Hello Wanderlusters!

You may be surprised to open up this blog post to find a new look and a new website. Some of you are new to reading my blog and others of you have been with me since the very beginning when I literally had no idea what I was doing.

I started this blog for a few reasons. The main reason was that I LOVE travelling and I always have. I think we lost our way a bit when we started travelling as a family. I was one of those mums who was a bit militant about sleep and naps and routines. I found holidays stressful because nothing ever quite went to plan. I found myself joining the ranks of mummies who declared holidays too much.

I couldn’t bear the idea that holidays wouldn’t be the same for 20 years while we waited for the Things to grow up and stop having holidays with us.

It all changed

In 2016 it started to change. We had persevered with holidays and had had some major ups and downs along the way. We went to Greece that summer and things started to fall in to place although I didn’t see it then. I was too busy thinking that holidays would always be boring or ridiculously stressful. But I think subconsciously I knew that there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

Our trip to Bali changed everything. It changed how I saw holidays. It changed how we approached holidays as a family.

And it gave me the idea for a blog.

From then to now

I don’t have much more of a clue what I’m doing now but I’m definitely on the way. Over the past year (almost), I have really been on a bit of a journey. It has been frustrating at times – like on holiday when I thought I would get more time to blog and ended up with less. My readership went down immediately and I struggled to get back up again. The summer was long and hard but I persevered.

Little by little I started to see improvements and I started venturing into the world of expat wife writing. Turns out you guys like reading about that stuff too.

I got some confidence

I’ve had some amazing feedback from people, from you guys, who read my blog.

Some of you are friends and you have to say something nice. BUT I hope you’d just prefer not to say anything at all if you thought my writing was rubbish. Some of you are total strangers but have taken the time to tell me you love the blog or that I directly influenced your travel plans. Some of you read the blog and then met me and laughed when, embarrassed, I joked that I couldn’t believe someone other than Granny Wanderlust read the blog.

But its more than just Granny Wanderlust y’all. Way more.

I had over 4000 page view last month (more than double my next best month!) and I’m totally blown away. Like, TOTALLY blown away. Could it be that I’ve finally found my calling? Is this something I could really do as a career (assuming I can’t find someone to pay me first)?

Great timing

All these new friends and readers have shown up at a great time. I decided it was high time I started investing in the blog. The aim, eventually, is that it pays me back of course. So the first investment was into a brand new logo and a new look for the website.

Don’t worry

It’s not all change! It might all look a bit different but its still me in here. I’m still going to write to you about the things I think you will like. You’ll find all my favourite destinations in here as well as tips on travelling and rants about expat life when the mood takes me to write them.

Which brings me to why I’m writing to you today. I’d love for you to hop on in and take a look. Tell me what you think, What you like and what you’d like to see. I hope you like the new look for Wanderlust and Wet Wipes?

Emma Morrell

Find me on: Web