My annual reflection on the blog hits and misses, what was popular, and what wasn’t, expanded this year to cover my Exploring Timor-Leste TikTok account, which proved far more popular than I ever expected with close to 2 million views. My blog JontyTravels also did well, with over 45,000 visitors, the most since I started it a decade ago, despite publishing fewer posts than in the past.
A four month trip around Europe and Middle East in 2023 kept the blog going with content until the end of July. Travels in New Zealand filled another couple of months before posts about Timor-Leste started in September, and will continue for the next 15 months or so!
As usual my most popular blog posts were New Zealand Great Walks Ranked and New Zealand tramps (multi-day walks ranked). Three blogs published this year made the top ten most popular posts, First month living in Timor-Leste, Things I learnt hiking the Peaks of the Balkans, and First impressions of Timor-Leste.
The least popular (based on views) that have been published for at least a couple of months were Split, Jaffa, Mora, Alps to Ocean Trail – Otematata to Kurow, and Stockholm.
In February I started Exploring Timor-Leste, having never used TikTok before. My first video got 24,000 views!
By the end of the year I’d posted around 280 videos, which had been viewed over 1.8 million times, and the account had nearly 10,000 followers.
It was a bit overwhelming to be honest. To be famous enough in Timor-Leste to be recognised in public dozens of times by locals following my TikTok. I’d taken an interest but never been that hung up on the number of blog, Facebook or Instagram views or likes I got. TikTok was less healthy, as I would check it multiple times everyday, and get frustrated if posts I’d spent time didn’t get traction. Often the ones I spent the least time on got the most views.
I achieved a better balance over time and have mixed feelings about stopping posting when I leave Timor-Leste in February 2025. I enjoy creating and editing content but it is time consuming and the novelty can wear off.
All my Exploring Timor-Leste channels (website, TikTok, Instagram, blog posts, YouTube) will end after I leave the country and have no new content to share. I’ll need to think carefully about what I will continue with. The blog definitely, the others I’m less sure about…
Anyway here are my most popular TikTok posts of the year.
And these are some of the least popular ones…
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