THE MONTHLY #5: We achieved a huge goal!
Each month, we jot down a personal wrap of our travels, life updates, and general happenings in the life of The Common Wanderer
November was, for all intents and purposes, a month to get shit done.
Catching up on client work, ploughing through our never ending ‘to-do’ list, replying to emails that have been sitting in our inbox for forever… yeah, November was a pretty boring old month here in Budapest.
In fact, we barely left our humble little apartment, preferring to enjoy the warmth than brave the cold that descended over Budapest.
That being said, we still did achieve a lot, and we’re bloody proud of it!
To learn all about our November highlights, read on amigos (read our October update here).
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WE PARTICIPATED IN OUR FIRST PODCAST
Podcasts have been a constant companion of ours over the last three years, and there’s no denying how much we LOVE them. Whether we’re listening to football analysis (Mark), Aussie pop culture and current affairs (Mim), or catching up on the latest on Brexit (both of us!), there’s a podcast playing daily at TCW headquarters.
So it goes without saying that we were super excited to finally be apart of one ourselves, joining our talented friend and photographer Guili Woergartner, who we met in the Dolomites, on her Yellow Podcast.
The podcast interviews a range of successful creatives, sharing stories on the topics of travel, photography, creativity, the environment and freelancer life.
In our podcast, we discussed all things travel, including how we got started, our creative process, what drives us to evolve and improve, and what its like to run a business with your partner.
We really enjoyed the process, and are keen to work more in the podcast space in 2020.
For those of you who didn’t get a chance to listen:
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OUR PHOTOGRAPHY FEATURED IN CONDÉ NAST TRAVELER
Four years ago, when we started this creative journey of ours, we sat down in our Melbourne apartment and jotted a few targets for our fledgling blog. One of those targets was to feature in global publications such as Condé Nast, Lonely Planet, or Travel and Leisure.
Well, we finally bloody did it.
Our photography was featured in the November global print edition of Condé Nast Traveler, with our photo from Hvar Island headlining their Readers Choice Awards for 2019. Subsequently, we’ve had our photography feature in the December issue on Hiriketiya, Sri Lanka’s gorgeous hidden paradise.
After an August riddled with self doubt, the last three months have seen us achieve recognition and results beyond our wildest dreams, and having finally ticked off a huge goal for us, we’re super excited to grow and evolve in 2020.
See below for a sneaky pic from the edition.
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OUR HIGHEST BLOG TRAFFIC EVER (AGAIN!)
For most of you, unique visitors, daily page views, time on page, and other wacky metrics mean stuff all, and rightly so - you just want the juicy travel guides and pretty pictures to help you travel better!
But for us, these numbers are our key performance indicators, and each morning we wake up to check out daily page views, seeing whether we’ve improved from the day/week/month/year prior.
Over November, we’ve improved massively, again. Another record month saw traffic to our website increase by close to 20% from our highest ever month, which in turn meant a record month of earnings for our business.
Since August, we’ve grown by 20%, which is gratifying on both a personal and business level.
FOLLOW OUR ADVENTURES | @THECOMMONWANDERER
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SOMETHING GOOD TO READ
FIVE INCREDIBLE RICE AND CURRY RECIPES FROM SRI LANKA
Sri Lankan food is right up there with our favourite cuisine in the world, and we could happily eat rice and curry for the rest of our lives.
Not only is Sri Lankan cuisine mostly vegetarian, it uses a vibrant mix of fresh produce, spices, coconut and homegrown rice to make the most wonderfully flavoursome curries.
Here are some of the very best recipes from the Island
FLYING NON STOP FOR 19 HOURS - WHAT IT’S REALLY LIKE
As technology evolves, so does the ability of planes to fly longer, and further.
This articles takes you on the Qantas research flight from New York to Sydney, all 19 hours and 16 minutes of it. From the highs (doing the Macarena at 30,000 feet), to the lows (dropping to Ambien and remembering nothing), the author humorously shows what it’s really like to fly for almost a whole day (hint: it ain’t great).
To be honest, we’d never really considered the science behind flying, such as the foods we are given, and the dimming of the cabin lights during long haul flights, which are actual scientific based 'nudges' to send us to sleep.
If we’re honest, we thing we'll stick to our layover in Asia and steer clear of a 19 hour flight in the future.
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SOMETHING GOOD TO WATCH
Cape Town is our favourite city in the world (we’ve written about it pretty extensively here!), and this film by the legends at Topjaw takes you around Cape Town in 48 ridiculously fun, and crazy, hours.
These guys have been our favourite creators on Youtube for a while now, and their content is just that good - check out the rest of their stuff here!
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TRAVEL BETTER WITH THESE ESSENTIAL POSTS
AIRBNB GUIDE | Our essential guide to getting the best out of Airbnb
TRAVEL INSURANCE | Don’t leave home without travel insurance (seriously, don’t!). Click here to get the best deals with World Nomads, our trusted travel insurance provider
PHOTOGRAPHY | Love our photography? Wondering what gear we use to get all of our photos around the world?
Click here to view our detailed photography gear guide, as well as our top travel photography tips!
RESPONSIBLE TRAVEL | Responsible travel is important. REALLY IMPORTANT.
Learn our top responsible travel tips to help you, your family and friends travel more consciously around the globe
ECO FRIENDLY PACKING ESSENTIALS | Don’t leave home without our favourite eco-friendly travel essentials
We want our monthly updates to be a mix of our life, thoughts and musings.
If you’ve got anything you’d like to hear our opinion on, or want to know more about, let us know in the comments!
SOMETHING TO READ ON YOUR LUNCH BREAK!
A special city with an intriguing past, Aveiro is an underrated gem close to Porto. Our Aveiro guide includes the best things to do, where to stay, and essential information how to get here and how long you should spend.