This is our annual post, where we focus on where we are heading for the coming year in business, life, and travel.
If you’d love to have an input into the development of content on our site, social channels and products, please complete this survey here. (It’s anonymous) and really helpful to us to know where to focus and what to create to help you.
Travel plans for 2016
January – Singapore
Image: Shutterstock
It’s time to visit a new country: Singapore. It’s one South East Asian destination we have not yet been too. We’ll be traveling to Singapore as a family mid-January for four days! We’re super excited to be taking the kids to Asia, feeling that tropical heat, and diving into delicious Asian food! Give me more.
We’re using the following posts on our site to help us plan and we’d welcome any tips in the comments below.
- What to do in Singapore with kids
UPDATE: You can read the post about our time in Singapore here (there’s also a video)
February – Istanbul
Image: Shutterstock
Craig and I spent our first wedding anniversary in Istanbul in 2003 and fell in love with the city and the people. I wasn’t expecting Istanbul to be so amazing. When I was invited to speak about travel blogging at the upcoming World Tourism Forum in Istanbul, I said yes instantly.
I’ll be going early February for a week. I’m excited to speak at the forum and doubly excited to spend time exploring more of this incredible city. I’m diving into all the amazing Istanbul posts we curated here to help me plan my trip! It’s my first solo overseas travel mission in years, and I’m very excited, but slightly nervous.
March – Sunshine Coast
The Sunshine Coast is an easy destination for us to visit: just up the road, perfect for families, and lots of things to do. This time, we’ll be aqua-adventuring and possibly returning to Mooloolaba, our old home and the place where Kalyra was born!
In the meantime you can read a few posts we’ve written about the Sunshine Coast:
- Things to do in Noosa
- The Sunshine Coast Beach Drive
UPDATE: You can read about our time on the Sunshine Coast here and here . (with videos!)
April – Outback Queensland
Outback Queensland was one of our most favourite, and surprising, destinations on our Australian road trip. If you want culture, history, outback beauty, and some of the friendliest people in Australia, this is the region you want to explore.
We’ll be spending two weeks diving a little deeper into this region during the Easter holidays. And we want you to help shape our experience. Stay connected because we’ll be letting you decide what we’ll experience.
Here are our previous posts on Outback Queensland:
- Carnarvon Gorge
- Contemplating the Cosmos in Charleville
- Why Winton is our favourite Outback town
- 3 things to do in Longreach
- Going underground at Mt Isa
May onwards – USA Road Trip
Hiking Angel Falls Zion NP
We announced a couple of months ago in this post that the feet were itching again and we were planning to do a road trip of the US. The plans are going full-steam ahead.
The inbox is full of support and invitations to come stay and show us around your home towns and lots of tips! We’re stoked. This is exactly what we were hoping for and we cannot wait to share what we love so much about the US with our readers and meet so many of you!.
We’re working on a concept and name for it and will be planning creative ways to involve you! We’ve even found a solution to what we perceived as a huge hurdle: visas! It looks like we can get a more permanent visa to stay in the US longer than the 6-month tourist visa. We’ll share with you the details of how that’s worked once it’s done.
Our apartment rental lease expires at the end of April, and not wanting to mess around with temporary accommodation, we hope everything can be arranged so we can get moving then.
There is a lot of behind the scenes planning happening for our US road trip, which we’ll be writing a lot about in the coming months.
Jump in our virtual suitcase so you don’t miss them.
You can read all of our USA posts here.
Business plans/ Blog Direction
A few weeks ago, Craig and I spent three days bunkered down in an Airbnb rental on the Sunshine Coast planning for the direction of our blog and how we can make it more awesome for you. We’d love to get some of your insights either through the survey , or by sending us an email or the comments below.
Here are a few of our major projects/intentions for the blog
Grow our contributors
We can’t see and do everything and we don’t want to make this blog all about us. We want to share our travel stories and tips in the hopes of inspiring you and giving you the tools to help you travel more, but there’s only so much we can do. Step in some regular contributors.
We currently have two regular monthly contributors. Christine Amorose shares her local insider knowledge on New York and Andrew Tolentino shares stories and tips on travelling with a tween in South East Asia and soon to be Europe.
As we don’t like to work for free, we pay our contributors for their posts. It’s a bit like playing monopoly for us at the moment, once we pass GO a few times and have some spare cash we’ll add on more contributors! We’re currently seeking sponsorship for specific contributor columns, so we can pay them for epic content to help you travel more!
Video content
You’ve asked repeatedly and we’re doing it – more video content. We’ve been shooting videos and I’ve been learning madly in the background about video and YouTube. I feel completely over my head, but we’re ready to give it a go! We especially want to showcase the US via this amazing medium.
Let us know any of your video production tips in the comments below! You can subscribe to our YouTube channel here.
Confidence Igniter
I’m super excited about this new Confidence Igniter online coaching program that we’ve created with Mike and Angela Irving from Advanced Business Abilities. We met through B-School as they were part of my Dreamer Fools Group. From there a friendship grew and we collaborated on this project.
In the Confidence Igniter, you’ll get access to the system Mike has used to help hundreds of his coaching clients improve their confidence and control over their life. The material is mind-blowing and life-changing. I’ve not come across anything like it before and it’s made huge shifts in my life already.
We’re excited to launch this program in the first half of this year.
We’re offering free email training at the moment – 3 simple strategies for improving your confidence and control. We’re also hosting free blab sessions weekly this year with lots of great tips and insights. Join the Confidence Revolution here.
30 Day Money Cleanse
I’ll be re-opening my 30 Day Money Cleanse in Feb/ March. I’m loving the community growing around the course and watching the ahas and transformations happening because of it. Not to mention, the money and opportunities flowing towards them as a result. It’s really quite a trip!
That’s why I created it – to help you create more money for those trips you want to take more of! But, it’s turned into something far deeper and life changing. Participants are saying how it’s helping them understand what they want more out of life, to value themselves more, and to enhance and enrich other areas, like health and relationships.
In the meantime, you can receive some free abundance training on how to remove your fears and anxiety around money here
Business mentoring
I have a couple of people I mentor and I love seeing the growth and success they have. Many people ask me for business mentoring and I’ve been carefully considering creating my own mentoring program. I’ve decided not to. At this stage, I don’t have the time as I feel there are more important things calling me.
But, there is an option to be mentored by me. Each year, I run a mentoring group as a bonus for those who sign up for B-School through my partnership links. B-School is the online course I did in 2013 that took me from a floundering blogger to a successful business person. I love it and it gives me an opportunity to mentor without consuming all my time creating something of my own.
I’m excited this year to be teaming up with Mike and Ang, (and of course, Craig) to offer a solid mentoring opportunity + the tools and strategies to help you create lasting success in life and business.
We’ll be sharing more about it at the beginning of February.
We’ll cover the 3 keys of success for you
- Mastering your mind and confidence
- Having a good relationship with money
- Having a solid blueprint for business creation and success.
Stay tuned for that.
Focus/intention words
I don’t like setting traditional SMART goals. I find them too restrictive and controlling. But, they might work for you. The time frames and specifics might help motivate you to create the end product. I prefer to connect to flow – river tube rides have always been so much fun for me!
I like to set intentions, or focus words. Things I want to work on improving, and then I allow life to guide me towards the right experiences and lessons that help me do that. Energy flows where intention and attention goes!
My three focus words for this year are:
Vitality
More sleep. Less alcohol. Daily exercise. Morning meditation. Empowering and inspiring mind food. Nutritious, whole foods. Plenty of adventure and soul love.
That’s my vitality plan.
Growth
Growth in business, wisdom, spiritual connection, income, relationships, and opportunity. Pretty much all areas, except my waistline!
Financial security
My 20 years of gypsy roving has not been very good for setting up a secure financial future. Eek. Working on fixing that this year with a bit of investing and better money management!
Let me know your three words in the comments below.
Mike and I are running a blab on goal setting and how to create the best year yet for 2016 on Thursday Jan 7th @ 11am Brisbane time/ Wednesday Jan 6th 8pm EST Join us here! It’s free and you can jump on and chat with us!
[yblog] Where are you headed this year? Let me know your travel plans and focus words! [/yblog]
