A-Z Challenge Reflections

As you may have noticed from my previous post … I’ve had a little absence from my blog. Just a fortnight away to refresh and unwind, clear the head and concentrate on some “real life” things, relax and reflect … basically what you would call a digital detox. It is actually something that I’ll do from time to time, just to get some perspective. I figured that following the month long A-Z Challenge – I was in need of some downtime!

SO … the big question, how did I find the challenge? Well, I have to say first off that I’m amazed I actually managed to complete it. The idea of writing and posting every day was something that I found really daunting. I wasn’t sure if I had the commitment to stick to it. So that’s the first huge positive to come from the challenge! My intention has never been to write daily for my blog … I just can’t get it together enough to do that. Plus I really want my blog to have quality posts, rather than quantity … I know myself well enough to know I can’t produce quality every day 😉 

The other thing I loved about the A-Z Challenge was that it proved to be a great vehicle for discovering other blogs! The number of people that I’m following grew substantially in April and it makes blogging so much more rewarding when you find great content and interactive bloggers to mingle with. Part of the challenge rules stipulated that you were supposed to visit five other participating blogs each day … I confess that between writing, reading and commenting- I wasn’t always able to do that. I did miss quite a few days. I suspect however that this is a common problem for most of us who participated l, as I notice from my own statistics that I received approx. 42 visitors to my site (who were referred from the A-Z Challenge website). Another slight problem I came across towards the end of the month was that I was checking out other participating blogs only to discover that they had long since ceased to post anything related to the challenge.

I decided today to have a look at the statistics for my challenge posts. Just out of curiosity to see which ones received the most views, likes and comments … and which received the least. Not surprising, the posts towards the end of the month had substantially more of all of those. So in fairness to my earlier posts, I’ve decided to give them a second chance to introduce themselves to my lovely readers. Below is a list of all my subjects for the challenge, so please feel free to check out any that tickle your fancy 🙂

ANGKOR THOM – Cambodia

BOULDERS BEACH – South Africa

CHOBE – Botswana

DANCE – the other universal language?

EPHESUS – Turkey

That special F word ….

GALLIPOLI – Turkey

HANOI – Vietnam

ISLAND TEMPLE OF ISIS – Egypt

It’s all about the JOURNEY …

KAKADU – Australia

LIFE LESSONS

MAI CHAU – Vietnam

NATURE at her best

OKAVANGO DELTA – Botswana

PETRA – Jordan

QANTAS

RAMSES II AND ABU SIMBEL – Egypt

SUKHOTHAI – Thailand

T is for Travel but it’s also for TRAIN WRECK

ULURU – Australia

VICTORIA FALLS – Zambia

WADI RUM – Jordan

XENOPHOBIA

YOLO

ZAMBEZI RIVER – Zambia

 

I guess the final question is, would I participate again? Without a doubt – YES! This was a great way to focus my writing and my content and I enjoyed the challenge of keeping up a regular routine of writing and posting. I would encourage anyone who didn’t attempt it to consider giving it a try when it next comes around. To those who did participate – I look forward to joining you all next time and seeing what wonderful posts you come up with!