Ruth and the sunset at the island of Dhiffushi, Maldives.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Kuwait City, Kuwait on March 31st.

Friday, May 11, 2018

Who reads our blog?

Well obviously YOU do!

I find it interesting to follow who is reading what, and where our readers come from. And, to see the continued growth of readership of this blog. Blogger (Google) is the hosting platform I chose ten years ago. I kind of wish I would have chose Wordpress because I've read that there are more options, but I'm not going through the hassle of changing it all now, especially since this is working fine for our needs.

While we were in Mexico, this blog achieved two milestones! Apparently there were a lot of people interested in our Mexico RV Caravan adventures.

In February, our pageviews topped the 5 million mark! When we started back in the fall of 2007, we were using a website called My Trip Journal. But we had to pay for that, and in the fall of 2009 we migrated to the current free format at Blogger. Ruth spent many hours copying two years worth of activities and reposting them here so that they would all be in one place since we started out.

Back then, it took several years to reach the one million pageviews mark. Now, it takes just under a year to gain one million more.

You can see that last summer, we really lost readership. People just didn't seem interested in yet another summer at Cabri Regional Park. But this past winter, things picked up again, and we had a record high 105,000 page views in March of 2018!

Our most popular blog post of all time? In August of 2016, I started a series on RV electrical systems and batteries, geared towards the basics for beginners and others who didn't understand how their RV electrical system works. 

That post, titled We didn't understand 12 volt batteries has been read 12,444 times!

The second most read post was actually an advertising post... but it ranks high in google's search engine so when people google "Best black tank treatment", or anything similar to that, they will come across this post... The Best RV Holding Tank Treatment. That post has been read 11,300 times!

And then there was our Africa trip in the winter of 2013-2014. That trip also got a lot of readers, and the post about the hippos was really well received. It was also one of our favorite days of the whole trip, so I guess that came across in the blog post. You can read about that day here... Namushasha River Lodge Boat Trip...Wow!

Where do our readers come from? Well, most of them are Canada and the United States, but the U.S. is quite a lot higher than Canada. I guess most of that is because there are 10 times as many people in the U.S. as there are in Canada, so when we take that into consideration, our Canadian readership actually does quite well...



We're curious to see how many people continue to follow along this summer with our trip up north. I guess it will depend on how much wildlife we see! People sure seem to like posts about animals!

And if you want to know what goes on behind the scenes, here's what the statistics screen looks like...



And here's what I'm looking at right now as I write the blog...


Well, that was a different blog post! I hope it gave you a little more insight as to what goes on behind the scenes here at Travel with Kevin and Ruth.

Work is calling us... only four days to go!

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The  Intex Challenger 1 person inflatable kayak is at the low end of the pricing scale again. We have the two person version, and it's lots of fun for the money!


And in Canada...




37 comments:

  1. Love your blog! Love the pic on your header today and always.

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    1. Thank you so much Shirley for following along on our adventures.

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  2. Interesting... Happy to be part of those stats!

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    1. Kevin has always been a numbers kind of guy so he loves looking at the statics!

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  3. Awesome...trips up memory lane. I love travel blogs with lots of pictures to go along with the story. We readers see it through your eyes. I tend to follow those that move and travel a lot and less of the stationary type travel. It is interesting to see cities, parks, events, foods, etc in different areas if stationary travel.

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    1. Thank you so much Rita for following along. And, as always we will try to keep it interesting for you and all our other readers. :-)

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  4. 👍👍👍Good Blog 👌👌👌

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  5. Really interesting statistics! I sure will be interested in your summer posts since we love the Yukon and Northwest Territories as well as BC!

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    1. I hope that we can do the north justice! We are sure that it is going to be one heck of an adventure. :-)

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  6. Enjoy activity of your posts; even day to day activities, cooking, hiking, creativeness, pictures etc! Find it very interesting, informative, helpful, useful yet entertaining! Topics you choose like batteries, road routes, gps address, ways doing things in rv = really big help. Like places you choose to visit. Would like to see more hwy#/road# traveled; not always able to see. Monthly spending, money is personal but enjoy your honesty; shows rv travel really CAN be done! Teaches how to budget! Love your thrifty ways! Like the daily Amazon specials. Enjoy how you find the best/neat things to do, even in unlikeliest places! Blog encourages peeps to travel; to go see what's out there! Peeps unable to travel, able enjoy armchair experience! Please keep it going. Realize its work/chore everyday & bit of cost; shows your dedication! Nice seeing your families esp grandchildren! Tried reading few other blogs...just not as interesting nor COMPLETE as yours; covers ALL from A-Z. NEVER boring! THANK YOU both Kevin & Ruth. Wishing you yrs safe, happy/fun rv travel!

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    1. Wow, thank you so much for that generous comment Pat and Geraldine! I think you covered just about everything that we try to do to make our blog interesting and informative.

      We are certainly looking forward to this summer, where we can add even more helpful travel information for the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Alaska. I am sure that we will have some good adventures to tell everyone about along with pictures of some amazing scenery and wildlife.

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  7. I love the trips to Mexico. You travel with experience and confidence. I hear so much negative and scary stuff. Then I've heard of lots of great stuff from folks who regularly go to Rocky Point/Puerto Penasco. We really want to try Rocky Point as we spend a couple of months each winter in Arizona, but get a little nervous (and I'm a very adventurous, cautious person) when thinking that this is all I've got (truck and 5er) and don't want to get hijacked or whatever! Maybe next Feb we'll give it a go if we can find someone else to drive down with the first time. Love your blog!

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    1. Thank you Debbie! It probably helped that we traveled with other experienced RVers the first two years. Experienced with international travel though. They had never traveled in Mexico before and we started off with the Baja which we look at now as "Mexico Lite", lol. After our first year there we then traveled our second year was all around the country, much like what we did this past winter. After that we definitely had the confidence. You would have no problem heading to Rocky Point but for your first time it is nice if you are able to find someone to travel with but honestly you wouldn't have a problem on your own. I hope that you make it there this coming winter. :-)

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  8. We love your blog and cherish your friendship!!!!!

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    1. Thank you Connie and Barry. We are so happy to have met the two of you and hopefully we will get that chance again. :-)

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  9. Fun stats. I have to say, I do tend to miss "Live Writer", as I could bang out a few ideas on my (then) laptop and wait until I had internet to post. Can't quite do that with Blogger. Oh well.
    I also think that perhaps folks simply get a bit busy in the summer and don't follow along? Maybe.
    I'm trying not to completely lose my "blogging mojo", but it's a challenge. Stuff to do, etc. I'll stick to reading yours though.
    Keep on truckin'.

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    1. We never used Live Writer so we never missed it. Kevin just got used to doing it with just blogger, maybe that was a good thing! ;-)

      It is definitely harder to blog when you aren't traveling but you always do a good job and make yours very entertaining. :-)

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  10. Well thanks to Ruth for putting up the old posts. It was interesting seeing your experiences when you were just starting.

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    1. I didn't have a whole lot to do that winter so it kept me busy, as we stayed up north that one and only winter.

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  11. It is very intersting to see where people come from who look at the blog. I have not looked at it in quite awhile, but it seems there is a lot of the same places in Europe and Russia as list shows. Mabe the RV makers should look into that:))

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    1. Yep, it is definitely interesting to see where some of these readers come from! Who would think that someone in Russia would be interested in what we are doing?!

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  12. I have followed your blog for years, because you hit on a lot of topics that are near and dear to my heart; RV full timing, extended travel throughout Mexico, frugal living, and international travel. So although I might not be interested in a particular post, I keep coming back because something for which I share a mutual love will eventually roll around again. Like today, as a Wordpress blogger, I enjoyed having a look at the Blogger Stats screens.

    As someone who has been blogging since 2012, I know how much work goes into blogging, and I marvel at the frequency you are able to post, particularly when moving at a pace you moved this winter! Thanks for always sharing.

    Suzanne

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    1. Sounds like we definitely need to met somewhere down the road with us having so much in common! :-) Thank you so much for following along.

      Yes, it does take time but Kevin enjoys it, well at least most of the time he does. It has just become a habit now so he doesn't really think about it being a chore, especially when he has things to write about.

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  13. It is amazing where the readers come from we too get a lot , (not like you) but from all over the world. We just do it for a journal of our travels. and works well for us. We tried WordPress but did not much like it, For us blogger works just fine.
    As you know we have been around your blog forever, lol... And enjoy it . someday we will meet up.

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    1. We will be around Kitchener/Guelph area at the end of September. Hopefully then!

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    2. Hey that would be great maybe maybe we can finally hook up!

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  14. I’m not a blogger nor a reader of blogs until you guys came into the picture as a result of that trip to Mexico that we unfortunately had to cancel. Since then, Paul and I have been living vicariously through your blogs and cannot thank you enough for your dedication to posting and sharing your ideas and adventures honestly and candidly. I often read your blog in batches due to my schedule and comment once in a while. But I don’t ever want to miss one blog. Hahah. We are hooked followers of your blog and look forward to reading more of your adventures. That said, I have to leave out of country to see my sick mom for two months so will have to catch up when I return if I’m unable to follow you from where I am in the Philippines. Glad you now have the technology to keep blogging and connected to the internet while you’ll be up north. Hope there won’t be too many unforeseen glitches along the way and you two stay safe and sound. Safe travels and God speed.

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    1. We are sorry that we couldn't have had the pleasure of meeting you on that Mexican Caravan tour but hopefully you will get another chance some other time. Thank you for continuing to follow us even though the caravan is over. We hope that we can keep things interesting for you and we are pretty sure that won't be an issue with our trip up north this summer.

      We hope that you enjoy your time with your mother and also hope that her health will improve. I am sure she will be happy to see you.

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    2. Thank you for your comments Ruth. Even though we haven’t met, I feel that we already have!

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    3. You're welcome Lynnette. Hopefully one day we will meet somewhere down the road. :-)

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  15. I read about every other day or two depending on my evening schedule.

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    1. Thank you for following along with us on our adventures!

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  16. I found your blog through researching our trip to Huatulco back in 2012, somehow a link to one of your posts came up and I've been reading ever since!

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    1. Too funny! I hope we were able to give you some helpful information on Huatulco. :-)

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  17. I have been reading your blog since you first posted on Frugal Fulltime RVers about you Mexico caravan starting last January. I really enjoyed following along as you traveled throughout the country. I'm still reading each post and I'm looking forward to reading about your Yukon adventures.

    I will have to find your blog posts about the 12v system. I recently got my first RV (an older Chalet a-frame) and I think the charge controller isn't working.

    Happy trails - Kathy

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    1. Thank you for following along while we were on our Mexico trip and for still keeping up with us. We can't wait to see what our Yukon adventures will bring and then be able to write all about them so that our readers can feel like they are part of the adventure themselves.

      Here is the first post of a 4 post series on batteries and solar. They may be a few days apart so once you clink on this link just look at the right hand side bar to see the others. www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2016/08/we-didnt-understand-12-volt-batteries.html

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