Farewell 2017! Welcome 2018!! But before we jump into this new year, a status update, on what happened in 2017 around here, is in order. So here it is: This is RTatW 2017 yearly review! Not the most exciting post but if you want to have ideas of what might or might not come on RTatW in 2018, you can read this piece! Hints are scattered here and there…
I have to tell you that I’m so happy to see this year ending I could cry… oh wait I did cry!
You just want an executive summary of 2017?
First half of 2017: good – Second half of 2017: shit
There you go! Want a bit more details? let’s dig in…
2017 yearly review: Travel
The highlight of this year was undeniably our road trip to Sweden. Such trip took us through dreamy landscapes and amazing cities. Sweden was perfect, we weren’t. Things turned out ok, although not quite as I wish they had.
Before such trip, we did manage a lovely road trip in the South of France and I finally got to explore the Camargue region. Without being eaten alive by mosquitoes, I must add!
On other trips, we also managed to admire a few cathedrals & castles around Paris for example, like the cathedral of Amiens. And some other places I haven’t told you about yet, like the magnificent cathedral of Strasbourg.
Need some name dropping? Here is a partial list: Paris, London, Chantilly, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Marseille, Chambord, Amiens, Gothenburg, Montpellier, Strasbourg, Manchester, Beaunes and much smaller towns in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. Just to name a few of the places which we went to.
We have now been to something like 140 UNESCO Word Heritage sites. Yep yep hooray!
As for the second half of 2017? Refer to the executive summary above! I was on the road a whole lot but not for the right reasons. I actually spent more time away and more time driving than during the first half of the year. My head was spinning from it and mornings were hard as I didn’t know where I was when waking up.
What to look for in 2018?
Apart from a trip to Berlin early February, I can’t plan anything.
I do not feel like planning a big road trip or anything complicated. For once, I have no dreams of exotic places. This year will the year of uncomplicated travel!
I know I want to spend time with my Dad and I will try to take these opportunities to visit some of the places around my hometown. I was born in the Loire Valley, a place where millions of people come every year, so there is plenty to see there!
2017 yearly review: Work
If you’ve been around here before, you already know a couple of things about me. You already know I’m not a full-time blogger and have no intention to leave everything behind to be one. However, you may also know that I do not have a traditional 9 to 5 job, as I’ve been an independent consultant for 4 years now.
Being a freelancer has proven to be an incredible asset these past months. It has allowed me to be there for my Dad and spend a lot of time with him, without impacting too much my bottom line. I would not trade the flexibility I have for anything at the moment!
Work in 2018?
I may be independent but I’m currently not location independent. A lot of my work can be done remotely but part of it requires me to be present in Luxembourg, my current host country. I am working on this location independence grail and I do have big hopes to make significant progress on this front in 2018.
Apart from this, there are a couple of things I want to do. The first and most important one is that I need to stop working for free! It may sound weird to you but I’ll explain this in more depth in one of my Upgrade post (Upgrade post?? see below!)
I may have to accept a new client but we’ll see later how that goes as this doesn’t help my overall plans.
2017 yearly review: Blogging
I don’t need to look back to know I haven’t posted as regularly, this year, as I should have or as I wanted to. My brain was overflowing with ideas at the beginning of the year. There was so much I wanted to achieve which I didn’t get to.
Although to be fair 2017 started pretty well!
I had created these “Adventure await” designs and a road trip map to help you visit Cyprus by the end of February.
By the end of March I had finished my Paris walking tour map which is quite impressive to me 😉 considering Notre Dame alone took me like 16 hours to draw!
In April, I had published a mini guide to help you identify trees by looking at their leaves. Admittedly, a very different mini guide than my other ones but so useful in my sole opinion!
Early June, I had published a road trip map to help you discover Luxembourg and started the drawings for the next map.
That was a pretty good start for the year, don’t you think?!
And then, well, you know…
The only thing I’m a little sad about is that I haven’t made much progress on my big project which you might have heard about before. I’m still very committed to make it happen. It will just take more time than I had realized.
Behind the scene updates!
In addition to the maps I created, I have worked really hard on ‘behind the scene’ items to make RTtW more cosy but especially more efficient. One of the latest change is that I have a bran new shiny SSL certificate! This means RTatW is now accessible through https:// and not just http://. I kind of think that I had originally an SSL certificate and it expired and now it’s a mess to catch up!
Upgrade series
Another thing I worked on, a lot, is my UPGRADE series. For a vast majority of my readers, it is irrelevant.
For the ones of you who want to change the way they travel and do want to create a business, have more flexibility and more time to travel, it might be of interest. It will be getting even more interesting with time! We are just scratching the surface at the moment, just building the foundations!
I’m an anti-social animal! Clearly I’m terrible at social media and my RTatW Facebook page is stagnating to an awfully low-level. You can still come and say Hi, like it and share it with your friends! Please please! Do like it and share it with your friends!!
And do let me know what you would like to see on RTatW and how, you think, I can make it better!
Insta made a recent change to its stories and it changes everything for me! In case you haven’t noticed it, Instagram stories are now archived on your profile. What does it mean? Free images storage!!
My phone has been struggling with all the pictures I take and want to keep as souvenirs. Not great pictures, just snippets of life. Until now, those were slowing down my phone. Well not anymore!
So I guess 2018 is the year I’ll start sharing more Insta stories… I’ve been dead silent since 1 Jan, so we will see how that goes! 😉
Newsletter: I’m so thrilled and so scared!
So many of you have shown interest in my newsletter, it’s mind-blowing! I’m thrilled and scared at the same time.
Why scared you may wonder? Well because if you trust me (and Mailchimp of course) with your email address, I want to be sure that whenever I land in your inbox, it is because I have something special to share with you. Something that you will find interesting and will be delighted to get.
But guess what? It is quite hard to achieve! I’m in no way saying my newsletters are perfect but I can tell you that I put a lot of thoughts in all of them. So I do hope that I haven’t disappointed you so far and that RTatW Newsletter will still be amongst your favorite newsletter in 2018!
What’s in store for the next ones? There will be some new giveaways soon, books, original drawings and something else I’m working on! Aaaaah mysterious as always!
RTatW in 2018?
There are so many places I haven’t told you about that I could stop travelling for a year and still have enough material for RTatW. It’s getting annoying actually that I have so much to share and not enough time to do so.
More maps! The last map I created is almost finished and will be published very soon! Finally! I’ve even started drawing for the next one, which is not a road trip…
New mini guides? Well on that front I’m not 100% sure. There is one which is part of my big project but that’s not going to be ready anytime soon. I do have other ideas but we’ll see how that goes.
Challenge of net neutrality
While writing these lines, net neutrality has just ended in the US and at this point it is unclear if or how little sites like RTatW will be affected. I do hope I won’t have to change web host because that will be a challenge I’m not ready to face!!
Do let me know if you have any issues visiting RTatW.
You can always pop me an email at MissCocoTravel @ gmail . com (without the spaces of course!)
Other stuffs?
There are a lot more things I want to update around here. If you have any recommendations, email me!
2017 yearly review: Life in general
If you read my RTatW 2016 yearly review to the end, then you know that I wasn’t about to set goals for 2017.
Boy, am I glad I didn’t!
What feels really weird, reading that post again, is to see what I wrote just after that ‘no goal setting rule’ which was:
Welcome & embrace changes & surprises
Obviously I had no clue what was about to hit me.
I had the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head for the first half of 2017. I kind of knew it but somehow did not fully realize the ineluctable was about to happen so quickly. I lived my life in blissful ignorance.
Things turned out for the worst in September and I spent the rest of the year in a state of blurriness. If you want to know more you can read this post but you really shouldn’t.
Any ‘life’ goals for 2018?
Actually, I do have “goals” for 2018.
Grieving and recovering. Spending time with my Dad. Enjoying the little things. Making the most of what I have.
And also:
Taking care of myself. Being gentle and taking things slow… I’m going to take things really slow this January!
I wish you all the best for 2018!
Thanks for being here and loving RTatW!
