The Travel Hack Reader Survey: The results are in and what to expect from 2016

I was absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of people who responded to my reader survey. Thank you all so much!

At first I was nervous about getting people’s honest and brutal opinions. The Travel Hack is my baby, I’ve worked so hard on this blog for the past 6 years so the thought of welcoming criticism was pretty terrifying.

As it’s mainly just me working on the blog, it’s really difficult to figure out what people genuinely think. Google Analytics (a tool that tells me what people are reading on the blog) only tells me so much so it’s been really interesting to see the results.

I didn’t do this survey for an ego boost – quite the opposite really – but it has actually given me a massive ego boost as there have been so many lovely, inspiring, wonderful comments.

I spend a lot of my time sat cross legged on my sofa with my laptop on my knees with my dog snoring my by side. As I’m typing away in my own little world, it’s really easy to forget that people are reading this. Lots of people are reading this. And people are taking my advice and putting it into practice. People are buying the products I’ve recommended and they’re staying in the hotels I’ve loved. Someone even bought a French Bulldog after seeing my Louie and another person even quit her job and went freelance after reading my experience! This is amazing. It’s terrifyingly, overwhelmingly amazing but this is what I blog for!

Most people have been reading the blog for a couple of years and I’m absolutely overjoyed to hear that I’ve inspired people to travel to new places, try new things and have incredible experiences around the world.

I had no idea that blogging could ever lead to this and I can’t even begin to tell you how happy it makes me.

So, what did I find from the reader survey?

Who are you and how do you read The Travel Hack?

Readers are mostly female aged 26-30, mostly in the UK and USA.

Your favourite social media channels are Facebook and Instagram. A lot of you find new posts through Feedly or Bloglovin’ and 55% of you have your own blogs. World of Wanderlust, The Blonde Abroad, Adventuress Kate, Vicky Flip Flop and Alex in Wanderland are your other favourite blogs.

Your favourite posts are travel guides and detailed travel itineraries. Your least favourite posts are product reviews.

What’s your travel style?

Sightseeing and cultural experiences are the most popular holiday activities and most of you travel as a couple. Over half of you describe your travel style as ‘affordable luxury’. Most of you have full time jobs so take a lot of weekend breaks and short holidays.

What do you like and what do you want more of?

You want to see more personal blog posts from me with more travel journals. You want to see more weekend trips and tips for saving money while travelling and general travel advice.

Most people’s favourite thing about The Travel Hack is the friendly and honest tone. A lot of people commented that they like feeling as though their friend is telling them about their latest holiday. I had lots of comments along the lines of, ‘In a non-creepy way, I feel like I’m chatting to a friend.’ I like this 🙂

I also had a lot of comments from people saying they love that I'm not a nomad. If you read a lot of travel blogs you'll know that many travel bloggers are semi-nomadic and constantly travel. This is really exciting to follow but the whole 'quit your job and travel the world' messaging gets kind of tiring if you don't want to quit your job to travel the world! I've always thought that not being nomadic would make this travel blog a little boring and less exciting than the constant travellers so I'm really pleased to see people say they like it!

Here's to the travellers who work 40+ hours a week, have homes AND manage to travel!

The Travel Hack Team

It’s a real mixed bag when it comes to The Travel Hack Team. Some people love seeing a wide variety of posts from different bloggers and they love the fact we post almost every day. Other people find a mixture of bloggers to be confusing.

Moving forwards, you're going to be seeing a smaller team and more posts from me.

Travels with a baby

It’s another mixed bag when it comes to travelling with a baby. These posts have attracted a lot of new readers and they're the ones I get the most emails about from people saying thanks and asking questions.

A lot of people have said the baby posts aren’t relevant to them yet but they find it reassuring to know it is possible to travel and have little adventures with babies. These are the people who don’t plan to have kids any time soon but they know they’ll be searching for these posts in 5 years time – so that’s nice to know!

Of course, anyone who doesn't have kids and doesn't plan to have kids aren't interested in these posts but most readers say they'll skim over them and come back the next day.

Design and layout

95% of people like the design and layout of the blog. Yey! I had 4 comments saying the girl in the logo was slutty! This made me laugh because I’d never thought of it like this but it’s a fair point so I think it’s time for a new logo!

Anything else?

Basically, everyone wants a travel blog that’s written especially for them. Whether they’re in their teens and want advice about gap years, in their 20’s and want budget weekend breaks, in their 30’s and want luxury holidays or travels with kids, 40’s with teenagers, in their 50’s and their kids have left home, in their 60’s and they’ve retired or in their 70’s and want travel advice for people with mobility issues.

Unfortunately, I can’t offer travel advice for everyone, but there is one common theme that everyone shares – and that’s a love for affordable luxury travel. It seems we all like to save in some areas in order to splurge in others. It’s a love for weekend breaks with a touch of luxury, it’s travelling on a budget but splashing out on the important things. It’s flying economy but staying in boutique hotels. It’s making the most of every precious second on every precious holiday.

Lots of people are saying they love seeing posts about weekend breaks so you're going to be seeing lots more of these!

More from me!

One very strong theme that ran through the results in the survey is that most people want to see more from me. Yey! It seems silly now that this shocked me at first. I couldn’t believe that so many people said they loved my posts and wanted to read more.

Another thing that shocked me was a lot of people saying they would like to see more of Sam (my fiance) on the blog. But when I thought about it, this makes sense. Sam is always there in the background of all of my posts. He's in my photos and I'm always saying 'we' rather than 'me'. Maybe it's time for Sam to join The Travel Hack team and add a male's perspective to the blog!