Happy November!  In Dallas we are still waiting for autumn weather but the unbearable heat has departed south for the year so it’s quite nice at the moment.  Last night was Halloween so all manner of monster and superhero scoured neighborhoods in search of the mythical House With Full-Size Snickers.  If this was you and your little ones were said monsters and superheroes I hope the haul was bountiful and Snickers aplenty.

As hearts and minds begin looking towards the Holiday Season we typically skip right to Christmas, and indeed most department stores are already hawking their yearly dole of green and red.  But the US Thanksgiving holiday is a good reminder for all of us to slow down and be thankful for what we have and what we’ve accomplished.

What’s the point here?  I’ll put it simply:

October 2016 was the best month in the history of Andy’s Travel Blog!

a man in a blue shirt

October 2016 blew my previous best month (January of this year) out of the water and honestly it wasn’t even close.  That’s why I’m thanking you today.  Thank you for sharing my stories, my pictures, and my life with friends and family.  Thanks for reposting and reflipping my posts.  Thanks for the comments (good and bad), they motivate me to keep doing this.

As I close in on my 500th post and four years of the blog I’m blown away at some of the statistics:

  • This is my 490th post, all but 4 written by me, based on some back-of-napkin math that means I’ve written almost 400,000 words in the past 4 years!
  • I’ve published over 2,600 images on this blog, almost all of them my own creation
  • You have left over 2,400 comments for me!  This means the most to me, I love hearing your feedback and your thoughts about articles I’ve published
  • I’ve had visitors from nearly every country in the world (still waiting on North Korea though…)

Ok really, when I mean that October was the best month ever I mean it blew away my previous record by more than double, in fact you almost tripled my previous best month!

What does all of that mean?  Are you now raking in internet millions?

Haha, of course not, although I’m grateful when you visit our advertising partners on the blog (as well as affiliate links to Amazon on posts like my Camera Gear article, for which I receive a small compensation from Amazon when you purchase something).

Traffic like this encourages me to keep doing what I’m doing.  I love traveling the world and doubt I’ll ever stop, but this blog is not my primary source of income.  I never realized it when I first started the blog but running a successful blog takes a lot of work, particularly if you’re (for the most part) the sole author and content producer.  There have been times where I’ve wondered if it’s really worth it to keep investing the time it takes to write and publish everything that I do.  And even if I’m not your favorite blogger, be sure to leave a kind word for the bloggers you follow, you never know how much it means to them.

So thank you again.  Your comments and encouragement let me know that Andy’s Travel Blog is an internet home for at least a few of you out there and I hope I’ve made you feel welcome as I share my journeys with you.  Oh, and in case you missed it: thank you!

Ok enough of the sappy nonsense, let’s recap the Top Ten posts of October 2016:

  1. Singapore Airlines Suites Class: What It’s Really Like
  2. What I Use to Take Pictures and Why None of it Matters
  3. 5 Pictures: My Best Pictures of Singapore
  4. 5 Pictures: Zion National Park
  5. My $28000 First Class Trip Around the World
  6. Awesome pictures of American’s 787-9 from the tarmac at LAX!
  7. 5 Pictures: My Favorites from New Zealand
  8. Behind the Scenes: How American Airlines Uses Twitter to Enhance the Customer Experience
  9. iPhone 7 vs. $5000 Sony a7rII, can you tell the difference?
  10. Cathay Pacific First Class: What It’s Really Like

 

Which post was your favorite from October?  Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

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