2023: A Year in Review

Another year down and I’m here to sum up the year that was 2023!

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The time has come for another one of these posts looking back at the previous 12 months with me attempting, often poorly, to try and sum up everything that has happened into a short post and share some of my favourite photos from the year.

For anyone that wants to have a little look back in time, I’ll link the previous years below. We’re pretty much well past the Covid-19 years (though has anyone else ever been as ill as in 2023?!) so hopefully the optimism of 2018 and 2019 will return soon.

2018: A Year in Review
2019: A Year in Review
2020: A Year in Review
2022: A Year in Review

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2023

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Last year will always be difficult to top as it saw the arrival of my beautiful baby girl but I’ve loved watching her grow throughout 2023. Evelyn turned one in February and has grown into a cheeky, clever and often hilarious toddler. She keeps us on our toes but 2023 has been all about Evelyn. Oh and a little bit of travel of course!

Let’s talk about travel. FINALLY. We left this country for the first time in 4 years with a family holiday to Faro in Portugal. Turns out that I still love travelling and I actually ended up visiting eight different countries; four of which I’ve never visited before! Portugal, Cyprus, Germany, Lithuania, Ireland, Croatia and Montenegro.

Evelyn has been an absolute star with travelling too. She’s already visited four countries before the age of two so hopefully she doesn’t mind her two crazy parents taking her on wild adventures across the globe. Maybe it’s time to start re-planning the honeymoon back to Australia and New Zealand…

Other than travelling, to be fair, we haven’t done too much though it still feels like it’s been a bit of a manic year. It’s probably something to do with my job but I’m trying not to think about whether I need something a little different just yet.

However, did I ever tell you that I played in a band when I lived in York? Probably not but after 5 years out, we all met up last Christmas and promised to get back in the practice room and blast out some old classics. Well, that went very well and On The Ropes saw a return to the stage with a 7 track EP written and recorded plus a Christmas cover of ‘2 Become 1’ by the Spice Girls released a few weeks ago. I guess this year was extremely creative!

My Highlights of 2023

Our First Family Holiday to Faro
A Return to Cyprus
Failing the 365 Photography Challenge
Trees at Tughall for Emma’s Birthday
Cycling Through Lithuania
Working with Visit Sicily
12 Months of the Fujifilm X-T5

The Year as a Travel Blogger

Last year I made the switch back to WordPress from Squarespace and, as I anticipated, things have gone from strength to strength again over on jamiechancetravels. With hindsight, I really shouldn’t have switched to Squarespace in the first place as it stunted all growth on the site but we live and learn.

Things have gone so well that I’ve continued to work with tourism boards and airlines which has led to three press trips abroad; Portugal, Lithuania and Sicily. I still don’t think I’m over how all of my hard work has actually paid off. If you’d have told me when I started this blog that I’d one day visit other countries as part of a press trip or paid trip with an airline, I’d never have believed you. I’ve also met some lovely people through these trips; it’s great to be a part of this community though I think I might need to network a little more to get my face out there!

As with every year, my goal has been to publish 52 posts in the year which is always going to be incredibly difficult alongside my full-time (and very stressful) job. I’m at 49 (including this post) so one big final push and I’ll have achieved my goal for the first ever time.

Finally, in terms of page views, we’re looking at ending the year at around 155,000 views which is mad; around a 20% increase from 2022. In 2018, it was 15,000 and by 2020 it was 80,000. I need to keep up the hard work there’s no doubt about that. Let’s see what next year brings!

My Five Most Popular Posts of 2023

It’s always the same when I look at my five most popular posts of the year; they’re always photography related so perhaps that’s telling me something. The views across my travel guides have increased generally from last year which is a good sign and consistently have relatively good numbers. My five most popular posts of 2023 are:

My 2021 Fujifilm JPEG Settings
My Fujifilm X-T5 JPEG Settings
Fujifilm’s Classic Chrome for Travel Photography
The Classic Negative Film Simulation on the Fujifilm X-T5
A Look at the Classic Negative Film Simulation on the Fujifilm X-T2

What Next?

Personally, it’s more of the same. It’s all about family life and my professional life as a solicitor. There’s a mortgage and bills to pay so I’m afraid we won’t be taking any big risks like we did back in 2017 when we moved to Australia…

The blog has sadly never come first but I will, whenever I find snippets of spare time, continue to post as often as possible. I know what can happen with consistent posting it’s just a case of finding time.

Thank you to everyone who has read my posts over the last year, whether you’re a first time visitor or a regular reader. It really means the world to me!

Cheers

Jamie

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READ MORE OF MY ARTICLES FROM THIS YEAR BELOW

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