The End of Hiking in Finland as we know it and the start of something new.
Sometime last autumn I purchased a new domain. My mind is set, I need a fresh start. After eight years of blogging at Hiking in Finland I need a new challenge. It’s a bad time to do this, but if I don’t do it not now I never might. Hiking in Finland is the most-read English-language blog from Scandinavia, there’s over 30.000 Regular Readers a month, add in the close to 20.000 Followers and Fans on the different Social Media channels and you can understand the dilemma of changing something that’s so successful and generates part of my income (Yes, I work full time on the blog since 2014).
Things that led to this is that I do far more nowadays than hiking in Finland - just last year I was ski-touring in Norway & Switzerland, on adventure travel trips in Macedonia, Greece and Mexico, on active family holidays in Vorarlberg, backpacking in South Tyrol and cycle touring in Finland. So the name is out-dated and limits me, but I also moved away a bit from what this blog was about in the beginning - ultralight backpacking. While I maintain that Ultralight is Not Dead I also have started to look over the borders - I have entered a partnership with Helsport for example, and while I always try to carry as little as possible and use the lightest gear for the occasion it’s not the be all and end all of all things like it was more in the past.
But mostly I feel I have become complacent. The status quo is a dangerous place to get lazy and before other’s think It’s the same old I myself might just kill the status quo, reinvent and embark on a new journey. It might be rough on the edges at the beginning, some of you might not like it, but I am sure that with a new challenge I am able to grow myself and the blog to a new level that’s more creative & honest.
DESIGN or why does HiF look not like it used to?
Last November I managed to destroy the backend of Hiking in Finland - right before the #HiFAdventCalendar should have started and while I was in Mexico. Some bacteria or virus knocked me out for two weeks once I returned from Mexico and I barely was able to publish the daily doors on the ad-hoc blog I created. As I got healthy again I had a big hacking session and managed to get HiF back online the way you see it now - still not really how it used to look like or how I would like it to look, but better than a 404. During February and March I will try to update the layout and looks, but first there’s some other priorities.
Yeps, there’s gonna be a new blog
Hiking in Finland will continue & will be regularly updated in the future, but my new website Hike Climb Travel will see a lot more action. Hike Climb Travel is much broader in name as Hiking in Finland and reflects that I do much more than hiking & backpacking in Finland. Hiking in Finland will be home to my adventures at home and neighbouring countries, while Hike Climb Travel will be my outlet for everything that does take place outside of my beautiful home country. It will kick off some time in February, with a pretty, responsive layout, a great brand identity and some great stories to get you hooked. The best way to stay informed about when the new blog goes online is to subscribe to the Newsletter and follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube, but no worries, I also will let it be known here.
For some time I will try to work on both blogs, but time will show if that is possible & smart or if I just move everything over to the new website. Thus, if there’s a favourite article here on the Olde Blog, now is a good time to save it as a pdf for future references. Some content will will also be moved over, so no worries that it’s gonna be all lost down the aether.
TWIR is (Not?) Dead
A couple of weeks back I asked on Instagram and Facebook for one reason why you follow me and a large part of the answers included TWIR. But a lot has changed since I started The Week In Review six years ago: I got married, have two wonderful kids and a house that still needs a wee bit of renovation (not to mention the garden). I feel I have neglected my family the last years every Sunday for several hours while writing the TWIR, and with a little daughter of one year I (maybe too late) realised it is time to kill The Week in Review, reclaim my Sundays and spend them with the people that matter the most to me - my wife and kids.
Also, The Week In Review is a popular post but it never generated much of income for me. I tried to monetise it in some tasteful ways by affiliate links to offers that matter to you, and a couple of times the Packrafting Store sponsored an issue, but these were not putting enough €$£ into my pocket for the time I invest into the TWIR. Because I know that so many of you love the TWIR and rely on it to find new, relevant content that matters, I am open to suggestions on how we could keep the Week In Review alive - but it would be published then on Mondays as I want to have a weekend. Maybe a PayPal subscription would be an option, but that would mean some of you would need to start to pay for the TWIR content. If you think that’s something you’d be willing to do, leave a comment underneath - and also other ideas and feedback is welcome.
All in all I am very happy to have this off my chest. I felt bad leaving you loyal readers in the dark about this since last December, but now that I typed it down and re-read it a couple of times it feels good and I am happy to hit publish and see how you take these changes. Thus, comment away - here or on the Social Media channels you can find me on!