I started publishing these recaps monthly back in the BC times (Before COVID), when I was traveling almost every month. I switched to posting them every 2 months once I started traveling again following the easing of pandemic travel restrictions. And then… I kind of got lost in all the other things required to be successful at running a travel blogging business.

There's a lot, guys. Not only am I the writer/editor/photographer for this website (plus two more!), but I'm also filming and editing videos for social media, trying to keep my overflowing email inboxes at bay, paying attention to things like AI and Google algorithm changes that could wipe out my site and income at any time – and, oh yeah, still traveling, too!

These recaps fell way down towards the bottom of my to-do list. But I really do enjoy being able to look back at them, so we're going to try to catch up!

Let's tackle the last third of 2023 all in one go, shall we?

September-December: The months in travel

• Countries visited: 4 – USA, Ecuador, Germany, and France
• States visited: 3 – Puerto Rico, Washington DC, and Massachusetts
• Flights taken (incl. connections): 14 total
• Days spent on the road: 36

Travel highlights

Road tripping Puerto Rico – In September, Elliot and I flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico – one of our favorite tropical destinations! I was there for a travel conference, but we tacked on some extra time afterwards to rent a car and drive to some spots in Puerto Rico that we hadn't visited before. The highlights were El Yunque rainforest and Rincon. Read our Puerto Rico itinerary for more.

Taking my dad to the Galapagos – I stayed home in October, but in early November headed to Ecuador with my dad for a truly EPIC, bucket list trip: to go on a cruise around the Galapagos Islands. We booked a very small ship cruise – just 16 passengers – and spent a week hiking, snorkeling, and kayaking through the incredible landscapes and wildlife of the Galapagos. I loved this trip so much! I wrote more about it here.

Christmas market road trip – I wasn't done with big bucket list trips; I headed to Germany in early December, and met up with my friend Tamara for a 2-week road trip to visit Christmas markets in southwestern Germany and the Alsace region of France. It was absolutely magical – find my Christmas market tips here! Favorite market for me were definitely Munich, Trier, Ludwigsburg, and Ravenna Gorge in Germany, and Colmar and Obernai in France.

Travel lowlights

Thwarted by a hurricane in Puerto Rico – There's always a risk with traveling to the Caribbean in September, October, or November; it's prime hurricane season, and you never know when one could form. A big hurricane did just that while we were in Puerto Rico. It thankfully did not make landfall on the island, but it churned up the ocean enough that all the beaches were closed in Puerto Rico, and the weather was iffy during most of our visit. Thankful of course that it wasn't worse!

Getting snowed in in Munich – I flew into Munich to start my Christmas market trip in December, and had a couple days in the city on my own before I was supposed to catch a train to Frankfurt to meet up with Tamara to start our road trip. But the weather had other ideas! A freak early December blizzard buried Munich under 17 inches of snow in less than 24 hours, and the entire city – including the airport, all trains, and most public transit – completely shut down for more than a day.

It was a stressful 36 hours, first trying to find a place to sleep (and then figuring out how to get there), and then battling to get on a train – any train! – to meet Tamara once services resumed. In the end it worked out and I only really missed 1 day of our planned trip, but whew, I was definitely glad for all my travel experience to deal with this one!

September-December on the blog(s)

It's a long length of time to cover when it comes to blog stuff, but all you need to know is that this period was one of the most tumultuous times for digital publishers in recent memory. Google rolled out a “Helpful Content Update” (HCU) in September that really didn't seem very helpful at all, followed by a big Core Algorithm update in October.

A Dangerous Business weathered the HCU fine (in fact, my traffic was up in September thanks to some extra traffic coming from current events), but then was hit in the October update. I lost 15-20% of my traffic in that update, and then entered the time of year when traffic is usually down anyway in the lead-up to the holidays. And then I lost almost all of my Pinterest traffic in December, too. Fun times!!

The internet is changing, and it's only going to get more difficult for small publishers like me to stay in search results. If you have favorite blogs and small sites that you read regularly, now is the time to bookmark them and make sure you're supporting as much as you can by reading/sharing content that you like! (And you can also subscribe to my newsletter, too, since Google can't touch that.)

A Dangerous Business traffic

Ugh, these numbers make me sad, but here they are:

• September: 118,000 visitors and 176,000 pageviews
• October: 102,000 visitors and 156,000 pageviews
• November: 86,000 visitors and 129,000 pageviews (25% down YOY)
• December: 77,000 visitors and 115,000 pageviews

As for new content, I'm just trying to get through my long list of posts I want to write! It's a losing battle, always, but I wrote lots of good stuff before the year ended.

Most popular post: DOs and DON’Ts for Your First Trip to Europe: 18 Helpful Europe Travel Tips – Informed by many, many trips to different countries throughout Europe, I think this is one of the more useful posts I wrote in 2023!

Other posts published:

• 12 Awesome Things to Do in the Lofoten Islands in Norway
• 11 Amazing Things To Do in Aruba on Any Trip
• Going to a Beer Spa in Prague: What It’s Really Like (as a Non-Beer Drinker)
• One Day in Frankfurt: How to Spend a Layover in Frankfurt, Germany
• 10 Awesome Things to Do in Ludington, Michigan: A Complete Long Weekend Guide
• Pros and Cons of a Galapagos Small Ship Cruise (+ Why I Chose One!)
• 11 Things to Know Before Going on a Galapagos Cruise
• 3 Days in Tromso, Norway: The Perfect Tromso in Winter Itinerary
• 1 Week in Puerto Rico: The Perfect 7 Day Puerto Rico Itinerary
• Year in Review: My Top 10 Travel Highlights of 2023

My Cleveland niche site was less affected by all the Google updates (so far, at least!), and had its usual traffic surge leading up to the holidays.

Cleveland Traveler traffic

• September: 51,000 visitors and 72,000 pageviews
• October: 49,000 visitors and 69,000 pageviews
• November: 56,000 visitors and 88,000 pageviews
• December: 81,000 visitors and 121,000 pageviews

If you want to see what I've been up to on Cleveland Traveler lately, visit the site here. The site is largely in maintenance mode now, where instead of writing lots of new posts, I'm mostly focused on keeping all my current posts updated – the majority of them need updated every year, if not multiple times per year to stay relevant.

September-December business update

Even though my income absolutely WILL reflect the drop in traffic thanks to both Google and Pinterest, I won't start seeing any of those effects before the end of the year (since I report my earnings when they hit my bank account, and most of this won't show up until early 2024). But it's coming.

I'm also going to move away from sharing exact income figures by the month. Instead, I'm going to give you the average in each category over the whole period, as it's just easier for me to calculate at this point when I'm covering more than just a month at a time!

A Dangerous Business average income report Sept-Dec:

• Advertising: $7,900 per month
• Affiliates: $5,300 per month
• Course/product sales: $180 per month
• Paid campaigns: $1,200 per month

Cleveland Traveler average income report Sept-Dec:

• Advertising: $2,800 per month
• Social media: $40 per month

(Note that this is my income before deductions/expenses and taxes.)

Business highs

Winning an award – At the SATW convention in Puerto Rico, I learned that I won a Gold Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award in the “Instagram Storytelling” category for my posts about Northern Ireland in 2023. It's always encouraging to have your work recognized in such a professional manner, and I'm really proud to have now won Lowell Thomas awards for both my blog AND social media work!

Business lows

Traffic/income loss – Since I'm writing this after the fact and can now see the impact the loss of traffic from both Google and Pinterest has had on my site(s) and income, I can tell you that it's tough. Year over year, my income only ended up being slightly down from 2022 to 2023, which is encouraging – but I know it's only going to get more difficult to run a business like this as the internet changes.

The future is going to have to include some pivots, and some more income diversification. And I'm just going to have to accept that the income bubble in travel blogging may have just burst, and we might never get back to where things were. Thankfully, I was under no illusions that it would last, and I'm still making a very comfortable living from this job.

But I'm not taking any of it for granted, and am aware that things can change literally overnight.

Upcoming travel plans

Anyways… I'm trying not to let the end of the year get me down too much. I've got some exciting travel plans coming up in Q1 of 2024!

January: Mexico – Right after New Year's, I'll be hopping on a plane for some sun and sand in Mexico! A friend and I are going to Isla Holbox off the Yucatan Peninsula for a relaxing week of being beach bums. It's not my usual type of travel, but I'm looking forward to it!

March: Peru – In mid-March, my travel bestie Ashley and I are going on another Intrepid Travel tour together – this time to Peru! We roped in one of our fellow travel mates from last year's Morocco trip, too, and can't wait to explore a new country together! We'll be spending 15 days traveling around Peru, visiting everywhere from Lima to Colca Canyon to Lake Titicaca to the Peruvian Amazon. AND we've also signed up for a 1-day Inca Trail hike to Machu Picchu! (Wish me luck on that…)

Until next time… happy travels!