2 Years of Travel Blogging - 5 Things We've Learnt.

It almost feels like a lifetime has passed since we started AsWeTravel.com exactly two years ago today – so much has happened in our lives since then.

Last year we posted a blog about some of the things we learned from our first year of blogging, in the hopes that you might learn something from our experiences as well.

This second year has been different in so many ways and we have learnt as much about travel blogging as we have about ourselves and the kind of life we want to lead.

Here are some of the main things we’ve learnt from our second year of travel blogging…

1) Limit Your Daily Time Online

During our first year of blogging we became obsessed with having internet access everywhere and being connected online all day every day.

During our second year we realized that the blog doesn’t ALWAYS need ”round the clock care”, it can take care of itself for most of the day – and, more importantly – many things you think you need to do can wait.

We realized that we were spending many more hours online than we actually needed – the work we had to do could have taken only a few hours, but we were messing around, working ineffectively which would result in us spending 6-8 hours instead.

By giving ourselves a deadline, or a time limit, we worked much more effectively, and gave ourselves more free time to explore the places we visited.

Decide how many hours you really need to spend online every day, and then only spend that time working.

2) Learn How To Separate Travel & Travel Blogging

When you travel full-time like we have for the last 2 years, it is very important to learn how to separate work and travel, then draw a clear line between the two.

Rather than sitting in a café or bar tweeting on your iPhone (for your blog) – sit back, relax and look around you – learn to enjoy the moments just as a traveler, not always as a travel blogger.

By always being connected with your iPhone, updating Twitter telling everyone where you are etc – you risk not actually enjoying the places you visit.

As a travel blogger, it is easy to lose yourself in work, and by always “looking for the story” you might actually miss it.

We noticed that when we disconnected and simply went out as travelers – the right story for the right city came to us by itself.

3) Ask & You Shall Receive

This year we’ve realized that if you want something – sponsored trips, free hotel stays, travel products to test etc – all you really need to do is ask.

After getting sponsored stays in over 30 hotels and hostels in the last year, and getting plenty of other sponsored attractions, passes and activities with tourism boards – we’ve realized that the worst that could happen is to simply get a ‘no’, and that shouldn’t put you off but instead push you to grow your site & connections even more.

The same goes for other things as well – if you tell yourself that you will reach a certain goal (monthly traffic, twitter followers, earnings etc) eventually you will find a way to achieve it – if you just trust and are passionate enough to work hard for it.

We’ve really learnt how to appreciate the power of positive goal setting and mental focus on what we want, rather than giving any focus to negative events which may show up.

4) Pace Yourself & Don’t Try To Do Everything

In the last year, we completely overwhelmed ourselves and tried to do too many things rather than taking one thing at a time - one example was the Europe Train Challenge.

During the train challenge we traveled to 33 countries in 75 days, spent 2 days in each place, filmed a video episode from each city & wrote 2 articles about each city – phew!

That really was an amazing experience, and it forced us to really focus and work hard, but looking back we have learnt that it is better to focus on fewer things and do them as well as you can, than trying to do too many things at once.

By trying to film, take photos, stand in front of the camera, write articles and at the same time capture and experience every place we visited – traveling became pretty stressful, especially with a time-limit.

We learned to focus on one thing at a time and pace ourselves so that we wouldn’t get overwhelmed - remember that you can always go back next year again.

5) What Others Think Of Your Blog Is None Of Your Business

You will meet a lot of people who don’t understand why or what you’re doing when travel blogging (my parents still don’t understand what we really do), and some will even disapprove, but just because people don’t agree with what you do, that doesn’t mean they’re right.

Never do anything you don’t want to do, and never give up on something you believe in just because others don’t.

When I heard Wayne Dyer say “what you think of me is none of my business”, I could really relate this to travel blogging.

Learn to meet jealousy, doubt, ignorance and confusion with a smile.

Our second year of blogging has been full of many great successes and a few big mistakes, but that’s what life is for – to live, to learn, and to see every mistake as a learning curve which helps you grow as a person.

We still have a lot left to learn, and I’m really looking forward to see what lessons this year (2012) will bring.

What have you learnt from travel blogging in the last year?