As we leave 2022, 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
Mount Vesuvius
I first posted this in March 2010 so this one has been around a while and with 722 hits and a thirteenth year in the Top Ten is becoming a stubborn stayer. It is also No. 3 in all time page views with 19,400 recordings. It has been viewed every month since first posted.
No. 2
Royal Garden Party
First posted in June 2009 the post has 552 hits in 2022, almost double the previous year 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 23,750 visits which makes all time second after my post about Norway, Haugesund and the Vikings at 24,722. 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. 3
Bratislava to Vienna Without a Passport
This post was from March 2022 and comes in with 400 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. 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 back again.
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 288 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
Turkey – A problem with Stray Dogs
Another maverick post this one. I first put it up in July 2013 and it received a few hits but suddenly this year it has had regular visits and finishes the year with 288.
No. 6
Malta, Happiness and a Walk to Mellieha
I have written several posts about my visits to the island of Malta, this one is from May 2015. I consider some of them much more interesting than this one but where they have sunk without trace, this one just keeps on attracting hits. 280 hits in 2022 and seventh successive year in the top ten.
No 7
Streets of Naples
I visited Naples in April 2018. Recently In February 2022 I editing my pictures and sharedethese images of an exciting and eclectic city that I hadn’t used before in my posts…
268 hits this year.
No. 8
Alternative Twelve Treasures of Spain – Antoni Gaudi
This is the ninth 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 256 visits it has risen one place to number eight.
This is another post that has been visited every month since posting and with a total of 7.,456 recorded hits is number 7 in my all time list.
No 9
Poland (Wroclaw), The Anonymous Pedestrians
This is another post that I am happy to see in the top ten with 360 visits. I wrote this in March 2014 after visiting the Polish city of Wroclaw and finding the street statues of the Anonymous Pedestrians.
The statues are a memorial to the introduction of martial law in Poland on December 13th 1981 and the thousands of people who disappeared (‘went underground’) in the middle of the night courtesy of the militia. In a symbolic statement the fourteen statues were erected in the middle of the night in 2005 on the twenty-fourth anniversary of the introduction of martial law.
A total of 248 hits in 2022 and with visitors every month since originally posted.
No !0
The Island of Hvar
Published in January 2022 and has 242 hits. I can offer no explanation why.
If you have read one of these posts or any of the 3,200 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 2022 – 48,500
Total visits all time – 1,147,447
Countries where most visitors come from – UK, USA, India, Australia, and Spain.
Most viewed picture in 2022…
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 Casa Batlló in Barcelona that I scanned in from my collection of postcards…
I would be interested to know about other people’s most popular posts in 2022 and the possible explanations why? Comment and let me know. I’m a sucker for statistics!
Have Bag, Will Travel 