Radio Silence

Well, hello there!

It’s been a long time – two months, to be exact. Somehow or another an entire sixty-plus days have flown by between my last post and this moment. I can hardly believe how quickly the time went; it’s been a crazy fall, both personally and professionally! Has it been the same in your world?

I do apologize for the lengthy delay in delivering new content to you, but I promise I have some good… let’s call them explanations rather than excuses, shall we? That sounds much better 🙂 In short, the radio silence you’ve seen on the website comes down to three factors: some major life stuff, a leap forward on the services side of Full Life, Full Passport (with an official announcement coming soon!), and a focus on back end work and strategic planning for the website.

So what exactly I been up to in these past two months, you ask? Allow me to fill you in!

1.) I attended TravelCon.

Just after my last post, I attended the first annual TravelCon travel blogging conference in Austin, Texas, and had an absolute blast. It was my first experience attending a conference in this new-to-me industry, and I will say that it was 100% worth the time, effort, and investment. Created and organized by Nomadic Matt, one of the most successful travel bloggers in the biz and bestselling author of How to Travel the World on $50 a Day, TravelCon was a nonstop whirlwind of learning, networking, and encouragement that left me pumped to get back to work on making Full Life, Full Passport the best that it can be.

Speakers ranged from well-known travel writers and Instagram stars to travel industry experts and authors of bestselling books on business. I really appreciated that the event focused on the business side of blogging, not just how to travel for free or how to gain a mass following on social media. Every session I attended was chock full of practical and actionable advice. I learned so much, met some pretty fantastic people, and took away a plethora of tips, to-do’s, and ideas that will be keeping me busy for months and hopefully add a lot to your experience as a reader.

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2.) I made back-end improvements to FLFP and shifted some focus points.

While I didn’t post anything in those first weeks after TravelCon, I was busy at work making updates to the back end of the website, email campaigns for new and existing subscribers, and my social media strategy. The details might bore you, but suffice it to say that everything is being done in the name of making Full Life, Full Passport as user-friendly, engaging, and accessible as possible. It has been fun to implement some of the tips I learned from the experts at the conference, and I still have a long list of to-do’s to accomplish that I can’t wait to share with you.

PS: Are you on our email list yet? Be the first to know when new content is posted and receive subscriber-only goodies by using the form in the sidebar on the right hand side of this page! 

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3.) I took on some extra freelance work.

Since I’m taking a bit of maternity leave from my freelance gig, I made sure to pack in as many contracts as I could in the past few months. Fortunately, fall is perhaps my company’s busiest season, so thankfully the powers that be were all too happy to give me some extra hours. Over the course of September and October, I visited Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, and Chicago for various events as well as providing some remote support from home. It was pretty exhausting, but I was very grateful for the opportunity to put in the time before baby arrives!

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4.) I prepared for the launch of a new side of Full Life, Full Passport.

More on that coming soon!

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5.) I planned two vacations for new clients.

Right around the time TravelCon was occurring, I took on two new projects for clients looking for help planning some pretty awesome vacations. The first was a five-week honeymoon in Chile and Argentina, which is where most of my work time went over the past couple of months. The second was a ten-day trip to Alaska for a family of four that I’m currently wrapping up.

Each was fun and rewarding in its own way; obviously Alaska has my heart and it has been such a joy to put together a fabulous trip that will allow this family to experience a place that I love so dearly in the best way possible. It was also exciting to coordinate five weeks’ worth of South American exploration for my adventurous honeymooners, which not only gave me nostalgic pangs for my time backpacking the same regions but also filled me with jealousy for the areas they are getting to visit that I did not. I’m excited to share more about these two trips with you in the coming months!

In the meantime, if you would like help planning your own vacation, check out our Custom Vacation Planning page for more info!

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6.) We bought a house.

In huge life news, after about three years of searching M and I finally purchased our first home. We had almost given up hope of ever finding something that seemed like a good investment in this crazy competitive market, but we decided to go see one last house before shutting down the search until after Baby E’s arrival. Wouldn’t you know it – it was the one we’d been waiting for.

Anyone who has gone through the home buying process can attest to the amount of paperwork, financial juggling, and preparation that goes into finally signing your name on that dotted line. (Well, more like those hundred and fifty dotted lines, but you catch my drift!) Thankfully, everything fell into place and we settled on the house on October 18, which also happened to be our fourth wedding anniversary.

We’re so grateful to finally have a permanent home to start our new life as a family of three, and that third trimester nesting instinct is hitting at just the right time as we put in a little work to make the place our own.

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7.) We’re getting ready for baby’s arrival!

On Sunday, I officially hit the nine-month mark, so I suppose you could say that the baby could technically come at any time! These last few weeks have been a flurry of baby showers, nursery preparations, birthing and breastfeeding classes, agonizing over names (why is that process so hard?!), doctor’s appointments, and all manner of other activities to make sure we’re as prepped as possible to become parents.

I can’t believe that baby’s due date is almost here!

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So there you have them: my explanations (not excuses!) for why things have been so quiet around here lately. Now, with freelance work, house purchasing, vacation planning contracts, and baby showers behind us, I hope to use this calm before the storm of those first few weeks of parenthood to share the new content I’ve been working on with you.

A heartfelt thank you to all of you who have reached out to check in or offer encouragement during the past couple of months, as well as for reading to the end of this post!

Talk soon 🙂

XO,
Gwen

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Read More:

Our Biggest Adventure Yet
Why You Should Visit Alaska in the Fall
Top Tips for Taking a Multi-Generational Vacation