INTERVIEW WITH AMELIA FROM A WINTER ESCAPE

INTERVIEW WITH AMELIA FROM A WINTER ESCAPE

Meet Amelia from A Winter Escape

All about your BLOG:
Tell us about your lovely BLOG.

1. What is the name of your blog and how did you decide on your blog name?
   The name is A Winter Escape, which is obviously a play on my name (Amelia Winter). I also liked it because I’m a huge sun-chaser and in the colder months you’ll usually see me trying to escape to warmer weather. My husband laughed at me when I renamed the blog recently as he took it to mean a snow holiday – he’s a keen skier but I HATE the cold!
2. What prompted you to start on this blogging journey?
   I’ve been blogging in various forms for about ten years now and it just started as an outlet, a bit like journaling but more social. These days, I’m raising two kids and I’ve gone back to university to finish my Psychology degree, so my blog is now solely focused on travel – it keeps my foot in the door of my previous tourism career.
3. To date, what blogging achievement/s are you most proud of? I think my recent rebrand. I was blogging under a different name and with a site, I wasn’t happy with aesthetically. I’ve overhauled the look and feel of the site and while there’s definitely some tweaking that needs to be done, I love how it’s progressed and am really proud of the work I’ve put in. People are also responding really positively to the change and that just makes me grin from ear to ear!
4. How would you describe your own blogging style?
   I’m still not quite sure; it keeps evolving. For a while, I was very much blogging as I talked, swearing and all, and I did actually like that. The people who liked it really liked it, there was a humor and liveliness in it. But now I’m working to refine the site aesthetically, I think the content needs refining too. So I’m kind of struggling with that balance of sounding a bit more professional but not losing my humor or bubbly nature.
5. What excites you most about blogging?
   I really am working on making this a business, so I guess the growth potential. It’s hard work, but I want this to be more than a hobby. I don’t do things by halves and the blog should be no different. I’m really KPI driven, so I have a business plan now with goals and every time I hit a goal it’s so exciting. That’s what keeps me driving it forward.
6. What platform do you use and why?
   I’m self-hosted on Wordpress and have been for a few years now. I think it’s so important to have complete creative control and I just think, with the right layout and theme, it looks so much more professional.
7. What genre/topic/theme do you blog about? Do you ever deviate from that theme? I’m very travel-focused. When I need to I’ll deviate but I’ve recognized that if I want it to grow, it needs consistency. I work across multiple social media accounts and each has their own style. My blog readers don’t need to know what I had for lunch or what I wash my hair with – that kind of thing is for Instagram Stories.
8. How often do you blog per week or month?
   A couple of months ago I sat down and put together an Editorial Calendar, which included all posts I’d published since the start of the year. I was horrified to see there was absolutely no consistency. So I promised myself I would publish once a week on a Sunday so my readers knew there would be something new for them every Sunday. I would like to push it to twice a week, but I need to batch more content before that happens because life is so busy right now. I’m off to Malaysia in two weeks and I plan to be working hard on content while I’m away, so hopefully, I can start adding an extra post each week when I get back.
9. Do you have any wisdom or tip/s regarding blogging to share with us?I have no idea – I feel like I’m flailing most of the time so I’m probably not the best person to be dishing out advice! My big thing right now, which won’t necessarily work for everyone, is to really just get out there with it. I have a way of saying that usually but it’s not appropriate for this article… but essentially your blog will always fail if you say it’s going to fail, so you might as well give it your best shot!
10. Do you participate in linkup parties? How do you feel about it?
    Yeah, I do. The main reason for it is to build relationships with other bloggers, which leads to sharing wisdom and support. The only thing I don’t like, and this is definitely not true of all groups, is that there are sometimes going to be quality differences between blogs in a group. That’s fine, I like to surround myself with more experienced bloggers so I can motivate myself to get to their level. But I steer clear of groups where sharing everyone’s work is compulsory. I think you lose credibility when you’re sharing things that are irrelevant to your audience or that aren’t well written. The best linkups for me are the ones where you can get genuine feedback and make your work better – well, that’s definitely what I’m in need of anyway!

All about YOU:

Tell us something about you, the real YOU.

1. What do you like to do other than blogging?
   Well, I travel a lot obviously. I also live in a city which is surrounded by a whole bunch of wine regions, each with their own unique characteristics. We’re a big produce destination too. So exploring new eateries and wineries, and microbreweries too, is a big thing for me and my family. My husband has started brewing his own beer and it’s fantastic, and our friends and I bought him a keg system for his 30^th – we now have beer on tap in our home! So we love entertaining friends, cooking for them, trying new things.My husband’s parents live about 90 minutes away, right on the river, so we go up there a lot too. There’s amazing wildlife, stunning views, and cool hiking trails too. The kids especially love it.
2. Where do you reside?
   I live in Adelaide, South Australia, which is the bottom-middle. A two-hour flight/20-hour drive from Sydney or a three-hour flight/three day drive from Perth. It’s a big country and many of the cities are very isolated if you’re not on the east coast.
3. Are you an indoor or outdoor person?
   Depends on the time of year! I’m an outdoorsy person in warmer weather. In the winter, there’s nothing like snuggling up with a book or a board game on a rainy day.
4. Do you still work, and if so, what is your trade/profession?
   I’m not working currently. I’ve had two lots of maternity leave and I’ve gone back to uni, so between the kids and full-time study work is quite tricky. I pick up some short jobs here and there if I’m dying to do something new though because the stay-at-home-mum life doesn’t suit me so well..
5. Or are you retired? If so, what do you do besides blogging?
   Nope, not retired!
6. Do you wish to be 20-something or the age you are now and why?
   Well, I’m 29 and I turn 30 in November. I’m really, really looking forward to it. There has been so much upheaval in the past ten years, much of it the awful slap-in-the-face kind, and I’m really looking forward to the next ten years and hoping they bring love, happiness, and stability. I have my husband and my two beautiful little boys now, and I’ll be embarking on a new career that I feel really called to do, so I think this decade will be wonderful.
7. What makes your day a good and happy one?
   If I’ve been given the opportunity to use my brain to learn something, work on a project or solve a problem, that’s a wonderful day for me!
8. Describe yourself in 3 words.
   Warm, brainy, neurotic.
9. Do you have any other tidbits to share with us about yourself?
   I could go on forever with that one and none of it would actually be of interest, so I’ll leave it there!
10. Share with us 3 interesting facts about yourself.
    I’ve mentioned I’m back at uni, and when I finish I hope to be working in the perinatal mental health space. So dealing with parents as they try to conceive, as they experience pregnancy (and loss), and as they adapt to parenthood. Over the Summer I worked on a project looking at how men cope with the IVF process, and whether infertility affects their perceptions of their own masculinity. It was really interesting stuff!I have three sisters: one is 20, one is 16 and one is 14. So, big age differences! Sometimes I feel more like an aunty than a big sister, especially to the younger two. But I’m also super lucky to have been able to watch them grow into amazing women.

    I got married in Fiji! My husband is from New Zealand and because my parents are divorced and remarried I was aware of the possibility for tension, so we went to the happiest, calmest place we could think of and it was easy for the NZ people to get there. 60 of our closest family and friends partying it up in Fiji – it was the best week.

Last but not least:

1. Please share with us your social media links, in order for our readers to follow you!

Instagram
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