Q3 2025 Check-In: Accountability on All My Sites

Somehow, I always just know it: Q3 is going to fly by. I mean, everything flies by anymore; the older we get, the faster time flies, but I find Q3 (and the first half of Q4) to be particularly speedy because they usually include travel and lots of work getting content updated for the coming year… My to-do lists never get shorter around this time of year! Nevertheless, I wanted to come back and check in on my goals again, because I find it helpful to at least spend an hour each quarter holding myself to account… I see no point in setting goals if I’m not going to be honest about which ones I fail or succeed at!

I’ve now been writing these quarterly accountability check-ins for more than two years (you can see Q1, Q2, Q3 & Q4 of 2023; Q1, Q2, Q3 & Q4 of 2024; and Q1 & Q2 of 2025 if you want to look back), and I find it extremely helpful to do so. While I don’t know that anyone reads them, I hope these inspire you to set some goals for your site, and to check in on them regularly.

As of 2025, I’m using a modified stoplight system to assess my progress on each goal. In total, I have 16 areas of focus across 3 high-priority and 5 low-priority sites, and here’s how they’re doing:

• 🟢 (success/achieved) = 6/16 = 37%
• 🟡 (in progress) = 3/16 = 19%
• 🟠 (ongoing but not going well) = 0/16 = 0%
• 🔴 (failure/so far) = 3/16 = 19%
• ⚫️ (abandoned) = 4/16 = 25%

Having five options feels a little bit too nuanced, but I like being able to share that I’m working on things that aren’t going well – I think it’s important to acknowledge that too, as part of these accountability reports. In any case, let’s dive into each site so you can understand more.

High Priority Sites

This section focuses on the four sites I’m currently focusing on the most; they’re the ones I have as ‘favorites’ in Asana and have at least a few articles (new or updates) scheduled in the coming months.

Valerie & Valise (October 2013)

V&V is about to reach its 12-year mark, and I’ll be setting new goals at that time. This is my last check in on these goals before setting new ones in a few weeks!

• 🟡 All-In on Facebook – Much like in Q2, I’m struggling to stay focused on Facebook; I think I did really well with it through most of 2024, but I’ve been sporadic this year. It’s still one of my top priorities though, which I think means I’ve done better than most of my peers in the industry at tapping into this particular social network.
  
• 🟡 Stay Committed on Email – I still struggled with consistency in Q3, primarily because of traveling. I did stick with it more often than not, and it’s still my strongest marketing channel though!
  
• ⚫️ Finally Figure Out Pinterest – I have dedicated exactly zero energy to Pinterest (at least for V&V) since my last update. I guess “finally figur[ing] out” Pinterest was figuring out it doesn’t work for me or my blog enough to justify the time and investment.
  
• 🟢 “Paywall” My Blog Content – I pulled my paywall off my site just a few weeks ago/a few weeks before the anniversary of launching it. It was a good experiment, but on the whole I think the juice was not worth the squeeze, so to speak.

London On My Mind (January 2021)

LOMM will reach its five-year mark in January, at the end of this quarter. As such, this is my last check in on these goals too.

• 🟢 Keep Calm & Carry On – I took a big break from publishing for most of Q2 and Q3, but I’m back at it this quarter; publishing 2x per week is one of my 10 quarterly goals (independent of these goals – I have lots of goals, y’all!). So far I’ve stuck with it, and have 6 of 25 posts done.
  
• 🟢 Keep Readers at the Forefront – The way I think of this goal is “who gives a [bleep] what ranks on Google if I think people will read this?” and it’s a pretty good framework. I am writing what I want to write; I do very little analysis and I trust my instincts.
  
• 🟢 Finish my Neighborhood Guides Project – I completed this goal back in Q2, so done and dusted!

Eat Like Bourdain (June 2021)

Oh, Eat Like Bourdain, my saving grace. This site has really been the only thing keeping me in the game – it earns about 40-50% of my monthly income on its own. Thank you, past Valerie!

It really is my great honor to work on this site, and I hope that I can continue to focus on it more in coming years. For now, here are the goals I’m focused on through June when the site turns four:

• 🔴 Write 5 Enthusiast Stories – I STILL have a goal to write just ONE Enthusiast story, because I think that will give me the confidence to keep going… but for now, I have done exactly nothing to achieve that goal. *sigh*
  
• 🔴 Figure out Facebook – I’ve been posting on Facebook still, but my friends, it ain’t working. I tried posting different stuff. That too ain’t working. I don’t know, I think people only like Bourdain stuff in their feeds when it’s quotes and stolen copyrighted material and that’s not my style. I’ll just keep brainstorming and testing, but I definitely haven’t figured it out yet!

Low Priority Sites

In this section, I cover sites I’m not focusing on much; most of them don’t have many goals, so I’ve just assigned the whole project a stoplight score. One exception is Space Tourism Guide, which I shifted to low priority at the start of 2025, but for which I had already set stoplight goals before that point.

Space Tourism Guide (November 2017)

No changes here since Q1. I am focusing on Space Tourism Guide as little as possible while not letting the site become outdated. That said, I do have some stoplight goals for STG, and want to acknowledge those:

• ⚫️ Repurpose content for Forbes – I abandoned this goal in Q1 after realizing I would make even less money from my articles than on my site, so I’m not gonna do that!
• 🟢 Keep updating gear posts, monthly guides, and annual events each year – Still going steady with this one.
• 🟢 Future-proof the site in every other way – At this point, I think I’m pretty close to having all non-evergreen content (aside from those in the bullet point above) scrubbed of non-evergreen details and such.

⚫️ Jordan Traveler (May 2021)

No changes here since Q1. Jordan Traveler has shown only minimal signs of recovery from Google’s baloney, but it was never a big enough site to merit a large commitment. I set a goal of writing or updating 2 articles per month this year, and so far I have not done great at that; I published/updated four articles in Q1.

I also decided not to worry much about this goal/site as I don’t have any major plans to grow or expand it. I’m mostly keeping it on maintenance mode to help serve travelers without taking up much of my time or energy.

⚫️ D&D Community (April 2023)

No changes here since Q1. At the start of the year, I committed to publishing 12 articles this year on D&D Community. I published a grand total of one in the first three months, and have not prioritized this at all in the coming quarter.

Interestingly, D&DC does actually earn small amounts of money – a few dollars – on occasion, thanks to the affiliate posts on the site; perhaps it would do better if I committed more to it?

Also, I have done a poor job of engaging my social community for this site. All around, I wish I could make this a greater priority, but my heart isn’t really in it right now.

One idea I have been kicking around is getting into UGC with this brand. I’m not sure when/if I’ll have time to explore this more, but maybe later this year…

🟡 Global Tiki Tour (February 2024)

Okay, so after giving up on my goal (to publish 12 articles this year) in early Q2, I finally got a fire under my butt literally last week (in the start of Q4) and I think I will actually accomplish this. I have three more articles to write and I have to find time and headspace for them, but I made a lot more progress than I thought I would… Sometimes, you just get inspired for no good reason, I guess?

🔴 Alaskan Cruisers (February 2025)

I had set some goals in Q1…

• Write one new blog post per month
  
• Migrate three (or more) posts from V&V per month

Which I have completely failed at, since Q1. I don’t know if or when or how I’ll get the bandwidth to focus on this site in the next few months, and I didn’t set a quarterly goal about it. (It was either 1-and-1 weekly for LOMM and AKC or 2 weekly for LOMM and LOMM actually makes money so…..)

I know this site could do well and could certainly open some good partnership opportunities for me, but I’ve just been struggling to keep all my plates spinning lately. (And by lately I mean my whole life 🤣)

Sites I’ve Shut Down

As of the beginning of Q2, I’ve shut down four of the sites I started in the past few years:

• Discover Sausalito (January 2020)
• Follow the Butterflies (April 2020)
• Soup Whoop (April 2021)
• Great Plains Travel Guide (March 2021)

I don’t have much to add other than including this section for posterity, and to reference all the sites I’ve shut down – including those I don’t really mention anymore, like True Crime Podcasts and Visit Ni’ihau. I did write a post about making the decision to shut these sites own, if you’re curious about my thought process.

Have any questions about my various quarterly goals? I’m happy to answer in the comments.