It has been 9 years to the day since I got on an airplane and moved to Mexico.
It feels both like a lifetime ago and like it can’t possibly have been nearly a decade since I started this website.
I had absolutely no idea what I was doing back then (not much has changed in that department!). All I knew was that I wanted to be a travel writer, I wanted to work for myself, and call the shots in my own life.
I wanted to write about travel, I wanted to share my misadventures with the world, and I wanted to help people see how transformative travel could be if you open yourself up to what the world and its people have to teach you.
I think I’ve managed to do that, but I also think that the golden age of blogging is coming to a close. I’m not sure where that leaves me, where that leaves Eternal Expat after nine years of writing here. We’ll spend some of this blog post talking about that.
Check out previous years’ recaps here:
The Good
2024 was the best financial year I have ever had. I grew both Eternal Expat and The Spain Travel Guru to a volume of readers that neither website has had before. I was smarter about ad revenue and the types of blog posts that I was writing, I was savvier with affiliate links, and I worked with more brands in 2024 than in any year previous over on my YouTube Channel.
I made the decision to sell The Spain Travel Guru at the start of 2025 and sold it for a profit that I could never have imagined when I first started the website back in 2023. With the changes in the Google algorithm, it seemed like the start of the year was the best chance to hand it over to someone who had more time to focus on the website than I did. That way, I could spend more of my time working on YouTube and other writing projects. I have written extensively about my experience building and selling that website in articles that you can read here, here, and here.
I have started dabbling in freelance writing again, with my first piece published somewhere other than my own website in about five years over on Matador Network. The freelance travel writing industry has been hit nearly as hard as the travel blogging space, so it’s not a long-term plan, but it has been good to flex the muscles of writing in a different voice and style.
I am learning a ton about crafting pitches, and I have had the opportunity to work with some very cool companies in the last few months, including a dream collab with Roadsurfer, a fantastic campervan and RV rental company.
The Bad
The industry has changed so much over the years, especially since the pandemic. Blogging is all but a thing of the past (she says as she continues to write new posts on her website). Many of my blogging friends went back to corporate jobs or have doubled down on other businesses to make up for the huge losses we’ve all suffered in the past two years due to Google algorithm changes and the huge increase in the use of AI as a search engine.
In April of this year, my traffic for this website fell off a cliff. Along with it went much of the income that I rely on to keep this whole business running.
I had to let go of all of the part-time staff and writers that were working with me across all of my channels. I am now running everything on my own. I’m doing all of the writing, editing, pitching to brands and tourism boards, filming, video editing, scripting, and the list goes on and on. I am working more hours than I have in years, and while much of it is invigorating – I’m learning so many new skills – I’m also exhausted and bordering on burnout.
Thankfully, the sale of The Spain Travel Guru as well as sponsored work that I get through my YouTube channel, has meant that my income won’t change all that much this financial year. It does mean that I have a lot of work to do to replace that income in the future.
I am doing my best to keep up with the changes, but I also want to do so in a way that aligns with my moral compass and with the type of business I believe has longevity as things continue to change. It’s a slow process to grow new channels like Instagram, TikTok, and even YouTube, as I make very different types of videos than I have made in the past.
A year ago, I would have considered myself a medium-large blogger with over 200,000 monthly pageviews. Now I am what brands call a “micro-influencer” because I have fewer than 100,000 Instagram followers, my YouTube channel views fluctuate depending on the destination and style of travel, and I am brand new to TikTok (but have oddly already had a video go viral and get almost 2 million views, riddle me that one!). It’s a grieving process knowing that I have to start again on something that I have dedicated so much of my life to over the last nine years.
What’s Next?
I have refocused much of my energy on YouTube and other social media channels. I still find solace in the growing readers on my Substack. It feels like how blogging felt back in 2016 with community and commenters!
But I’ll be honest, I spend a lot of my days feeling lost. I don’t love short-form content, which is what dominates the industry more and more. I like getting deep, I like telling stories, I like sharing the humanity, both my own and those whom I meet on my travels.
I don’t want to be part of the content machine that spews out noise. I don’t want to be part of the attention-stealing epidemic we are all experiencing.
I want to create thought-provoking work that leaves you feeling inspired, full of joy, that makes you laugh, or that teaches you about a place in the world that perhaps you knew nothing about. The problem is figuring out how to do that while also still being able to pay my bills. Maybe I can’t. Maybe I have to pay my bills a different way and continue to make content that I believe in, and maybe one day it will resonate with more people again.
All this to say, I’m not entirely sure what’s next. I have a few ideas that I’m investigating while still working hard to bring you content that I hope you all love across all platforms. I will continue to travel because it teaches me how to be more empathetic. It teaches me how to love deeper, both this planet and the people on it.
Stay tuned.
If you would like to read more thought pieces or personal travel essays, please join me on my Substack, where I do my best to share weekly articles and up-to-date information much like this piece you’ve just read.