As we leave 2023 please excuse my annual self-indulgent post to begin the new year as I peer through the keyhole to look back over the last one.
The top ten most visited posts on my Travel Blog always surprise me but then I don’t pretend to understand how search engines work. I say visited pages rather than read because I am neither so conceited or sufficiently naive to claim that a visit equals a read. I know that a lot of people will arrive here by mistake and swiftly reverse back out via the escape button!
No. 1
I first posted this in March 2010 so this one has been around a while and with 1,070 hits and a fourteenth year in the Top Ten is becoming a stubborn stayer. It is also No. 3 in all time page views with 20,450 recordings. It has been viewed every month since first posted.
No. 2
Bratislava to Vienna Without a Passport
This post was from March 2022 and comes in with 545 hits, I cannot imagine why. It links back to a much earlier post of December 2009 which was spectacularly unsuccessful…
Travel Issues – Forgotten Documents
No. 3
Entrance Tickets – Malta and the Mellieha WW2 Shelters
Finally something different breaks into my Top Ten, This is a post from 2017. 325 visits in 2023.
In Spring 2015 we spent a few days on the island of Malta. This was a bit of an experiment on my part because I wanted to see if Kim liked it there as much as I do. It is sometimes said that you either love Malta or you hate it, it is like Manchester United or Marmite, there are no half measures, there is no sitting on the fence.
No. 4
Catalonia – In Search of Norman Lewis
I must confess that I am rather pleased about this one.
I posted this in July 2013 and it first made the top ten in 2015 before dropping out the following year so I am glad to see it staying around for a second year.
There are some posts that I have written that I would like people to read and this is one of few that have achieved that. Before visiting Catalonia in 2013 I read the book ‘Voices of the Old Sea’ by Norman Lewis which is an account of the Costa Brava in the 1940s and the approach of mass tourism. In this post I attempted some research and some interpretation of the book and the area. It has recorded 315 visits and in this case I like to think that this is because of the subject rather than the pictures.
Another post that has been visited every month since published.
No. 5
Commenting on a recent post, a long term blogging pal of mine (who knows me so well) suggested that I am a cheapskate traveller. I am so proud of this compliment.
This post is a surprising new entry with 310 hits.
No 6
Another surprise entry with 265 hits.
This was the Grand Hotel, Lecce, or perhaps more accurately, the Once Grand Hotel, Lecce because although we immediately liked it, it had a slightly faded elegance, was past its best and was clinging on by its fingernails to its once grand status. But it had a wonderful room full of proper furniture, crisp linen on the bed and a well stocked basket of complimentary bathroom essentials.
No. 7
First posted in June 2009 the post has 260 hits in 2023 and staying in the Top Ten for the fourteenth successive year which by that measure makes it my most successful post.
In total it has 24,010 visits which makes all time second after my post about Norway, Haugesund and the Vikings at 24,730. This one has been around for a long time ( since June 2009) and has always been popular especially around the Spring and Summer when invitations to the Royal Garden Party are going out and when people are wondering how to get one or what to wear if they have one.
Another post that has been visited every month since first published.
No. 8
Alternative Twelve Treasures of Spain – Antoni Gaudi
This is the tenth successive year in my top ten for my post about the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi. After I had taken a look at the official Twelve Treasures of Spain I thought it might be fun to draw up my own personal alternative list. I included Antoni Gaudi in a general rather than a specific way. I posted this in March 2013 and this year with 255 visits it stays at number eight.
This is another post that has been visited every month since posting and with a total of 7,705 recorded hits is number six in my all time list.
No. 9
Birmingham – More Canals than Venice
When visiting Birmingham it is almost inevitable to come across the proud boast that the city has ‘More Canals than Venice’. Birmingham has been called the ‘Venice of the North’ but this isn’t a title that it holds uniquely because it has also been applied to Saint Petersburg, Bruges, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Manchester and Edinburgh amongst others.
First posted in July 2015 and has come out of nowhere. No. 9 in the top 10 this year with 245 hits. Never been near the top 10 before.
No 10
Those that follow my posts will know that I have an interest in washing lines.
Two years ago I did a sequence of washing line posts (posts hahaha) and included this one about International Laundry Day. 245 visits this year.
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If you have read one of these posts or any of the 3,360 others on my site ‘Have Bag, Will Travel’, then thank you from the bottom of my heart! I guess it proves that George Bailey (It’s A Wonderful Life) was right when he said: “The three most exciting sounds in the world are anchor chains, plane motors and train whistles.”
Total visits in 2023 – 42,700 (down 10% on 2022)
Total visits all time – 1,191,000
Countries where most visitors come from – UK, USA, India, Australia, and Spain.
Most viewed picture in 2023. A little disappointing, I like to think I have posted one or two good pictures of my own during the year but most clicked is a picture of the island of Malta that I scanned in from my collection of postcards…
Have Bag, Will Travel 