation to post. Lengthily wild travel-story posts are my favorite still, but, for that, I need to hit the road again because every-single-story is recorded on here for everyone to read: Patagonia, Winter European trip, Tour of UK, and many others. Tails of a Patagonian Journey (my book) was born after dozens of posts on the blog.
Somewhere in between, the first episode of the Off to the Ranch series replaced the travel stories. During the pandemic, I believe, when nothing much was actually happening. By the way, our ranch is up and running! The only reason why I haven't updated the series is simple: nothing much happening there at the moment. Talking about composting all the time became kinda repetitive; as soon as something new happens at the ranch I'll update the series.
One theme that's on this blog since the beginning is cycling. I just love to cycle and everything bicycle related. The job @friendlymoose does at the #cycling community is sensational and inspired me to bring forward a bunch of maintenance-related posts, including a full series on a complete bicycle build. Scroll back and you'll see that the most absurd situations I've got myself into, almost always involve being on a bicycle {laughs}.
Photography-related articles are also frequently out on the blog, though I can't compete against the guys at the #photographylovers community. I still remember my first photo posts when my brother lent me his DSLR waaaaaay back then — many moons have passed and I still can't tame the beast.
Whenever a beginners asks me how they should start, I always tell them to post about whatever makes them happy. There was a time when we recommended newcomers to stick to a theme so they could get some visibility. With the communities and the way posts are organized today I don't think that rule applies. Back then, we only had #tags, and getting some visibility was a lot harder on super popular tags like travel, photography, etc. Hence, concentrating your effort in one tag used to be the best way to go.
With the communities, curators and readers tend to check the community feed (at least I do), which makes it a lot easier to filter our interests, so it doesn't really matter if one posts about a recipe one day and their trip the other day. Someone, somewhere, will find your blog.
Anyways. I'm not going through seven years of blogging in this post as that's not the idea. I'm more curious to discover how my fellow Hivers have evolved.
How has your blog evolved? Have you stayed around the same theme or have your interest changed over the years? Was there a period when you thought about giving up? Why? If you post about your journey don't forget to ping me to let me know.
Peace.
If you enjoyed this post consider leaving your upvote for a hot coffee.
Find me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrprofessor_
~Love ya all,
Disclaimer: The author of this post is a convict broke backpacker, who has travelled more than 10.000 km hitchhiking and more than 5.000 km cycling. Following him may cause severe problems of wanderlust and inquietud. You've been warned.
