Why I Still Love What I Do (and what's hard to get over) - w/ Peru info
Why I Still Love What I Do (and what's hard to get over) - w/ Peru info
Thank goodness I enjoy writing and doing creative things, because right now it's what's sustaining me while the internet is seemingly broken (which is tough when you're a web-based business)
Welp, it’s Groundhog Day… again. Not actually, but it’s always funny how life feels monotonous to me between travel or work projects. I might be addicted to being on the go or maybe I just need something more to transfer my energy or anxiety into. Who knows, but I can tell you that since being home from our Peru trip, we’ve been staying busy on all fronts. April has brought us to the completion of our home projects, Career Day at school, and finalizing all of our summer plans.
Before I share a little about the reality of life today, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who’s supporting my creative ventures and who’s shown interest in the Amazon rainforest trips I’m working on. Even if the internet brings me down sometimes, it’s also an incredible place to connect with people on many levels. And with that, here’s what happening in 2TravelDads Land… (and reality check below after the fun stuff)
Our House: Consider it Warmed
Before we came to Florida we had people at our house constantly. It was fun to be the hangout place, and we’ve missed that. Well, we’ve completed 99% of the things we’ve wanted to do to get our house ready to be the go-to hangout for friends and family, so we’ve officially had a house warming party. I’m thankful that we’ve got awesome friends here in North Florida that we can share our lives with.
Also, it’s nice to spend time with people without an agenda. So much of my time and interaction with others is in some form of work-capacity. Spending time with people without a to-do list or shop talk is refreshing and rare. Don’t get me wrong, I love talking about work and doing work with like-minded people, but also just being 100% detached from it is marvelous.
I know it can be tough to make new friends as adults, but if you don’t have anyone that you can just chill will, I highly suggest finding your crew. Join a Meetup, say hi to random strangers where you like to hang out, introduce yourself at a school event… There are ways to make friends with solid humans, and sometimes it takes being vulnerable to do it. It’s worth it though!
New Peru Podcasts!
We’ve started recording podcast episodes all about our Peru trip this month. We were traveling for 15 days and covered four regions: Lima, the Andes, the northern reach of the Atacama desert and Peruvian Amazon… and they’re all getting their own podcast episodes. It’s funny to listen to them as we record because Chris and I have such different takes on things and what we think is important to share.
The first one is up for listening wherever you’re subscribed: ITUNES — PANDORA — GOOGLE PODCASTS — IHEARTRADIO — SPOTIFY — VISIT CASTOS
In this first episode, we cover our high-level itinerary, a few of the stories from DRIVING in Lima (omg) and dip our toes into the Amazon. Both on the podcast and blog, there’s a lot more coming up. Visiting Peru was really cool but also quite the learning experience.
If you’re interested in visiting the Amazon with us in November, we have an awesome trip planned! We’ll fly into Lima and do a little exploring, then as a group we head to Iquitos to journey into the Amazon rainforest. We’ll travel by van and then board a boat to head up the Amazon River to the Treehouse Lodge for five incredible days of toucans, sloths, monkeys and more. GET ON THE LIST HERE! Check out the plan and costs here!
Cool Changes on the Blog - I geek out sometimes
I know it might not be thrilling to other people, but I’ve starting doing a few things differently on the blog this week. I’ve added buttons to articles to make booking activities and hotels easier, and they look great! Now when you’re on 2TravelDads.com you may see simple travel booking tools that make it easier to make plans and not get confused with a bunch of different booking sites. Thanks to Kate for explaining the tech and psych sides of simple little web tools.
Another thing I’ve started doing it making it so people can download pre-planned itineraries for different destinations. This week I’ve got one for 5 Days in Glacier National Park. There are more in the works, but the goal is to have a great collection of them to make daily adventures in different destinations much less stressful and super easy to do. Again, thanks to Kate for lighting a fire under me to make this happen!
Upcoming Awesome Travel
I am so excited for our summer travel plans because it’s a whole lot of awesome, amazing wildlife possibilities, and it’s all going to be fun to write about (and there’s the actual vacay fun side of it too). Next month is pretty chill as the school year ends. We have a few visitors, including my mom coming to visit for the first time since we moved to Florida. We’ll be taking it easy and enjoying our neighborhood of St Augustine Beach, and then June arrives…
The kids and I are heading back to Montana! That’s right, Glacier Country is beckoning us so we’ll be visiting Glacier National Park again, but this time in June vs in the fall (which is when we’re usually there). We’ll be staying at the Glacier Park Lodge in East Glacier and then also jaunting up to Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada to stay at the… drumroll please… Prince of Wales Hotel!!! I’ve wanted to stay here since I was a little kid so I’m pretty stoked. It looks like the castle in Arendelle from Frozen.
Ten days after we return from Montana, we are off to Alaska for our next UnCruise Adventure! We’ll be sailing out of Juneau on the Wilderness Legacy and it’ll be magical. We’re looking forward to humpback and gray whales, orcas, grizzlies, eagles and even snorkeling in the Inside Passage. After our sailing we’re heading to the Kenai where I used to live for more fun, including Kenai Fjords National Park, and then it’s up to Denali (where I also lived). This is THE trip I’ve wanted to do with our family for absolutely ever.
Realities of a Web-based Business Today
Even if you don’t work in web-based publishing (like a blog or online magazine) you have, no doubt, seen the hubbub about AI and how it’s scary or hurting things or just a load of crap. Besides AI, one of the other spirals the internet is in at the moment is search algorithm. Neither of these things might seem like they have anything to do with you specifically, but they do since we’re all information consumers in some form.
PS: all of this plays into why I’m extra thankful that people read my weekly newsletter. :)
The Internet Algorithm and YOU
I’ll share a little of what the algorithm updates from Google have to do with all of us, and then I’ll share a little about the AI disaster that’s afoot. Firstly, the Google search algorithm very much impacts anyone who’s using the internet to find information through a search engine. Over the last year, some big updates have happened that shifted search results (what we call SERPs) and have been feeding people 1.) sponsored ads for a search term and 2.) crap forum threads and scraped content. Why is this bad?
The ads people are getting fill, usually, the first four or five slots of search results… And honestly: How often do you keep scrolling through search results until you get what you actually are looking for? The ads look like information with just a small signifier that they are indeed ads, so they are very easy to click, effective and accurate or not.
The next thing that’s showing up in search results is actually hilarious (and damaging): old Reddit, Quora and Yahoo forum threads, and sometimes ancient Tripadvisor reviews. Yeah, if you’re looking for interesting things to do in a destination you’re visiting, I hope you have a time machine, cuz you’re about to get some suggestions that were valid in February of 2013. I hope that works out well for ya.
Those of us who have been building reliable travel websites (and travel isn’t the only thing that’s been hit hard) are now sitting far below the fold while the algorithm favors inaccurate or poorly created webpages. It makes me sad, both as an author and as a user. Google has publicly stated that they’re trying to fix their results… but alas, here we sit hoping that somebody from 2015 logged onto Reddit to share their accurate predictions about the future.
Why AI is Bad for Real People
Even if you don’t realize it, you may be getting a continual feed of AI generated content. This includes everything from promotional emails to fully AI generated articles, from AI sourcing snippets of news events to scraping full sections from somebody else’s hard work. It’s bad. I thought the deep fake and AI image issue was a hot mess, but what’s happening now is even worse.
Want to get a plan for what’s happening in your city next weekend? Awesome! No doubt you can find a Google AI gen list of events coming up… but wait, turns out a few things happened back in 2022 or are actually taking place at a different location. Want to get a recap of what’s happened in the news in the last 48 hours? Great! You can no doubt read quick hits of sensational snippets from myriad sources you may or may not trust.
This week Meta rolled out an AI search in Instagram that scrapes info to provide travel and how-to guides… literally pulling full sections from other peoples’ work. They are credited as “sources” and not even given a link in most cases. It’s wild to think that this is okay. We work hard to write valuable articles and provide our expertise on different topics, and usually free of charge, so to see that work turned into a messed up resource that people don’t realize the depth of, it makes me sad.
Why I Still Love My Job
Even with all these shenanigans that I have no control over, I still really do love my job. I love getting to write about the cool places we go, the things the kids really get into, and the lessons we learn along the way. I may not be the number one article on Google for actual real things to do or how to plan an adventure anymore, but for the people who see how the internet is failing currently, they’re still finding my writing and it’s great.
I’m finding that now, even though I might be #42 in search for a topic that I’m a legit expert resource for, the ones who are finding me have really good questions and are leaving comments on blog posts or emailing me. I love it! Now more than ever before I’m actually getting to engage with people outside of social media and provide help and advice. It’s a weird and welcome change during all this internet spiral.
I know it sounds like there are lots of downers in my world right now, but even with how bummed out it makes me, life is still really great. Our family is healthy and we’re doing better together as a family unit than ever before. Yes, we’re clearly barreling, tires blazing, into teenage issues, but even still, things are great. I’m hoping we can all maintain this outlook and happy reality for as long as possible.
As always, thank you for following along and please feel free to share my newsletter, podcast or website stuff with anyone you think would enjoy it or benefit from it. I love getting to share, and it makes me happy to help.
Have a great week, and I’ll talk to you next weekend!