The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 137. Choosing Adventure: Becoming a Solo Travel Blogger with Gina Corley

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

Are you wanting to be a travel blogger? Join us as we chat interview Gina Corley, a student of ours and a travel blogger from "Gina on a Plane." Gina shares her journey into travel blogging and shares more about her solo travel experiences. She discusses the challenges of balancing a full-time job with blogging, the realities of monetization, and the importance of consistency and community support. Gina emphasizes the value of providing long-lasting content and offers advice for new bloggers to stay passionate and persistent. Tune in to hear all that Gina has to share!Thanks for listening! Let us know your thoughts on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsSEO Audio CourseCheck out the show notes (link below) for more information including links and resources mentioned in today's episode!SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode137

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinke and Jennifer Draper. We are on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you are just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we are excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success and your

own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging and work from home life, all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. Well, welcome back to another episode of the Ultimate Blog podcast. Today, we have one of our own and it's always so fun to interview our students. And I feel like Jennifer and I are like proud moms with all these little children out in the world who are learning how to blog and then they get to come back and they get to share their journey and their story with all of you here on the podcast. And today is going to be a really exciting one because Gina Corley is with us and she's

been part of our community now for several years. And we've got to watch her from the beginning and watch her vision come to life as a travel blogger. And today she's going to share that journey with you. Travel blogging is something that we don't have a ton of episodes about yet on the podcast, but we know that this is an area that people are genuinely very curious about. And so I told Gina, no holds barred, tell us all the things today. So you guys are in for a treat and welcome Gina. We're so glad to like have this one-on-one time

with you today. Thank you so much. I am so excited to be on your podcast. It's going to be a great day talking about travel, which you are very passionate about. And so she blogs over at Gina on a plane, which I absolutely love. Gina is actually a solo traveler. And so let's start there because I, me personally would love to hear more about how that looks. Like one day you're just like, I just want to start solo traveling.

Like I feel like the day and age, like sometimes safety and all of that could be a factor in that. So what kind of led you to that decision to be like, you know what, I'm just going to go for it and I'm going to go travel the world by myself and document it. I'd love to hear how this journey started for you. Yeah. So I'll start by giving you like a high level overview of my life and kind of just how I got to be a blogger in the first place. So I grew up in a very small town. My family did not travel much.

We did not live close to an airport. So basically I say that to say that everything I learned about travel, I've learned honestly in the past like three years. So it's never too late to start. But yeah, I've always been like a very creative person too. And I've always enjoyed writing and designing and anything like with like passion and photos and just like a whole bunch of things like that.

But I ended up career wise not taking a very creative path. I went to pharmacy school and when I graduated, I thought, okay, like I am gonna travel, like I'm gonna do whatever I can. But the first job that I had did not have the greatest PDO policy. So I got very limited time off. And at the time, I didn't, well, I moved close to like a smaller airport for a few years. So I was able to take a couple trips then.

But then eventually, I moved back to my hometown. So I was far from an airport again. And I just a bunch of things I didn't get to travel much. So then in 2019, I got a different job and I moved closer to a city that had a big airport, but we all know what happened in 2020. Once again, put on hold. And then eventually in 2021, things were starting to open back up again. And I found this group travel company called EF and you were allowed to book like group trips with them. You could go by yourself, you could go with a friend, but it was basically just like anybody who wanted to go could sign up and go. And I've always wanted to go to Greece. So I, that was the trip that I booked. And while I was looking up the trip, one of the things that I saw was it said like,

we can either extend your Greece trip so you can come like, you can come before the Greece trip starts, or you can stay after the Greece trip ends. And they can like help you out with that. And they said like, you know, you can stay in Greece if you want to, you can go somewhere else. Like it really, it doesn't matter. And I was like, Oh my god, great. And I looked and on my work schedule, there was nobody off the following week after I would have came back from Greece. So I'm like, Oh my god, this is fate. This is fate. I'm staying after like I I'm so excited Well, I learned that whenever they said we will extend your trip what they meant was we will book your flight home Aka like I had to figure everything else out

Like I had to figure out where I was gonna stay I had to figure out what I was going to do And on my Greece trip, I would have like a tour guide and a plan for each day and like transportation was arranged. So like everything was so simple. Like I didn't have to look anything up. I just had to show up. It was great. That's awesome. Yeah. So I talked to a few people and after doing some research, I was like, okay, I want to go to Spain. Barcelona, Spain sounds like the coolest place in the world. Like I had a bunch of people tell me

that they had gone there. Well, maybe not a bunch, but enough to convince me, right? And so I told EF, I said, okay, I want to go there after my Greece trip ends. And they're like, okay, great. So they booked my flight home and then it was up to me to figure everything else out. So I just dove in headfirst.

I did research, I talked to a bunch of people, I asked a bunch of questions, and one of the things that I stumbled across was this couple's travel blog. And they had this three-day Barcelona itinerary that laid out exactly what to do every single day. Like, day one, do this. They had restaurants, they had things to do this. They had restaurants, they had like things to do,

they even had how to get around, and they almost kind of wove like a story into it, like the story of their day while also like telling you what to do. And so I printed that out and I marked all over it and I wrote a bunch of notes and that's what I used to plan my trip. And when I got to Spain,

I followed their itinerary like to a T and it ended up being the most amazing trip. Like literally nothing went wrong. It was perfect. And I was like, you know, I was like, I wanna be this for somebody else. So when I came back, like that was like the light bulb, like, okay, this is what I want to do.

This is my creative outlet that I want. And then ever since then, I joined your boot camp and here I am now. Nicole Sarris Had you ever thought about starting a blog before this idea came to you? Or was it because of the inspiration from this other blogger? Yes, it was solely because of them. I'd always loved computers. I can remember being a kid and writing stories on my parents' computer back home, but the idea of creating a website was such a foreign concept to me that I was like, that sounds hard, I'm not doing it.

Yeah. I think that's a common theme. Because that tech stuff is pretty overwhelming. But what I love about this story is that one, you had something like this was not part of the plan. Right. You know, you were just completely inspired by something. And two, you kind of came home and were like, okay, I got to figure out a way to do this. And you did it.

And now you're on the other side of it a couple years later and into it. And so what was kind of that first step when you came home and you're like, okay, I want to start a blog? Like, did you try to do it on your own first or what was the kind of next step there? So I'm actually friends with Jen, who was another one of your students that has a blog called Florida on Foot, which is an amazing blog. I love Jen so much. And I reached out to her because I had saw where she had done it for a few years.

And I was like, hey, how is it to have a blog? What's it like? Is it time consuming? Do you like that you took the leap? And she referred me to you all. And so everything was basically done through you all. That's awesome. I'm so glad.

We love Jen too. And I love that Jen's is all about hiking. So it's a travel blog as well, but it's about being in Florida and all of that. So I think that it's so interesting how you can go about different niches in different ways. Like you're both travel bloggers, but they're completely different. And so if you're listening to this and you're interested in starting a travel blog,

one thing I want just to kind of say out of the gate is kind of think about how your travel blog can be set apart, how it can be a little bit different. So Gina, you're a solo traveler. Was that a plan too? So when you were in Greece and in Spain and you're like, okay, this is amazing. I love doing this. I want to do this more. Did you go over there by yourself or did you have a friend go on this trip with you? So in Greece, I flew over by myself, but I knew that I was gonna be with a group.

Barcelona, I knew I was gonna be on my own, but I don't know, I'm kind of unique in that sense, I guess, because I have always been very okay being on my own. I genuinely enjoy my own company. I'm my own best friend is what I say. And it's also like, it's so fun to be able to just go somewhere and like do what you want. Like, if I want to sleep in till noon, I can. If I want to stay out till five in the morning, I can.

Like, I can go eat where I want. I can go shop or do or whatever. I can just do whatever I want. And the freedom to do that when you're on a trip, it makes it your own. And then when you come home, you have a story that is all yours. Like there's nobody else that will ever have the same experience and the same story that you have. And I think that is what makes solar travel so beautiful is that it's yours and nobody else's.

Yeah. So then you get home and you're like, okay, I'm gonna help other people in the way that somebody helped me. I'm going to create this blog. But I think one of the questions that a lot of people that are in your shoes have is, OK, what does this look like for my life? Now, how do I how am I going to be able to create content to have a blog? Did you start thinking about what your schedule was going to look like, how much

you were going to travel? Did you start thinking about like what your schedule was going to look like, how much you were going to travel? Did you start planning your next trip? What did that look like in terms of because you like you said, you have a full time job. And I think there's other people who probably have those questions like how am I going to be a truck? Can I even be a travel blogger when I have a full time job? So what does that look like for you? Yeah, so one of the things that I still want to say is I still do have a full-time job.

Like, blogging is not my full-time job. So I launched my blog officially in September of 2022. Yes. And I am still like, I've made some income from it, but I still 100% have a full-time job. So for me, I did not have a plan at first. Like I will be so completely honest. My plan, I guess, was to make content around what helped me. So like three days in Paris, three days in London,

three days, like itinerary-based stuff. And then I tried that and I realized this takes forever because you are doing like so much with so much information. Like my first Paris post took me like a month to write and I was like, I've got to figure something out. But that's all you know, that's part of the learning process, you know, like, like my posts do not take me a month to write now. But when you start out, you know, you kind of just have to figure out what works. And going back to the part about like how I was able to travel and stuff. I was very lucky for multiple reasons. One of the reasons was when I got my job in 2019, I was actually hired part time. So I told my my boss I said, you know, work me as much as you can, because I did want like, you know, to get paid for full-time work. So one thing I learned about healthcare is there's no such thing as part-time if you don't want there to be, they always have shifts to fill. So I would pick up a lot, but then whenever I wanted to go somewhere, I could just take a week with no pay or take a week off and I like I didn't have to burn a lot of PDO. So that helps me a lot. And then whenever I was in my 20s, I I had moved back to my hometown for a bit, like I said, and I actually lived at home for like four years. So I was able to bank a lot of money that way, which at the time, you know, I was like, man,

like, I want to be like out and about. But like like looking back, I'm like, I really think that happened to me so I could afford to travel like I do now. Yeah, I love that. And I love that you are sharing your experience because I think that that's really important, you know, as a way because I think one of the things that we are really passionate about is, you know, starting a blog with something that you're passionate about, but also not spending your entire life savings and being... I don't even want to use the word frugal, but being responsible with where you're choosing to invest your money because something else that you said too is you are still working full-time because you're not earning a full-time income with blogging.

And I want to unpack that for a little bit. I know that you didn't have any preconceived notions going into blogging about income probably. But how does that feel? You're close to two years in. How does that feel that you haven't earned a full-time income yet? Do you feel defeated by that? Are you just accepting that this is part of the journey?

Because I think that this, honestly, is kind of like a hot topic of a lot of new bloggers. They can get very defeated very quickly if they don't start earning money like right out of the gate. So what is kind of your thought process surrounding the financial aspect of blogging too? So that's a great question. I think I would feel more defeated if I wasn't seeing myself grow. Like if I wasn't seeing my numbers grow, if I wasn't seeing my income grow, if I wasn't seeing like traffic and things like that, I think I would feel that way. But I mean, I have seen growth in the past two years and it reinforces like, okay, I

am on the right path. I'm like, it kind of also helps to because you get to know what works. And one of the best advice that I have read, I cannot take credit for this. This is from a guy that I follow on LinkedIn called or named Justin Welch. He's great for like the business type stuff. But he had said, like when you have a blog or you know, a social media account, like, whatever, there's so many things that you can do. There's the content that you write, there's the social media part, there's the videos, there's the podcast, there's the YouTube, like, and it's so much to do by yourself, that I think that

is why a lot of people quit because they're like, I need to be doing this and this and this and this. But you don't ever put 100% of yourself into one thing. And that is why a lot of people quit because they're like, I need to be doing this and this and this and this. But you don't ever put 100% of yourself into one thing. And that's why it doesn't take off because you're just like spreading yourself out. And so his advice was like, pick two or three things at the most that are really going to propel yourself forward, are really going to like help your business. And when I say that, I mean, like, make you money. Yeah, pick those three things, forget about everything else and just hammer those things like, you might be exhausted. But like, at the end of the day, like once you you know, you'll you'll start seeing progress. And that was one of the things that I did that really, really helped me was I picked

writing blog posts, Pinterest, and some social media, but mostly blog posts and Pinterest. And I really hammered those things. And I really started to see like consistent growth. And another big thing is publishing consistently. So I'm not sure if like this like you have to do do this, but I picked like a date and a time like so my post published the same date and the same time every single week and I'm gonna say it helps because I've seen growth from doing that too. So I would say like consistency and picking the two

things that work for you really help. Another thing too that I wanted to say since you brought up income was I feel like I fully anticipated like how hard blogging would be as far as like you know how much time it takes, how much you know things like that. I severely underestimated how hard affiliate links and social media work. And I think that's a very important thing to bring up too, because I feel like a lot of people, especially on social, they're like, oh yeah, like, you know, I had success overnight. Like, you can just push these few things and like, you know, you'll make a million bucks in a week.

And it's not like that. Maybe for some people, but it's not for me. I'm really glad you said that. Yeah. Because that's true, quite honestly. I do think it's a misconception that social media is, quote unquote, easier than blogging. I think that that is a very,

I don't know, popular mindset is the word I'm going to use there, but it's so much easier to build on social media. And I love that you're sharing your raw, honest truth in that. And something that I think that we can probably all agree with that on is when you're sharing on social media, it's kind of a one and done deal. You're sharing about it. But Gina, I want you to speak to this. When you spend time writing

a post, such as an itinerary post for somebody who's going on a trip, that post serves them forever. That's going to be able to be found on your blog, literally forever, unless you decide to take it down. Yes. But when you share something on social media, it's either one, going to be stories, and so it's going to be gone in 24 hours. Or it's going to be buried in your feed somewhere. And sometimes that stuff will pop back up. But like, it's not very often that somebody like scrolls a ton on your social media to go back and find an affiliate link. Plus, there's like no links and stuff like that. And there's so,

it's a hard dance to do there. And so I have no idea where I'm going with that other than the fact that I just completely agree with you and that I think we are just such an influence or heavy life right now. Share all the links, do all the things, but we're forgetting this art of blogging, I think. And we're forgetting how your blog, and especially a travel blog, in my opinion, can honestly serve so many people, like at all different points of the year, indefinitely. Like somebody is always going to be looking for an itinerary to go somewhere, to be honest. Yeah.

Like, somebody is always going to be looking for that. Right. And that's how I think about my posts when I write them. I think like, okay, if I wanted to plan a trip here, or even if I wanted to go back to this place in like five years I want to be able to pull up my blog post and be like I know exactly what to do because I wrote it down Yeah, yes. Yeah. Well, it's just that type of content that is so extensive There's so much information that it would be really difficult to share effectively in a quick social media post or a story, whereas you can create the blog content, you can curate that over time and you can probably even go back to places that you visited and add another blog post because you thought of something else that would be helpful to share something

really specific, a question somebody asked you. So it's not just like, okay, here's my one trip, here's my one blog post for this big trip and I'm done. I think that it can serve you and it can serve your audience for more than just one blog post. It can be for a period of time. And I would like to talk a little bit more about what you said about the affiliate stuff.

Cause I know that that can be a piece of how you're monetizing your blog when you start out. And it doesn't have to just be on social media. You can include that on your blog. But I know one thing that we talked about a lot over the last couple of years or year and one thing that you were working towards was being able to monetize in a way that was a little more, I don't want, I always hesitate to call it passive, but like monetizing your blog in a way that was a little more passive,

that you're not constantly having to share links all the time, it's there on your blog. So you were working towards getting on an ad network. So that is one of the things that we're super excited about that has happened for you. So can you tell us a little bit more about how that came about and how that feels today? Yeah, so I really think a lot of that came from where I was

talking about like just being consistent because a lot of well, I guess I should say the biggest thing that you need to qualify for an ad network and correct me if I'm wrong is sessions, which most people think of as page views. But it's basically anytime somebody comes to your website. There's a limited number of sessions that you have to have to qualify to get on these ad networks. So for me, that is a lot of why I wanted to focus on just being very consistent with my

blog and with publishing new stuff because I knew that the more consistent you are, the more that Google recognizes like, okay, hey, like this person knows a lot about this. So it helps with that. The other thing that I wanted to say too, in terms of just like not only getting on an ad network, but also in terms of just like making income is that a lot of times I feel like you have to do a lot of things for free in order to get paid for them eventually and that includes writing blog posts. So like right now I say like I get paid to write because like I get this ad network revenue but you

know it just it depends on what you want to do. So I always say like you know you have to put yourself in the position to get the things that you want. So if you want free like hotel stays, you know, you have to write hotel review posts until somebody comes along and says like, you know, Hey, like, I see that this is what you do and like, or, or you could even like pitch somewhere and say like, you know, Hey, like, I'm a travel blogger, I, you know, I'm coming to Paris for a week, I would love to stay with you and do a review on your hotel. If you want to read the reviews that I've done, here are the links to my post that you can go back on and like send

them a bunch of posts. So there's different ways like that to monetize to and like just make sure like you're putting yourself on the right track to get what you want. But yeah, I, I remember with the ad network, like I was like obsessively watching my GA four and like just making sure I was growing every day and I was making sure that I did Pinterest consistently too, because Pinterest is a huge blog traffic driver, as we all know. So I made sure to download tailwinds and schedule my pins. And I

think that's helped me a lot too. Yeah. And I think especially for travel blogging, Pinterest is a really important piece of the puzzle. I feel like Pinterest for recipes and travel is really popular. So if you're in either one of those niches, I really do think that Pinterest is an area that you're going to want to focus on. If you're wondering what Ad Network Gina is talking about, she was able to qualify for Journey, which we do have an episode that we talked to Heather Toulouse from Mediavine about Journey.

So if you already have a blog and you're wondering if you potentially qualify for that, the Journey program is a lower threshold than what they have typically done, which I think is such an amazing thing that they've offered bloggers because it's more back to how it was like pre pandemic. It's actually even a lower threshold, which I think is important because like what you just said, you have to work for free for a while. And you'll likely have to invest some too. And I think that that's a really important part of this conversation that I don't want to get lost or that I don't want people to not understand is, you know, sometimes we'll have people reach out and be like, Hey, I need to make like, a part time income this year. That is highly unlikely to make within a year's time unless you

are having your own products and services or something like you already have an offer that you can offer someone. I am not saying that to be like negative Nancy here, but I think that it's time that we get really honest with what growing a blog looks like and what starting a blog looks like. And you literally are in the trenches for a couple of years to get started. And that's why it's so important to Jennifer and I to make sure that that foundation is set. So with the boot camp and with the membership and things like that, that we're coaching

people in a way that like, you know, as you're creating content that like the text side is good to go. Like, you know, you're on a self-posted blog, you know, that you're pushing emails, you know, you're trying to grow your subscribers, you have the right plugins, your site speed's good, you have a great theme that's gonna work for you. So I just, I love your honesty, honestly about that, Gina, because I think that it's really important to make sure that we're setting realistic expectations

for this journey and what it's going to look like, and also why it's so important. Like when people join the bootcamp, it's an investment. You know, it's an investment to say, okay, I'm going to invest my money into this course. It's going to tell me how to do this. So I think that that's just an important thing to know. I love having these honest conversations about it,

just about the investment, about the time that's spent and all of that. And I would love to hear how your mindset has been. Because yes, there is a technical piece, there is your travel piece and your time off work, there's a monetization piece. But I think what is weaved in with all of that is a mindset. Yes.

It is a commitment to this craft because that's exactly what this is, of like, what does that look like? What kind of mindset do you think is really important for a blogger, whether they've started or not? Like as they're, you know, coming into this, what do you feel like? Like when you wake up and like you're either going to work or you're sitting down at your computer, like what is that that drives you? What is that?

What is your why? What's your mojo? I can honestly say that it's what I truly love. Blogging is my passion. Traveling is my passion. I truly, truly love it. And I think that's why I've been able to push through the hard times. That's another thing I want to say too, to everyone that wants to start a blog, I'm just gonna be so honest, your first year is so hard. It is so, so hard. I remember just thinking, oh my gosh, I have all these new things to learn.

I have to learn how my plugins work. I have to learn how to edit my website. I have to write content. I have to take pictures. I have to Photoshop pictures. I have to learn how to edit my website. I have to write content. I have to take pictures. I have to Photoshop pictures. I have to upload pictures. I have to, you know, do all of these things. And then like I publish it and like my pictures are off center on the mobile settings. What do I do now? I gotta like find someone to fix it. Oh my god. It's like so much. So I always say like, if you can get through the first year, you will be good and use that time just to learn because really like you only have like a handful of posts in that on your site and like, Google's not going to like bring your site up for whatever your niche is even if you like if you wrote the greatest single post about like, Spain or, or whatever

like like it's not going to matter because like at this stage of the game, the only one that knows your site is there is likely you and the people that you've told. So like you can just mess up. Like you can mess up, you can figure it out. And once you figure it out, you can really just you like that. That's when the growth starts. That's when the magic happens. That is when you can really just take off. And along those same lines, and speaking of taking off, I think, like you you guys always say like your niche, like really like niching down is very important. And I would agree. And this kind of goes back to like the monetization thing

too, because I think for me, when I started, if I would have had like a much like smaller niche, like say like West Virginia solo travel or something like that, I think I could have grown a lot quicker because it's very, you know, it's very, very niched down. But my travel blog, to be honest, is kind of like all over the place. Like we have content pretty much everywhere. Well, not everywhere, but

there's a lot of different content about a lot of different places. And I am okay to grow slower if it means that I can produce the content that I want and I know my audience will like. Yep. That's fantastic advice. Mic drop. Yeah. I mean, what else can you say? I think you've covered, you know, what a beginning blogger needs to know and the mindset that they need to have. And it's that it's part of the journey.

It's a learning process. And like you said, you're going to mess up because you don't know what people are going to want until you start creating it. And then you maybe start getting those first questions or you maybe start getting that first little bit of feedback and then you try something different and this thing works and this thing doesn't. And it's just, it's part of the process. And I think if we can embrace and enjoy and know that we are gonna learn so many new things and it's going to be worth it, then I think that gets people through that first part.

And I think that is the hardest part about sticking with blogging is getting through those phases. Yeah, yeah. You really have to find the balance between like doing the content that you love and also the content that like resonates with the people that you're trying to speak to. And it may take some time. It may take some like trial and error and things. But whenever you like, eventually it clicks. Eventually, it'll click and you'll be like, okay, like this is more of the stuff that I need to write. And another thing, another rule of thumb for me is I feel like if I am writing a post, and there's a section in

that post that I like, I am saying so much, and I feel like I'm just writing a book about this one one section, I'm like, okay, this needs to be its own post. So I take that and I make it its own post. And then I can go back and link to it. And that's another thing too, when you first start, like you can't link out. Like now I have gotten to the point where I can link to myself a bunch of times and I think that really helps. And I think if there was one thing I would do differently in the beginning, I would focus on more content that I could link within itself versus like, I think my first post was like a three day in Paris, my second one was a three day in London

and my third one was like a three day in Madrid or something like that. And I think if I had to go back and do it again, I should have done like, like maybe like 10 Paris posts and then like 10 London posts to like, maybe grow quicker. But like, it's okay, because I know to do that now and that's what's important. One of the other things that I feel like I have done too that has contributed to me being successful and this is gonna sound crazy I think,

but I am a big like manifestor. So whenever I go places, I like people will ask like, oh, like what do you do? What are you here for? I'm a travel blogger. Even though that's not my full-time job, I treat it like it is, and I fully believe that in my head. I am delusional.

I am very delusional about my life, and I pretend this is my actual job. I am doing this for work. I am 100% here for this. And I really think like that has contributed to a lot too, because when you are crazy enough to believe in your own dreams, I really think like that's when magic happens. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that can make such a big difference. You have to believe in yourself first before anybody else is going to believe what you're doing.

And so when you're going out and about and doing that, that's just contagious. And so I think that that's really good advice to give somebody. Yeah. Thank you. It's been so fun. And I've just learned so much and I'm so grateful for everything I've learned for the people that I've met. We have an exciting collaboration happening in August

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link in our show notes to make sure you are registered for the SEO Mastery Audio Summit. One thing I've always really appreciated about you, Gina, is that you ask a lot of questions. And I think that that's honestly a big contributor to your success. And it's why you have so much that you can offer now is because you did take the time to be a beginner and ask really important questions. And I think that that is one of the best pieces of advice just that we could offer anybody is being willing to ask the questions, being willing to ask them even if you're like, I'm sure this is silly and maybe nobody else has this question. They likely do.

They likely do. And having you, Gina is part of the Ultimate Blog membership as well. And so just being able to continue to like learn, I mean, you're still in there, the group's two and a half years old, and you're still learning. And I think that that's a big piece of it too, is, you know, I've had my blog since 2017, Jennifer's had hers since 2013. And you're still learning, like we're still learning. And even in the membership, like Jennifer and I are the coaches in there, but like we learn, we honestly learn from all of you too. Like it's a really great opportunity for all of us to be connected and learn from each other. But I think that that's something too, like, yeah, you're growing. Yes, you're on the journey with Mediavine. But like, you're still like, when you sit down to write your content, you're still like, Okay, like, what else can I learn? What else can I do? And that creative piece of blogging is something that I don't think gets enough hype, that that's a really fun and exciting

part. Like it is always changing. I think it can be kind of shifted and people are like, well, it's always changing. And that's a negative. But instead, I want you to flip that and tell yourself like, it's always exciting because we're always learning new things, whether that's in a group setting, whether you're listening to podcasts or you're connecting with other bloggers. I think we're always learning from each other. And that's a really important piece to not just your success, but the success of the industry as a whole too.

Yeah, 100%. Okay, Gina, I would love for you to just give like a piece of advice to a new blogger. What would be something that you would tell somebody today who's maybe listening to this and they're thinking about starting a travel blog? What's something that if you could go back two years and tell yourself, what would you tell Gina two years ago? I'm putting you on the spot here. That's okay.

I would just say keep persisting, keep going, keep doing your thing. People are going to, like you're going to inspire a lot of people. I think that's like the other reward for me too is like the amount of people that come up to me and say like, because of you, I took my first solo trip to wherever. And I'm like, really? So you don't know the people that you will impact along the way. And for me, that's one of the best parts. But yeah, just knowing that it's going to be hard, it's going to be tough. There are days when you're going to be so exhausted, but you're also going to be so happy at the end, like whenever you get to the point where you're like, okay,

I can do this quickly. I know what content I can write. I know creative things that I can do in this place and this place. I know the people that I want to reach out to. And just the whole adventure and the story and the everything that comes along with it. You just don't know the doors that are going to open up as a blogger. So like that's been such a fun part. Yeah, amazing. Thanks so much, Gina, for being so honest and real and sharing your journey with it. And I think that when we can share our own stories, there's inspiration to be found in there

for somebody else who might be in a similar spot as you are and asking the same questions that you have asked from the get-go. So I know that there are gonna be people who are, one, going to wanna see all the places that you've been, and two, maybe take a trip and learn from you and your itineraries. So can you please let them know where they can find you?

Yes, you can find me at www.ginaonapplane.com and my Instagram is at Gina on a Plane with two underscores. We will put those in the show notes and thanks so much for being here. It's always fun to get to connect and talk about all the behind the scenes, even more than what we didn't know as we've watched you on this journey. And if we haven't ever said it, I think we have, but we're really proud of you. And we have just really enjoyed watching you grow. I can remember your first post that you talked about earlier. I can remember it. And I can remember telling you post that you talked about earlier. I can remember it.

And I can remember telling you, me and Jennifer saying, that's too long. You got to shorten it up. And you've done it, and you've learned, and look where you are now. So really, really proud of you, Gina. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with us, please find us on Instagram at Spark Media Concepts. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips and inspiration. You can sign up by finding the link in the show notes. For those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your own blog, join the waitlist for the Ultimate Blog Bootcamp. The link to join the waitlist is also in the show notes.

Go out and make today a great day.