Glory Days Loyal: August 2007 All Blog Posts

“Start in the way that you wish to go on” – Neil Finn.

This is the first in a series of posts that basically will do what I had plugins doing years ago – it is a chronological list of all my blog posts ever. And I start at the start and I end at the end. That’s right – an easy way for me, you and everyone to locate my blog posts and serve as some kind of memory of my journeys. This will also mean that

• old blog posts are easier to find.
• old blog posts with missing photos will be changed.
• old blog posts will be updated.

“Birds go flying at the speed of sound to show you how it all began” – Coldplay.

Since this is the first post in this series, the background to this blog “Don’t Stop Living” before it began is this…

1980 – 1991 – Every trip I had with family or friends, I wrote about it in diaries.
April / May 1991 – I wrote my first travel diary on my first trip abroad without Mum and Dad – to the Netherlands. (this is now available as an eBook).
1991 – 2001 – Every trip I had with family, friends or alone, I wrote about it in diaries.
September 2001 – I saw the words “Don’t Stop Living” on a wall while backpacking in Toronto, Canada.
2001 – 2007 – Every trip I had with family, friends or alone, I wrote about it in diaries.
July 2007 – While backpacking in Toronto, Canada (again), I met Lee Price and Mike Burkimsher. Both of them were travel bloggers. The reality hit me. I had never heard of a travel blog yet for 16 years I had been documenting all my travels in books on pen and paper.

July – August 2007 – While backpacking in Canada, USA and New Zealand, I started writing my travel diaries on computer for the first time. Before that, they were always only in books/diaries and hand written. Believe it or not, the first place I ever typed up one of those travel blogs was in the Apple shop in the Eatons Centre in Toronto (pictured below).

August 2007 – Every day from 7th July – 27th August I wrote ONE travel blog post but had no clue how to upload them so everyday I simply emailed them to myself. I also felt safe by doing this, as I knew I’d not lose them. I opened my first ever travel blog from an internet cafe in Taupo, New Zealand. I used Blogspot at the time. I later tried Wix and WordPress and finally self hosted in 2012. None of the old blogs or sites I used exist anymore, since all the 2007+ posts are simply on here now anyway (they were all transferred by an expert in October 2012, the month I went professional as a travel blogger).
August 27th 2007 – I finally worked out how to upload everything. Since 27th August 2007, Don’t Stop Living has been my travel blog. (As of today, that is 15 different calendar years, 3 decades and over 3,000 blog posts).

So this first post in the “Glory Days Loyal” series will be August 2007. After that, chronologically I will do every month of my journey and with probably yearly updates. I might add in some extra photos and new stories, but generally it’s just a list. Also, please be aware that over the years my opinions have changed, hotels have closed, posts might have been edited, others might be out of date or worthless. I also deleted some posts. Finally, even though I am always proud of my travels and my writing, when I look back now at some of my early and old posts, I really hate the way I was writing sometimes and I really cringe at myself! That said, the article I wrote on the 31st August 2007 was called “Dust from a Distant Sun” and that was the exact title I used for my New Zealand chapter of my Backpacking Centurion Book Series (for reference, that was Chapter 24 in Volume 1 – Don’t Look Back In Bangor). But life is a journey, a progression, a learning curve.

“Life is a rollercoaster just gotta ride it” – Ronan Keating.

27th August 2007 – Welcome to Don’t Stop Living
28th August 2007 – Stepping Stones to Canada: Toronto
29th August 2007 – New York: Empire State Halo
30th August 2007 – What The Hell Am I Doing Drinking in LA at 27?
31st August 2007 – Auckland: Dust From A Distant Sun