When I first hit publish back in 2016, I don't think I could ever have imagined where it would take me, the experiences it would give me, the people I would meet along the way, or that ten years later I'd still be here writing and sharing my adventures.
What started as a dream of somehow turning my love of travel and writing into a career eventually became my full-time job and took me around the world as a professional travel writer.
And what a ride it has been!
In 2015, I spent a year as an exchange student in Konstanz, Germany, right on the border of Switzerland, and honestly, it was the best year of my life. I studied at a German university and took every opportunity I could to travel, exploring Germany and hopping across borders to discover as much of Europe as possible.
During that year, I started a little blog just for fun called Kiwi in Konstanz. I'd write about life studying in Germany, the places I visited and all the adventures I was having along the way.
I'd share links to my posts on Twitter and, much to my surprise, people from all over the world started reading them. I'd get messages from people saying they'd enjoyed a post or were following along with my adventures, which I thought was pretty cool considering I was really just writing it for fun.
Then I discovered that there were people out there doing this as an actual job.
Real travel bloggers were travelling the world, writing about their experiences and somehow getting paid to do it.
That sounded like the ultimate dream.
When my year in Germany came to an end, at the start of 2016 I was living in Australia, where my fiance was posted for work. I wasn't able to continue studying at the time, and I wasn't really sure what I was going to do next.
He encouraged me not to just go out and find some boring job for the sake of having one, but to actually give this travel-blogging dream a go.
So I did.
I started building a proper travel blog, using all the adventures I'd already had as my starting point. I wrote destination guides for places like London, Berlin, Barcelona and Bangkok, along with solo travel advice, budget travel tips and everything I'd learned from travelling around the world myself.
There were no sponsored trips or free hotel stays at this point. I was simply writing about places I'd already been and experiences I'd paid for myself, trying to create something useful that people might actually want to read.
Then I started writing hotel and tour reviews too, including my favourite hotel in Bali, our destination wedding in Rarotonga and a Halong Bay cruise in Vietnam. Again, I received absolutely nothing in return. The idea was to build a portfolio of examples I could eventually use to approach hotels and tourism companies and say: this is what I can do for you.
And it worked.
The following year, I took off to Asia on a mostly solo backpacking trip for almost six months. I started successfully pitching hotels and tour companies along the way. Some hosted me completely, while others initially offered around a 50% discount in exchange for an article and photography.
Every collaboration gave me fresh content for my portfolio, which helped me land the next opportunity, and then the next.
Eventually, what had started as a little travel blog became my full-time job. I reached the point where I could essentially travel for free while earning enough through writing and content creation to fund life on the road. As my blog continued to grow, so did the opportunities. I began receiving fully sponsored trips that included accommodation, experiences, meals, rental cars and, in some cases, even flights.
I was quite literally living the dream!
And some of the experiences I got to call "work" still seem slightly unbelievable.
I've stayed in dreamy overwater bungalows, gone scuba diving in Greece, reviewed pizza tours in Chicago, joined whisky tasting tours through Scotland, experienced luxury private tours in Los Angeles, wandered through ancient temples by day and sat up writing articles about them by night.
I've created social media content for beautiful resorts in Fiji and somehow got to call it my job, worked with tourism boards, luxury hotels and group tour companies, and travelled to destinations I never imagined this little corner of the internet would take me.
Closer to home, I've been lucky enough to travel New Zealand from top to bottom numerous times and experience some of the very best our country has to offer. Back in the day, I was an ambassador for JUCY World and Stray New Zealand, and my adventures included heli-hiking on Franz Josef Glacier, kiwi spotting on Stewart Island, cruising Milford Sound no fewer than five times, hiking the Tongariro Crossing, rafting over New Zealand's highest commercially rafted waterfall and bungy jumping in Queenstown.
I've eaten my way through cities around the world, stayed in places I'd once only seen in books, experienced different cultures and collected more travel memories than I could possibly fit into one blog post.
Travel writing gave me some of the most incredible years and experiences of my life.
Travel had actually been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I would pore over encyclopedias, fascinated by different countries, cultures and places around the world. But international travel wasn't something my family could afford, so it simply wasn't part of my life growing up.
In fact, I didn't leave New Zealand for the first time until I was 22.
Because I hadn't grown up travelling, I didn't really know what was possible. Solo travel, backpacking, staying in hostels, travelling cheaply or spending months exploring another part of the world - none of it was really on my radar. I knew I desperately wanted to see the world; I just didn't know how people like me actually did it.
Once I figured that out, everything changed.
And that's something I've always wanted to pass on through this blog. If I could go from a girl who had never left New Zealand at 22 to travelling the world, living overseas and eventually getting paid to write about it, then maybe someone reading my blog might realise they could do it too.
I especially wanted to encourage people who dreamed about travelling but didn't have someone to go with. I was about as introverted as you could get, and the thought of travelling alone was well outside my comfort zone. But pushing myself to do it genuinely changed my life.
Solo travel forced me to talk to strangers, figure things out for myself, navigate unfamiliar places and put myself into situations I never would have chosen at home. Somewhere along the way, I became far more confident, independent and open to the world around me.
And sometimes, travel had a funny way of challenging my own assumptions too.
During my university year in Germany, I'd had a pretty bad experience staying in a mixed dorm at a hostel in Munich. I came away from it thinking, nope - hostels are definitely not for me.
Then, in 2017, Hostelworld approached me.
They wanted me to write articles for their blog and offered me the opportunity to travel and stay at their properties. There was only one problem: I told them I didn't actually like staying in hostels!
Their response completely changed my perspective. They explained that many hostels had private ensuite rooms that were considerably cheaper than traditional hotels, while still giving you the option of enjoying the social side of hostel life.
So I decided to give hostels another chance.
And I'm so glad I did.
Some of my favourite travel memories ended up coming from those stays. I travelled through places like Laos and Myanmar, staying in hostels, meeting people from all over the world and having experiences I probably never would have had if I'd stayed safely inside my comfort zone.
That's one of the things travel has given me that I could never have predicted when I started: not just incredible places and experiences, but confidence, independence, friendships and a much bigger view of the world.
And that's what I've always hoped to pass on through this blog.
Not that you need to quit your job and travel the world. Not that you need to be fearless, wealthy, outgoing or some kind of seasoned traveller.
Just that the world is out there, and you might be far more capable of exploring it than you think.
Like so many people working in travel, everything changed with Covid.
International borders closed. Travel stopped. The industry I'd built my career around effectively disappeared overnight.
Eventually, life moved on too.
I'm no longer a full-time travel writer. In fact, I had a trip to Japan booked for May 2020 which, for obvious reasons, never happened. Instead, I used the money I'd saved for the trip to buy my first proper camera - a decision that unexpectedly led me down a completely new path and, eventually, to my career as a videographer.
Funny how things work out.
These days, I'm also a mum of two, and my life looks very different from the days when I could jump on a plane with little more than a backpack and an open itinerary.
But I never stopped loving travel.
And I never stopped loving this blog.
If anything, becoming a mum has simply added another chapter.
Over the past decade this blog has covered solo travel, budget travel, group tours, trips with friends, destination guides, where to stay, where to find the best food and all the little tips I've picked up along the way.
Now I get to add family travel to that list.
Travelling with two little ones is certainly different. There are more bags, considerably more snacks, strategic nap planning and the occasional plane meltdown to navigate.
But there is also something incredibly special about showing your children the world.
I'm now rediscovering destinations through their eyes, figuring out what actually works when travelling with young kids, finding family-friendly places to stay and sharing the practical tips that make travelling as a family that little bit easier.
The places I've been.
The food I've eaten.
The ridiculous travel mishaps.
The bucket-list moments.
The people I've travelled with.
And now, the memories we're creating as a family.
For now, I'm just incredibly grateful for everything this little blog has given me.
One thing I'd really love to do is use travel as an opportunity to give something back. I'd love to volunteer my time or skills to something genuinely meaningful and find a responsible way to contribute to a local community. Travel has given me so much over the years, and I'd love for the next chapter to include experiences that aren't just about what I can see and do, but what I can give back too.
I'm also getting very close to visiting 40 countries! Adding new ones to the list has understandably slowed down since having kids. Travelling long-haul with little ones isn't always easy, and for the past few years we've focused on family-friendly destinations that are relatively easy to reach from New Zealand, including Bali, Australia, Samoa and Fiji, and soon the Cook Islands (our next adventure!).
But as they get older, I'm really excited to start venturing further afield again. We can't wait to introduce them to some of our favourite places in Asia, particularly Thailand and Vietnam, and hopefully experience plenty of new destinations together too.
There are so many places still on my list, but Japan, South Korea and Sri Lanka are sitting right at the top.
Eventually, I'd love for us to visit at least one new country together every year.
But perhaps my biggest travel goal has nothing to do with how many countries we visit.
I want to raise two great little travellers.
I want our kids to understand how incredibly fortunate they are to see the world and never take that privilege for granted. I want them to be curious about other cultures, be excited to try unfamiliar foods, learn words in different languages and understand that people around the world live in all sorts of different ways.
If travel can help them grow into open-minded, curious and grateful little humans, then I think that will be the greatest travel achievement I could ask for.
And hopefully, somewhere along the way, we'll make a ridiculous number of incredible family memories together.
To every person who has read an article, followed an adventure, sent me a message, shared one of my posts, trusted one of my recommendations or worked with me over the past ten years - thank you. You've all played a little part in making this blog what it is today.
Ten years ago, I had absolutely no idea where hitting “publish” would take me.I'm so glad I took a chance and chased that dream.
Here's to the next ten years - and wherever they might take us.
If you've made it this far through this mammoth post, thank you! To finish things off, here's a little trip down memory lane with some photos from the past ten years.
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