December 2014 Valerie & Valise Recap

In addition to being the end of 2014, December is yet another month that flew by before I realized it. From my early trip to Orlando/NASA to my last-minute holiday booking to Colorado, it was a really good month of travel! As I’ve spent quite a few posts looking back at the whole year, I’m glad I started tracking my monthly stats so that I can compare month to month.

I also set goals last month. Here’s how I did on each one:
(1) Break 2,000 visitors – Yeah, not even close. I had 1,192 according to Google Analytics, but I also had an authentication issues where the last 10 days didn’t seem to count correctly. I am pretty confident I have room to grow though!
(2) visit the Harry Potter parks in Florida – Boom. Done. One of the best days ever.
(3) make 500 new friends – I made 95 new friends. Even one new friend is awesome. Thanks so much for everyone who is already a friend, and those new ones too.

Here’s this month’s infographic, if you want to take a quick glance at how the month went. I might be addicted to infographics… not sure yet. Also, below the infographics, I’ve added a few blogging tips for the month. Don’t miss them!

Analytics are Awesome

I haven’t been as good as I should be in past months, when it comes to tracking how many and who is being an awesome person and following along with my adventures. I hereby resolve–though I didn’t put it as one of my goals–that I’m going to do weekly stats tracking for all of my social media presence. It’s the best way to know how things are going in the long run.

Keep On Keepin’ On

If you’re like me, winter is a hard time for you: the darkness and the lack of funding following holidays makes my mood go down the tubes. It also steals my creativity, and I think my muse hops on a plane to Hawaii around this time of year. To combat this, I’ve developed the February Writing Challenge.  For 99¢, you will receive 28 emails from yours truly–each one containing a writing or thought prompt related to travel. Blog about the ones you want, stick others in your back pocket for whenever your muse goes on vacation. No more months of low posting numbers, okay? Join me now, as the first email goes out February 1st!

Get Creative

I was astonished–in late December I published 2014 was the Year for Travel, a post comprised of 90% other peoples words and 10% of my own effort and creativity. In the six days since it was published, it’s gained over 1,300 views, 25 favorites, and 15 retweets (combined across all the tweets I wrote), making it my second most popular post of all time. It was a last-minute idea, and I ran with it. So is #100TravelQuotes on Instagram (go enter–the odds are really good right now!!). I’m even doing a giveaway in mid-February in the midst of everything else… sometimes I worry I’ll burn out, but at least I’ll burn out with good ideas doing what I love. If travel blogging is what you love, burn that candle at both ends until there’s nothing left. You’ll last longer than you think.

 Onward and upward into January; what did you learn this month?