Nine years. That’s how long The Unstable Element has technically existed, which is a genuinely unsettling thing to type out because in my head this blog is still the slightly chaotic project I started out of a Rotterdam dorm room, not something that’s been quietly running since 2016. Granted – I haven’t been posting consistently, and there have even been years where the blog was completely silent. Life got messier, things and people got in the way, and my little travel blog always ended up last on the list of priorities.
I’ve gone back and read some of the earliest posts recently, which I’d recommend to absolutely nobody, because past-me had opinions and also apparently no concept of paragraph breaks. But it did get me thinking about how much my mindset and approach to life and travel has changed overtime, and how much it also stayed the same.
I used to write for an audience that didn’t exist – now I plan around it. When I first launched this blog, I did so to let go of all the thoughts swirling in my mind and share them with the entire world, regardless of whether said world was actually interested. It was more of a diary – something happened, I had a thought, I would share it in hopes someone else in some random corner of the world would resonate with it. As I got older, started earning more money to afford more travelling, and my horizons expanded, my mindset switched: what are people actually looking. for? How can my experience helped them in their journey? From then on, the way I think about and structure content has drastically changed, although I like to think my style and personal touch have stayed the same!
Consistency matters more than perfection. I’ve had stretches of posting every week and stretches where I disappeared for over a year without a word of explanation (sorry about that :P). Over the years though, I have come to the realisation that it’s not really about making everything perfect – it’s more about showing up, and making people feel that you are a constant, not just a fleeting shadow. This goes beyond this blog, and it’s a lesson I have learned overtime. Don’t expect amazing results straight away, don’t get too focused on the final goal – build your own structure, one that works for you and makes you feel good, and trust the process that it will eventually lead you where it needs to.
Travel content ages in strange ways. Some of my oldest posts, about housing in Rotterdam or navigating a specific bureaucracy, are still getting read years later because the practical stuff apparently stays useful long after I’ve forgotten I even wrote it. Meanwhile some posts I was convinced were my best work at the time have aged like milk. You genuinely cannot predict this stuff…
The blog changed how I travel, not just how I write about it. Once you’re used to noticing details because you might write about them later, you start noticing them anyway, even when there’s no post coming. Now, whenever I am travelling and notice or get curious about something, I immediately think – “cool, this is something I could share that might interest someone else too.” It really makes you more alert to all these small things that you might not normally notice or appreciate – for this, I am thankful! 🙂
And the people who found this blog matter more than the numbers do. I’m not going to pretend I don’t check the stats, because I do, but nine years in, what’s actually stuck with me are the comments that keep coming. In fact, I’ve even had some people over LinkedIn messaging me to tell me they’ve really enjoyed reading through the blog, and even someone telling me it managed to convince them to book a solo trip they’d been pushing off for years. How crazy is that?!
To be honest with you, I don’t know what the blog looks like at year fifteen, or if I’ll even still be writing it. But if nine years of this taught me anything, it’s that I need to be more consistent because this is what drives results – and I will be. So stay tuned for more!
As always, hope you’re all having a great day!
Nina
