I published my first blog post on the 30th of May, 2014. It was memory-based and told the story of my trip to Barcelona two years before with my son, then 13.

That post was written before I knew anything about SEO, affiliate marketing, or user intent. Because, at that time, all I wanted was to write, improve my writing skills and become a professional writer. A lot has happened in the last decade of my life, and I learned that if I’m no longer enjoying what I’m doing, I should stop immediately.

Tripper is one of those projects I no longer enjoy working on.

I am forever grateful for the clients and work it brought me, for the interviews on overtourism in Lisbon for international newspapers, magazines, podcasts, and television channels. So, because of all this, I pondered for a few weeks. Killing your darlings is never easy, believe me. But it’s time.

Partly because I found joy in writing horror fiction in Portuguese, and that’s what I’ve been doing the most in the last year. Partly, some of the blog posts I put together will be outranked by other posts that look like mine with added information and slight twists. Not the bloggers’ fault; it’s how it works in the world of professional blogging.

I’m glad it happened because it made me realize why I was no longer enjoying keeping up this travel blog.

I love writing about travel for the discovery of a new destination, for the people I can connect with, and for the culture I can learn about. And Tripper was no longer that.

And as I analyzed whether I should keep Tripper up, one of the thoughts that kept popping up was, “but what will happen to my monthly readers”? I was comfortably numb to this insane idea that I had thousands of loyal monthly readers. No. I had thousands of monthly readers; they weren’t loyal. My blog was simply the first result that showed up on their Google page. To finally acknowledge I wasn’t abandoning anyone gave me instant relief.

Travel blogging has shifted into something I no longer identify with. Honestly, I don’t know if I ever felt part of it. I love writing, I’m a professional writer and published author now, and I’ll continue to do that. In fiction, in travel, who knows what else. And although Tripper will disappear for good in 2024 (and I won’t be updating it until then), I’ll still be around.