Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
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 7, 2021

What goes on behind the scenes? And a beautiful day in the city of Korca, Albania!

We spent the morning getting caught up on some internet work. Yes, I'm sure it looks like all we do is have fun and explore every day. And we do try to do that. But there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes that is more like work than play! It's the fact that we can do it from anywhere in the world with a good internet connection that makes our lifestyle so enjoyable to us.

We have heard some comment that we are "lucky" to be doing what we're doing, but everything we're doing has been planned, and is the result of a conscious decision on our part.

So, what kind of internet work did we do yesterday?

The day starts off writing this blog. How long it takes depends on what we did the previous day and how many photos we took. The photos need to be sorted through and sometimes adjusted. Never "photoshopped", but just straightening and/or cropping and maybe refining the colors a bit. Then writing and uploading photos and the occasional video. I would say all of this takes between an hour and a half and three hours. We make about $20 CAD ($16.50 USD) per day from the advertising on the blog, so it's not like it's a high paying job! But we still enjoy doing it, so we continue despite the amount of work involved.

After the blog post is published, I go to our MeWe page and post the blog link to our followers there. We now have 328 members on MeWe! I know, it's nothing compared to the 5,300 that we had on facebook, but I'm so glad we switched. MeWe is a much cleaner format than FB, and there is no advertising at all.

I seem to have a constant list of things I have to do online. One of the couples from last year's RV Caravan to Mexico had remained in Mexico when Covid hit last March, and they have finally decided to make their way back to the U.S., so I was quite happy to help them with a detailed route guide. That took a couple of hours for me to put together.

What kind of other things are on my list? Well, I have to write a sponsored post for an RV Cover company. Normally, the content is supplied, but this one they asked me to write for extra payment. Normally, we charge $125 USD to publish a sponsored post, and an extra $50 if we have to write it. If the sponsored post is related to casino/gambling/dating/cannabis then we charge $300 USD.

I also have to make some changes with the blog regarding how people are notified of posts. Google's Feedburner is going to stop in June, and so many readers will stop getting notifications. I have to sort that out. I have to make some changes to our account information for how we get paid through Amazon. Again, some of the payment banking info has changed, and I have to contact Amazon to make the changes there. Also, we were approved to be a Heymondo affiliate so that we can get a 5% discount on our travel medical insurance and we can also offer the same 5% to our readers. I have to get that set up. 

Then, I receive about 50 emails per day from various Amazon suppliers who send me coupon codes for our Facebook Amazon Deals group. We operate a similar group on Mewe. I sort through those deals to find the best ones and post them to the group. This takes anywhere between 1-3 hours per day.

Then, we also do research about our travels. Where we are going next, what we are doing in the area, searching for new accommodation. Ruth also looks after labelling and filing all of our pictures, communicating with our readers, and keeping us well fed!

And then when all of this is done, we actually go out and do the things we really enjoy! 

After lunch, we went and wandered around downtown Korca. It's an easily walkable city of about 75,000 people. We are staying right in the downtown area. The catedral is only two blocks away...

Korca Cathedral.

Interior.

The cathedral was completed in 1995.


The previous cathedral had been destroyed by the Communist government in 1968.

We walked down a pedestrian street and came to this 10 story tower.

Across for the tower was the tourist office. We went in and spoke to the girl who gave us some hiking tips in the area, and also told us we could go up the tower for a view for 50 lek ($0.60 CAD, $0.50 USD) per person. Sounds like a good deal to us!

They have an elevator, but we decided we needed the exercise so asked to take the stairs. Ten flights of stairs and we were hardly out of breath! Felt pretty good about that.

Views of Korca.


What a beautiful day!




We went down the stairs and found the door locked! But, I did say we needed some exercise. Back up the ten stories of stairs again, and we took the elevator down.

This old plaza would be busy in the evenings. 
We will return at that time one of these days.

Interesting.

City park.

You'll notice there aren't many people around. We were out in the afternoon when things tend to be a lot quieter in Albania. As I've said before, we find the locals tend to be more out and about mornings and evenings.

Not sure what's on the go for us today, but first I've got some more work to do!

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15 comments:

  1. I want to point out the easiest way for me to find your blog. I leave a tab open in my browser with your blog. Each morning I go to the tab and look for the blog archive and click on the most recent one. Also handy to look at the archive to see if I missed a recent day.

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    1. Yep, that's a logical way to do it, thanks Duncan.

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  2. What denomination is the cathedral?

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  3. those white metal things in that park look familiar. Do you remember the artist who used to wrap buildings, line promenades with white flags and what not awhile back? A family friend was an assistant to him for awhile. Something keeps poking my brain that those things are connected to him somehow. Subject to proof mind you - must try to research that more.

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    1. Hit enter too soon, his name just came to me. Christo

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    2. No I don't remember any artist doing that but I don't think this was the artist that did this. I found this article online and translated it. It doesn't look like it is meant to be an art form as such but instead supports for what looks like a "living" canopy over the walkway. It shows what the project should look like when it is all finished. https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sq&u=http://ata.gov.al/2020/09/16/investimi-urban-ne-korce-parku-vangjush-mio-nje-tjeter-projekt-model-ne-qender-te-qytetit/&prev=search&pto=aue

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  4. I use the app "Feedly", every morning all the blogs I follow are there with new stories ready to read…
    Nice to share your typical workday with us… It's obviously not all fun and games!
    Safe travels and stay healthy!

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    1. Feedly is great for individuals who want to add their own feed sources. But as a feed source, I need to use something where I can transfer the already existing several hundred users that are signed up through feedburner.

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  5. That's alot of computer "stuff"
    Just want to thank u for yr BLOG, it's a great thing to wake to every morning!!!

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    1. It is a lot of computer stuff! We can't figure out how some of these other popular bloggers do what they do considering the amount of time they spend on all the different social media platforms because some of them are on a lot of different platforms or the ones that do YouTube videos. Those videos take a lot of time to put together to be done properly as a "show", something that we aren't wanting to do.

      We are glad that you enjoy our blog and that you appreciated all the work that we put into it. :-)

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  6. As long as you get to travel and enjoy your work it all works out! Be safe and enjoy!

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    1. You are totally correct Brigitte! Luckily we don't have too many days where the "work" piles up on us like it has over the past couple of days. Usually we manage to do that work on rainy days but thankfully we haven't had many of those days. :-)

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  7. What an interesting place to visit. As for you being lucky, I think you can make your own luck and shape your life to a very large extent. Too many people think they need far more than what they really do and are reluctant to let go and live a cheaper and simpler life. Like you we know better !

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    1. We quite like Korçë, we have both said that we could easily live here but not in the winter, lol!

      Totally agree with you, you have to make the decision to change your life if you aren't happy with the way it is going or if you want something different, it will not be handed to you on a silver platter. And yes, people are reluctant or scared to change things in their life. We have always have said if things don't go as plan then we just find somewhere to live and find a job and start working at a "normal" life again. We have you and Steve to thank for getting us to make the change in our life almost 14 years ago and we have absolutely no regrets in making this decision.

      Living as a nomad is great but not for everyone. In general is it a much simpler life and cheaper if that's the way you want to make it, you definitely don't need to have the big bucks, you two and ourselves are proof of that.

      Hope that we will get to see you both sometime this year. :-)

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