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My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!

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emily wearing denim shorts and a white t shirt covered in green palm trees taking a photo with the bright blue sea behind her and distant orange coloured cliffs behind that

It’s the time of year again. Annual blog review time! Every year I write a long, rambly post looking back at the last twelve months; something halfway between an end-of-year career appraisal and a lengthy journal entry.

I’ve written one of these review posts every year since 2015, but I wasn’t going to bother this year. Maybe I’m still in that post-Christmas funk, but I just could NOT be bothered! Until I remembered that the only person I write these posts for is, well, me.

Blogs began life as essentially online diaries after all, and mine was no exception. Even though I hardly write any personal posts anymore, and have mainly been focused on my freelance writing career this year, it’s still nice to have these end-of-year round-ups to look back on.

So I decided to bung together a quick 2022 review, with some of my favourite (and most ridiculous) photos of the year, to give Future Emily something to remember it all by. Because it has been a VERY good year!

My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!
One of my FAVE photos of the year: Gamora getting jealous of the sparks clearly flying between me and Quill!!

This year, I’ve worked with one of my dream brands, researched and written half a book (more on that in a sec), visited 11 countries, and squeezed in a lot of adventures!

Career-wise, this is the hardest I’ve ever worked: I’ve felt burnt out a lot, especially over the last few months. In between, I’ve had some amazing adventures – and partied perhaps a little too hard to make up for some long weeks locked up writing! But it has all been worth it.

So, without further rambling, here’s my 2022 review travel blog review…

My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!
My reaction to being told I can’t request Despacito in a club in Puerto Rico!

This year’s big achievements…

āœØ I was hired by Lonely Planet to write HALF of their new Devon and Cornwall guidebook! Spent about 2 months visiting every inch of Devon, researching and writing over 40,000 words. Barely left my flat between research trips, poured my heart and soul into it, and finished the whole thing exhausted and so, SO proud of myself!

āœØ Also wrote the Southwest England chapter of Lonely Planet’s new Experience England book (coming in February 2023) – and wrote 5 articles for their website.

āœØ Lonely Planet’s Experience Great Britain, which I worked on last year, was published this summer. This was a genuine dream come true moment for me – one of the most exciting things in my entire career.

My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!

āœØ Had my first-ever viral social post when a reel of me getting jump-scared by a dinosaur in Universal Orlando got 4.5 million views!

āœØ My Dorset Travel Guide blog grew by 52.21% compared to 2021, with over 800,000 pageviews in total. My goal is to break 1 million in 2023 – watch this space.

āœØ This site grew by 33.21% vs last year! Also just spotted that it’s up more than 996.59% since the first year I started tracking pageviews (2015), so that’s nice!!!

2022 Travel Highlights

I’m far too lazy to go into details about all my travels this year. So here are some of my favourite snaps from the year…

January: Hiked part of the Offa’s Dyke Path in Wales. Also headed to Lisbon to eat about 100 pastel de natas in one weekend!

My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!

February: Meeting elephants, climbing Sigiriya and hanging out with these three babes in Sri Lanka…

My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!
Lisa (Fjords and Beaches), Me, Roshni (The Wanderlust Within), Bella (Passport & Pixels)
emily wearing a light blue t shirt taking a selie with an elephant right behind her. she is standing up in a jeep on safari in sri lanka.
My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!
Also crashed Chloe and Macca’s honeymoon!!

March: London for a few nights – made a dream come true by finally watching Les Mis live on the West End.

April: Eating ALLLLLL the food in Bologna with the legend that is Wanderlust Chloe!

My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!

May: Chilling in the UK – including Chelsea Flower Show with my sister.

June: Orlando for IPW (a huge US travel conference) with some epic parties (including the opening party at a Disney’s Epcot). Also several days going geek-crazy in the three Universal Orlando parks

Then went to Puerto Rico for a week of kayaking, jungle hikes, zip lines and road trips…

My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!

Also got stuck in NYC for two nights after a delayed flight led to me and Teresa missing our connection… which led to us spending a day at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade with some awesome bloggers!

Also June: Took my sister Cheryl on a press trip to Cheltenham and Gloucester – which included a tour of Gloucester prison…

My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!

July: A month of paddleboarding adventures in Dorset, and a weekend glamping in Dartmoor.

My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!

August: Mountains, adventure and cheese in the Swiss Alps with a summer trip to Verbier. Took a ride on the world’s highest zipline – watch the reel here!

blonde girl wearing black shorts and a bright green t shirt sitting in an oval shaped wooden yellow hut with empty sides so that the pine forest behind is visible through the hut.
lady with strawberry blonde hair wearing a grey jacket and handing from a zipline in a sitting position travelling downhill above a grey glacier and rocky landscape with mountains behind. verbier in summer.

September: Seals and seaside towns in North Devon followed by a weekend of food and wine in Vienna with Lisa.

My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!
Lundy Island, North Devon
My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!
Stuffing our faces at Hotel Sacher in Vienna!

Also September: Traverse (travel blogging conference) in Brno, CZ – fab week of parties, lessons, networking, and catching up with some of my FAVOURITE bloggers, followed by a short press trip exploring the South Moravia region in the Czech Republic (with some of my fave people!).

My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!
No idea what’s happening here but I love it!
My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!
My Traverse Airbnb crew: Dan Flying Solo and Lisa

October: Exploring what felt like every last inch of Devon for the Lonely Planet guidebook research – and getting to try some seriously cool experiences!

My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!
Horse riding lesson on Exmoor

November: A month of extremes: from wearing sweatpants 24/7 and barely leaving the house whilst hustling to finish the Lonely Planet guidebook, to a week of adventure and relaxation in Aruba with Monica (The Travel Hack).

My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!
a woman's legs in a bright blue kayak with a girl sitting in front with brown hair in a ponytail and a black cap on looking out at the clear turquoise sea with the white rocks of the shore to the left

December: Overnight trip to Calais with my dad… then a Christmas full of family time and the birth of my 11th (yep, ELEVENTH) nibling*, congratulations to my little bro Aidan!

*(collective term for nieces and nephews. I really want it to catch on!).

What a year

And here was me thinking I could whistle through that quickly! I end up saying this every year… but WHAT A YEAR!!

My 2022 Review: Travel Highlights and Silly Pictures!

At the start of 2022, I didn’t set a resolution. I just wrote a list of all the places I’ve always wanted to go, and all the things I’ve always wanted to try, and decided to spend my year trying to visit, see and do as many of them as I could. The result has been a year of amazing memories – and I can’t wait to repeat the same thing next year!

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