En regardant en arrière sur 2019: une année de hauts et de bas
et comme ça, 2019 est un enveloppe. Il semble que chaque fois que je m’assois pour écrire ces messages de réflexions, je ne peux pas croire à quelle vitesse l’année s’est déroulée. Alors que j’écris cet article, j’ai mon ami à fourrure (chien de rechange) à mes pieds, mon nick à fourrure à côté de moi (il doit se raser!), Et je regarde la mer et les montagnes au-delà.
L’année dernière a été remplie de voyages aventureux dans les pays nouveaux et répétés, les hauts et les bas sur l’entreprise et le front personnel, l’amour et les rires du côté des relations et beaucoup de plaisir ici en Grenade. Tant de choses se sont produites, que j’ai dû parler avec mon iPhone Photostream pour me souvenir de toutes les choses incroyables que nous avons faites!
Des images de montagnes, de villes coloniales, de sites anciens et d’îles tropicales dominent l’alimentation. Ce fut une très belle année. Tous les 12 mois ont un sentiment, une ambiance ou une sorte de grand événement qui se démarque. Pour 2019, je le surnombe “une année de hauts et de bas”. Et vous verrez pourquoi après la lecture – l’année a été incroyable, puis a semblé chuter à la fin.
Voici un récapitulatif de l’année et ce que nous avons prévu de passer à l’avenir en 2020.
Voyager autour des Galapagos a été un moment fort de notre année!
Je fais ces messages Roundup depuis plusieurs années! Voici ceux des années précédentes si vous êtes intéressé:
2012: Une année très mémorable
2013: une année de premières
2014: a commencé et s’est terminé avec le Mexique
2015: une année de spontanéité
2016: une année de grandes décisions
2017: une année des montagnes russes
2018: une année de réalisations
Célébrer notre anniversaire de 12 ans!
Atteindre des objectifs fixés pour 2019
À la fin de chaque article de Roundup annuel, nous avons fixé des objectifs que nous voulons atteindre dans la nouvelle année à venir. C’est ce que nous voulions réaliser en 2019:
Être beaucoup plus actif (faire de la randonnée beaucoup plus et rejoindre à nouveau le yoga).
Explorer beaucoup plus de Grenade
Continuez à créer et à offrir des informations utiles sur notre site Web
Aide (travail bénévole, dons, causes environnementales)
Je suis heureux d’annoncer que nous avons atteint ces objectifs!
Être beaucoup plus actif
Cette année, nous sommes revenus dans le «hachage» ici à la Grenade, et même si nous n’avons pas rejoint les randonnées chaque week-end, nous en avons fait pas mal. J’ai également rejoint le yoga et suivi des cours deux fois par semaine, plusieurs semaines. Et, nous faisons maintenant beaucoup plus de marche que nous avons l’habitude, ainsi que des entraînements à domicile.
Nick et moi avons tous deux fait quelques détoxifiés cette année, une avec des pilules naturelles, et un simplement avec des smoothies et du jeûne. En fait, nous venons de terminer un régime de désintoxication et de smoothie de deux semaines, ce que nous avons fait auparavant lorsque nous nous sentons un peu lourds.
Nous avons pensé que c’était une bonne idée de s’arrêter et de sécher avant la saison des fêtes! Nick a perdu 10 livres, et j’ai perdu 8. Au cas où vous auriez raté le post de l’année dernière: “Nous avons eu de la grosse – Gestion de Blogger Bod”.
Lorsque nous vivons quelque part, nous avons du mal à être actif. Lorsque nous voyageons, c’est beaucoup plus simple car nous nous promenons toujours dans les nouvelles villes, la randonnée vers de nouveaux sites ou tout simplement errant sans but. Parce que nous ne sommes pas plus jeunes, nous mettons la santé et le bien-être à la pointe de nos objectifs.
La randonnée est notre moyen préféré de rester actif
Explorer beaucoup plus de Grenade
Même si nous avons passé 5 ans à la Grenade (sur et hors), cela m’étonne toujours qu’il y a encore de nouveaux endroits à découvrir. Cette année, nous avons exploré quelques nouvelles randonnées et sentiers de randonnée, des plages offend et de superbes nouveaux restaurants qui ont surgi.
En plus de trouver de nouveaux endroits pour marcher et manger, nous nous sommes retrouvés à assister à divers événements – Red Wine Festival, Carnival, Festival de musique et festival du chocolat. De plus, nous avons exploré la mer par voilier à plusieurs reprises, avons fait une pêche en haute mer, et Nick a jeté un coup d’œil au monde sous-marin sur la plongée.
Nous avons également célébré 3 anniversaires avec des séjours ici sur l’île. One on a cacao farm, in a treehouse cabin, surrounded by nature. Our four-legged friend also joined in on that bday weekend! My 35th birthday was celebrated with live music, beach bar drinks, and lazy pool days at one of the hotels here, plus a private sunset sail. Nick’s 35th was recently spent enjoying a dinner party, followed by a night at a boutique seafront hotel in a cute bungalow.
Finally, family members concerned visit. even though it was just for a few hours while they were off the cruise ship, it was good to show Nick’s grandparents around our home (and get in some hugs!).
We had so numerous great times in Grenada throughout the year — I’d say we did the little island justice!
Sailing into 35!
Continuing to offer helpful content on Our Website
As with every year, we are alwayscreating new articles, videos and messages on our social media channels to hopefully inspire and assist others when it concerns making money on the road, and travelling the world.
In 2019, we published 157 articles on Goats On The Road, filmed and edited 20 YouTube videos and posted on social media 237 times!
This year, we also kicked it up a notch and created a digital course to help bloggers progress from hobby bloggers to a lucrative business. and by we, I imply Nick.
Nick planned, filmed, and created the SEO Made easy online course — spending hours to guarantee it was detailed, professional and many importantly, actionable. Each of the 300 students who have purchased the course are also in Nick’s VIP Facebook group where he shares his wisdom and advanced methods for SEO. It’s been very gratifying for both of us to see the students’ progression!
Because Nick created that course, we were invited to be a part of the Paradise pack in 2019. For the past 3 years, we have promoted the pack (because it’s filled with awesome products), but this year we were invited to have our course in the bundle of online resources.
We were ecstatic!
Chatting with Travis and Jason from the Paradise pack was a lot of fun
We did an hour-long live chat online with the creators of the pack (Travis and Jason), with over 3,000 people viewing at a time! We then did an hour+ podcast with Jason, where we spoke about our lives as digital nomads and travellers. chatting with online colleagues is always a lot of fun, and we love this style of interview.
Spécial!
If you’re interested in learning some of our SEO secrets, but aren’t sure if you want to purchase the SEO Made easy course, we’re providing a totally free 1-hour session, here.
Aidant
Finally, our last goal for 2019 was to help out more. In 2018, we were able to do quite a few things in Grenada, but this year we wanted to do more, both at home and away — there’s always much more that can be done.
As with last year, we sponsored an eight-year-old girl from the orphanage so that she could attend a four-week summer camp here on the island. Her weeks were filled with arts and crafts, history and culture, sports and activities, plus a couple of outings to the beach to learn about marine life and the environment. I hope that this summer camp continues for these children as it’s a great initiative.
We also assisted an artist in his “Beautify Grenada” project where he sources out blank walls around the island and looks to brighten up the community by painting distinct images on them. “Our” wall that was painted is one that we drive by every day. It’s is in front of a preschool and is now home to colourful turtles, balloons, trees, children, and of course, goats! I hope this talented artist continues his pursuit of beautifying the island.
Plastic is a problem worldwide. Our eco-blogging, travelling friends from The Dharma trails put together a “Green Up Grenada” project to bring awareness to the plastic issues and to clean up the beaches (and underwater).
Nick heading out on a dive to cleanup the underwater world
We participated in the clean up of La Sagesse beach (323 pounds of garbage was collected), and the scuba diving clean up at Grand Anse beach where 150 pounds of garbage was pulled from the sea. This was a great campaign and hopefully it raised much more awareness about the unnecessary use of plastic here on the island.
Utilizing Our home as a “Base”
A month after ringing in the new Year in Grenada, it was time for us to pack away the household items we had accumulated over the past year, load up our backpacks and hit the road. Every February, the owners of the house we rent return to spend 5 or so weeks here. This implies we have to vacate — which is ok as we go travelling again!
We had been pretty much stagnant for many of 2018, and not really utilizing our home as a base, which was the whole point of settling here — we planned to stay, and then travel, and repeat. Instead, we felt a pull (is it actually called a “pull” if we don’t go anywhere?!) to stay put.
This year, we were ready to correctly make use of our base. Live, travel, repeat. It was time to get back out into the world. And, we actually ended up doing quite a bit of travelling this year — 5 months to be exact.
Eating bbq chicken in the sea with spare Dog, after hiking – a great day!
Travelling for practically half of the year and staying still for the rest seems to be the ideal balance for us. It allows us to have exciting adventures, sample new foods, and learn about new cultures, but also gives us enough downtime to rest, work and catch up with friends.
I don’t want to jinx it, but after travelling for 10 years, and blogging for 7 of those years, could it be possible that we’ve finally found a work-life balance that suits our lifestyle?!
Having explored Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Colombia in 2017, we knew we loved the continent of South America. So, when considering where to go in February, we took a look at the map and chose on Ecuador and Peru for our next adventure…and what an adventure it was! In fact, Ecuador has shot up to the top of our list of preferred destinations.
We were offline for this entire trip and had an amazing time backpacking around these two countries, it felt great to be on the road again! You can read about our thoughts and highlights of this trip in our roundup short article here.
The hiking around Otavalo was amazing!
Read Our Ecuador Articles Here:
12 things To do in Quito, Ecuador
Mindo: the complete travel Guide
Otavalo: The supreme guide for Travellers
Hiking the Quilotoa Loop: A How-to Guide
Galapagos Islands Travel: A guide To travelling Independently
Press trip Partnerships
Going on press trips/FAM trips isn’t our main blogging income model, but when we’re invited somewhere that resonates with our travel style and interests, we happily accept the offer.
This year, we were invited on 6 press trips and had a great time exploring new destinations — all of which were an outstanding fit. Sure, we had been to these countries in the past, but the provinces, cities, and islands that we went to were new to us.
Nouvelle-Écosse
Even though we’re Canadian, we’ve seen very little of our home country. So when the Nova Scotia tourism board invited us to experience what the little province has to offer, we jumped at the opportunity to see the east!
Jagged coastline, hiking routes, fishing villages, fresh seafood and welcoming locals — this is Nova Scotia. We picked up our rental car and had an amazing time road tripping around the province for 3 weeks, while experiencing all the fun things to do in Halifax, and beyond.
As an added bonus, we were able to spend a few days going to with family here as well! My father and his wife were travelling around Canada and stopped in Halifax at the same time we were there. It was great to catch up and get in some much more hugs.
With so numerous places to visit and adventures to have, we would certainly return and explore much more of the culture, cuisine and nature in this province.
Read much more about our experience in Nova Scotia on the blog, here.
Beautiful nature in Nova Scotia on Cape Breton Island
Indonésie
This island nation is one of the countries we went to on our first backpacking trip in 2009. We then returned to live in Canggu, Bali for a couple of months, and Nick went on a scuba diving trip with the Indonesia tourism Board.
This time around, we were invited by Lotus Hotels, to experience their dive resorts and share our findings with you.
We travelled to 4 different destinations over the course of 15 days — Gangga Island in North Sulawesi, Birie Island in Raja Ampat, Candidasa on Bali Island and the island of Gili Trawangan. even though we were on a trip that was planned for us, going to these destinations (some of which are quite offtrack) was an amazing experience.
Sunsets on Gangga Island were amazing
The majority of the trip was centred arou