While I have been blogging for more than a year now, it was not until one year ago this week that “TheBrooklynNomad.com” officially was launched.
After tinkering around with a pretty embarrassing looking blog by today’s standards on Yahoo site builder, I moved over to blog spot in February 2009. About three days later I learned about Word Press and ditched a blog that really had a boring look to it.
I thought of a name for my blog and well “The Brooklyn Nomad” was the only one that stuck. I kind of regret putting the “The” in my URL as the name “Brooklyn Nomad” is long enough on its own, but I have grown to get used to it.
When I actually started my blog in late February of last year, the full URL was “TheBrooklynNomad.wordpress.com.” Yikes. I quickly decided to upgrade to Word Press’ paid version and chopped off that pesky addition to an already wordy blog name.
I also changed the template to a boring and basic template to the one you see today. I am currently in the process of upgrading and giving my site a face lift with a unique template in the weeks to come. Life unfortunately got in the way of debuting it on my one year anniversary (which for anyone that cares is March 5).
Since my site has been running over the last twelve months, my life has changed dramatically. I was a freelance writer just scraping by and impressed when I got more than 20 unique readers in a day (although 15 of those were probably from me checking the site).
But after four weeks of updating my site daily (sometimes two or three times in one day) I saw the numbers increase. Then people actually started leaving comments (fortunately they were all positive).
Next step was to get myself noticed online. So I begrudgingly opened a Twitter account. Actually I had an account for a few months but never used it. I honestly did not get Twitter and thought it was just some way in which people could tell the world that they were going to have Chinese food for dinner or were tired after a long day at work.
But I started to notice something. As my site grew in readers, so did my followers on Twitter. I then started “Stumbling” and “Digging” my work and before I knew it, my blog had some pretty reasonable visits each day.
Then just a few days before my 29th birthday I received an e-mail from Napa Valley, California. It was a resort and spa that actually wanted me to come visit them and write a review of their property. Huh? Me? Really?
While I was flattered that they thought enough of my site to want to put me up for three days with full use of their spa and complimentary meals, I was just not able to fly myself round-trip cross country. So I had the tell them, “thanks…but just not now.”
I am still friendly with the management at the resort and am hoping to FINALLY make the 3,500 or so mile trek to the great state of California by the end of this year with my wife.
Speaking of my wife. This poor woman has had to put up with my obsession with travel for years. So when this blog started getting me some more freelance work and plenty of opportunities to travel around the world, I thought she might pack up and get going. Instead she has been a big fan of my work and amazingly supportive of my nomadic ways.
She and I are also pretty excited to welcome into the world our first born child this April. Little Nomad or Baby Nomad as many of you have nicknamed him will have his passport by Christmas if I have it my way.
I am not going to babble on and on like this is some sort of acceptance speech at an award show nor will I name a list of people that have been so great to me over the last year or so.
But all I want to say is thanks for checking out my site, make sure you click on my ads so that I can feed my baby and I hope you enjoy reading my travel experiences, New York tips, and hotel reviews as much as I love to write about them.
Travel often!
