State of the Business Address, 2025
It’s been 15 years since we first wrote a behind-the-scenes look at our blogging biz. There have been several iterations of that article since, noting the changes we’ve gone through with our blog and other businesses over the years. (I won’t subject you to all of them, but here is the most recent one, written in 2019.)
For a long while, we wrote annually on the topic. We probably could have written about it monthly to an attentive audience because back when we were nomadic, and when blogging was so new, people cared less about what we ate in Romania and more about how we managed our lifestyle. How did we make money? How much money did we make? Those questions were common and quite honestly felt invasive, but I get why people were curious. As such, the annual posts about our business were an attempt to address those questions, and to pull back the curtain on the perception of our glamorous life.
Reading all of them back now is somewhat amusing. There’s a strong thread of optimism through all, even when we acknowledged making only a few dollars per hour of work in the early days, and any concerns we had then pale to what was actually in store for us. Like the cancer that took us off our nomadic path, and the pandemic that dramatically impacted all sides of our business. Both were things beyond our control, and new challenges have arisen lately, too. If you’re not familiar with the specific threats that Artificial Intelligence and monopolies like Google or Meta have on the digital sphere as it exists today, then I suggest reading this exceptionally well-written primer by our friend Amanda of A Dangerous Business. If you are familiar with it, then read on to find out what this means for us and our future.
Looking back to look forward
Way back in early 2014, Pete and I sat on a beach in Mexico and made some important decisions. Having been on the road for several years at that point and blogging prolifically throughout, we knew that we were on the edge of full burn out. And we could see the future: We knew that in order to be truly successful as influencers, we would have to do things we didn’t like. We’d have to start leaning into video, and worse than that, we would need to have our faces in said videos. We’d also have to start selling more, rather than just telling stories. While we don’t mind doing these things from time to time, we were very passionate about the type of content we produced and didn’t want it to turn our platform into something we resented.
We made the decision to take a different direction. Rather than be the face of anything, we decided to revive our business degrees and to start taking on clients for both social media management and influencer marketing. Once we announced our intentions, the response was positive and swift, we took on a number of clients and quietly grew our business as we continued travelling around the globe. What came in the following years were many tiny pivots to test what else we might be able (and like) to do.
Through the end of 2023, through many tiny pivots, we felt like we had landed in a really great place. We had multiple well-developed income streams and a neverending flow of ideas for more (so much so that we banned the statement “I have an idea” from our house). We even managed to survive cancer and the pandemic by focusing on new niche blogs that promptly became solid income generators. We were in such a good spot.
And then…
March, 2024
Google implemented a core update to their algorithm. They do this several times throughout the year, with many little ones interspersed as well. In all our years of blogging, they had never really affected us much. Until then.
One of our niche websites — RoadTripAlberta.com (RTA) — had become a major backbone of our business. After a massive investment to create high-quality content on the site, it soon contributed up to 30% of our income. Traffic from Google was responsible for 80% of that income. When the algorithm change hit, the impact was swiftly felt — the following month, traffic fell to almost half. The busy summer months, while looking like a rebound in the graph below, were only half of what they were the year before. And the downward trend continued.
Because RTA had initially done so well, we partnered with Brenna Holeman of Winnipeg to launch RoadTripManitoba.com (RTM) in 2022. While we never expected RTM to come near RTA in terms of income (we love you Manitoba, but you don’t have a Banff!), we didn’t anticipate it falling off a cliff to only earn us a few dollars a day. It was impacted by the same Google update.
This blog, on the other hand, has remained relatively stable and is even growing. How can that be? Honestly, probably because we neglected it for awhile. We have barely optimized it for Google search, posted infrequently, and didn’t implement an ad network until later in 2024, after the massive Google update smacked our other sites around. That being said, Hecktic Travels has never been a huge earner for us anyway. While we do selectively undertake some paid destination marketing campaigns, this site has instead largely remained a personal space for our stories, and a business card to the industry for other work, showcasing our storytelling skills and capabilities.
We are not alone
It’s been a dark time for most bloggers. Anyone who survived the March, 2024 algorithm update probably got hit by the next one in September of the same year. Many have already folded and found other work. In all honesty, it’s hard to stay motivated when faced with what feels like impending doom. The hits keep coming.
Google has basically admitted that they have screwed over us little guys and have no idea how to fix it, so we are unlikely to see any sort of rebound there. And besides that, AI is forcing down the door; it is going to continue to eat up all our content and spit it out whenever anyone asks its chatbots a travel-related question. Which should be unlawful, as it is blatant stealing. But who is stopping them? Maybe the bursting of their own bubble, which many are starting to predict due to huge investments with little financial return, thus far. (Don’t get me wrong, AI can certainly be useful without stealing…the VEED AI Video editor probably saved our marriage when Pete and I did a whole day of filming only to realize he was too obviously NOT looking into the camera while speaking. It corrected his eye position — how crazy is that!)
We are very grateful, looking back now, that we didn’t go all in on becoming full-time bloggers/influencers, as the downswing seems irreversible at this point without some major pivots. While the impact of this all hurts a lot, we have other work keeping us busy, and keeping us earning.
The other work
I made a list to count how many different income streams we have. It’s 20!
They range from making us just a few hundreds of dollars a year to many thousands. Most have been steady for quite sometime: We earn (or did earn, as it were) a good chunk of revenue via multiple streams on our blogs, but most comes from a variety of marketing services to industry clients, including social media management, content creation, executing influencer campaigns, and more. We also do a minor amount of consulting with creators, and sell some photos here and there. But the newest one that dominates our time and energy is our travel game.
When the pandemic first emerged, we realized how tenuous our previous income streams were. In the course of one week in March, 2020, we lost 80% of our revenue. With ample time on our hands, and recognizing the need/desire to make another pivot, we threw our resources and abilities behind the game’s development.
Once published, Trip Chaser was off to a great start, selling out in Canada in just a few weeks. It’s been doing okay since then, not stellar, largely because the Canada Post strike severely impacted the busy holiday season we were counting on.
But we never expected success to happen quickly. As ecommerce is entirely new to us — we have SO much to learn still — we only predicted slow and steady growth, and we’re encouraged by how we’ve done so far. Game #2 is even in development, and while we love Trip Chaser, we know that this next one is even stronger. We’re playing the long game with our games.
Their success isn’t as reliant on Google traffic and can’t be replaced by AI. In the next pandemic, it will be something that probably increases our revenue instead of tanking it. (And, let’s be honest, it’s just fun to do, which is the basis of many of our business decisions.)
Retirement isn’t that far off for us, but creating games is also something that we can see enjoying in our golden years.
But in the meantime…
A number of times over the years, Pete and I have debated if it was the right decision to build our business around so many income streams instead of going all-in on one thing. These days, I feel more confident that it was, and continues to be the right thing for us.
When one part of our business falters, we can lean into the others. As the income from RTA continues to dry up, we’ve been taking on more client work. We’re doing more with Hecktic Travels as it is currently holding its own and my own drive to write is finally returning. It also feels like maybe the kind of posts I enjoy writing — personal, and not those written for search engines — will be the thing that saves blogs, considering that Google no longer cares if articles are optimized for its algorithm anyway.
With regards to our burgeoning gaming empire (hah), we’re bringing in more fun (and sustainable!) travel accessories to go along with it, and we can’t wait to show you game #2.
Within reason, the sentence “I have an idea” is no longer banned in our house. I’m debating starting a not-travel-related newsletter and Pete is seriously looking at putting his culinary skills to work.
Tiny pivots are still being considered, but not without adherence to our long-held core tenets of fun and being able to do them from anywhere and not being driven by making piles of money. Because that’s what has gotten us this far, and despite all the challenges, it’s not a bad place to be.
