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2013 Round Up – The Occasional Traveller

2013 was probably quite a key year in how this little blog has progressed. Quite obviously one of the major shifts was decreasing my focus on TOTshop (which still has awesome stuff in it, just nothing new, sadly) and spending more time on my blogging and writing. I also got the chance to work with a wide range of new partners on a variety of projects, so it has definitely not been a dull year at all.

HONOURED AND STOKED

Singapore Blog Awards 2013 Booklet
Singapore Blog Awards 2013 Booklet

I was really honoured to be nominated for the Omy Singapore Blog Awards for the 2nd year, but this time for the Travel Blog category. I didn’t win, but hey just making it to the top 10 was pretty awesome in itself and did great things for my general exposure :)

Also cool was being picked as one of HotelClub’s top Travel Blogs in Singapore for 2013, as well as was interviewed about Singapore by Ukranian magazine Korrespondent, and getting my blog content syndicated on Newsloop. Another honour was being chosen as one of six Singapore travel blogs to watch by Men’s Folio magazine, getting one of my instagram shots featured in Travel + Leisure’s instagram and Hostelbookers highlighted one of my posts for October.

TRYING NEW THINGS

BlogHouse Ireland Dublin 2013
First time in a travel workshop!

My general motto in life now – I’ll try anything at least once, and I did try a lot of random new things in 2013, like an online course for map-making on skillshare, tried picking up Spanish on Duolingo (yeah that didn’t last), even attended a travel industry bootcamp with WITnext. I went for my first travel blogging conference at TBEX in Dublin and even made new friends over at travel blogging workshop BlogHouse.

WORKING WITH NEW PARTNERS

RWS Ocean Dreams
Making friends and working with all sorts of folks, even the non-human ones!

I did get a whole bunch of amazing products to review as well, from the Leather Shop Key Ring, Bose noise cancelling earphones, Telecom Square’s Wiho portable wi-fi dongle, Blacklane’s Limousine service, printed some instagram memories on Printic, SWEAT Gym’s self-defence classes (and my first advertiser!), Sony’s action video camera for scuba diving, and Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet.

I even attended some pretty cool things, like an overnight stay in the S.E.A aquarium for Ocean Dreams, a Staycation to review the Katong Village Hotel, and my favourite of course was attending my first FAM trip thanks to the Sheraton Bali Kuta – and I’ve been on the organising side of things before, so being on the receiving end was quite a refreshing experience.

Right, so we’ve finally wrapped up the round-ups for 2013 – it’s really a way for me to look back on the year and celebrate the little successes and motivate myself for the upcoming year. Here’s hoping 2014 continues to be just as exciting, or even better!

Did you see the round ups for my favourite bits of writing in 2013 as well as the trips I managed to take? Or see all the annual round up posts.