Today is a big day in my little blogging bubble – because today marks the official first birthday of BackpackerBanter.com!

How’ve I got here?!

Having started blogging waaaaaay back in 2009 before my trip to Oz my original site was aimed at keeping my parents and friends up to date with what I was up too. As it grew and I travelled more it was picked up by STA TravelBuzz and I transferred it over to a more serious wordpress format under DevonBoyDownUnder.co.uk

On my return home I was keen to keep the blog going as a way of passing on what I learnt on the road, what I was learning from my new job at STA Travel and to give me a focus and drive for planning my next trip. I decided it was time to give it a full overhaul and URL though as I’d no longer be “down under” so to speak and I wanted to see if it could support my travels.

After a couple months of research, coding, stress and design work I finally had a new site ready to go.

Cue the launch of BackpackerBanter.com in March 2011!

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And so it continues…

It's a Hard Life Travel Blogging...

Since then I’ve watched the site grow, the Facebook “likes” creep up and the twitter follows pass the 1000 mark. I’ve got involved in the blogging community (although admittedly not crazy amounts because I like to limit my time in London and spend far too much time at the beach surfing!) and started to reap the benefits of all my hard work. And yes it is hard work – ask any blogger how much time they spend doing blog related things and they’ll be dubious to admit how much time it consumes!

It’s allowed me to experience heaps of things I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise (aka discounts and freebies!) and given my travel a different angle – one that occasionally pulls me away from the surf and forces me to be a bit more cultural! It’s seen me explore Australia, Thailand, Morocco and most recently Ecuador – and I’m determined to keep the list growing.

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Thanks!

I’d also like to take the time to give a shout out to all the great companies and businesses that I’ve worked alongside in the last 12 months – I hope that I will work with a lot of them again and I’ve got some great new partnerships in the pipeline for the future…exciting times! Go check them out and show them some love!

I’d also like to give a massive shout out to our graphic designer JNS Design – I’m pretty sure I turned into his client from hell and he’s done an epic job of crafting my logo and being pestered for tweaks every other day!

But most of all I’d like to thank you guys for reading, bookmarking me and spreading the love on the internet – without you lot reading I’d be talking to myself (which to be honest I’m happy to do sometimes!) and the site wouldn’t be going anywhere! The next 12months (at least) hold heaps of epic adventures and a good array of countries (which I shall divulge in due course!) so I hope you’ll continue to read and in return I’ll do my best to explore, cause some chaos and keep you entertained by writing about it!

Muchos gracias guys and girls – I’m excited to see what lies in store for the site!

*cheers*