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I’m more than a little aware that from the outside it can appear as if all the traveling I do is a recipe for a fantastic lifestyle and that my life is essentially a never-ending carousel of premium cabin luxury and hotel room upgrades….but that’s not really how things are.
I love all the trips I take and the different locations I visit (even if the idea of visiting some occasionally scares me a little) and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy trying out the various premium cabins I fly in…. but it’s not all fun and games.
I realise that I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to fly around the world in relative comfort (some of the time) and to have experiences that a lot of people will probably never have, but the reality is that I don’t really get to relax very often when I’m traveling solo.
Most of the trips I take aren’t about relaxing or having some downtime because they’re all about trying out different airlines, different aircraft, different cabins and different hotels with a view to writing reviews and building up a knowledge base which I can use in the future. Believe it or not that’s not very relaxing 🙂
What this generally means is that any time I spend awake in an aircraft is spent taking pictures and writing notes for future reviews (or writing reviews that I haven’t had the time to write in the preceding weeks) and a lot of my time spent at the destinations I fly to is taken up by writing or researching for the blog.
It can get pretty tiring.
I’m not writing any of this in a pathetic bid for sympathy (no sympathy is needed – I love what I do), I’m writing it to explain why I’m so looking forward to the two weeks starting on Monday.
Joanna has some vacation time coming and it’s been a while since we’ve been away together so, from Monday, we’re taking a long trip to Australia.
For Joanna it will be her first visit down under and for me it will be a chance to unwind, relax and mostly forget about work and the blog.
I won’t be abandoning the blog completely as I’ll be flying in at least 3 premium cabins I haven’t flown in before, visiting a number of airport lounges I haven’t visited before and staying in two hotels I haven’t stayed at before…so there will be copious note taking for future reviews.
I’ll also be using the long-haul flights to write at least three reviews that are outstanding (a review of the JW Marriott in Rio, my overnight Iberia A330 Business Class experience and a review of the London EDITION) as well as making sure any important news that breaks is still covered by the blog….but I also plan to relax a lot and to enjoy some time with Joanna.
The blog won’t be completely silent but there will be noticeably fewer posts appearing over the next couple of weeks than is normal, and I may not be as quick in replying to emails as I usually am – I’m going to remove my work and blog email accounts from my phone so I’m not tempted to “quickly check what’s going on” when I should be enjoying the time I have with Joanna and taking in the scenery around me.
I’m really looking forward to waking up in nice hotels without having my first thoughts turn to work or the blog and without wondering what I’ll be writing about that day. I’m looking forward to exploring the cities we’re visiting, to hiking some beautiful trails and to seeing what Joanna thinks of her first visit to Australia.
Most of all I’m looking forward to enjoying my surroundings, relaxing and recharging my batteries and I think TFM will be all the better for it.
Good for you, taking a real vacation. One thing that I know I’m curious about is whether the blog is your day job. You post a lot, so a full time job as well as the blog sounds extremely tough, but you don’t pump credit cards, so paying for all these business class flights would be difficult on a blogger’s salary. If this is asking TMO, please feel free to ignore.
TMI, not TMO.
Not TMI at all – a perfectly fair question 🙂
The blog is a labor of love at this point and not my primary job so finding a balance between the blog and earning a living can be tricky.
I don’t have credit card referrals on the site because TFM isn’t really big enough to attract the attention of the big boys just yet and not because I don’t want them….and I’m under no illusion about how important they are to a blog’s financial success.
Hopefully I’ll never get to a point where I ‘pump’ credit cards because that’s really not what I or TFM are about and I suspect I would lose a lot of readers if I ever turned into a card shill.
I think the fact that I genuinely don’t like some of the more popular cards will probably keep me in check if referral links ever come to TFM as it’s hard to come up with reasons why others should have something you personally dislike 🙂
Nope. I believe you. The jetlag is a bitch whether economy or first. And writing blogs is a full time job. Nothing relaxing about it.
Very true…and I don’t make it easy on myself when I book 2-day turnarounds! 🙂