Today we’d like to introduce you to Logan Hansen.
Logan, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I created my blog in the spring of 2016 just as I was wrapping up my senior year at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. It was initially called “Logan’s Run” (yes, like the movie from the 1970s) and in May of that year, it was where I documented a 17-day study abroad trip to Israel and Jordan — my last hurrah as an undergrad.
Despite that, my blog didn’t become a space dedicated exclusively to travel writing until almost a year later, when I penned a post about an extremely difficult-to-get-to island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that was allegedly giving away free plots of land. After that, I started to crank out travel-focused posts on a regular basis, typically putting out four or five new pieces of content monthly.
I ran at that clip for about two years, coming out with new stuff every five or six days. Along the way, I was building up my audience, adding new emails to my mailing list, and trying out new things on the site. Somewhere along the line, I discovered Dealspotr, a crowdsourced savings site that gives content creators the chance to promote certain products in exchange for Amazon gift cards, product samples, and the like. I did a couple of campaigns with them, earning money with my blog for the first time.
At some point, people started reaching out to me about submitting guest posts. As long as the content was travel-related, I typically ran with it (often relieved that someone else was supplying the content for once, to be honest).
At the beginning of 2020, just before we plunged headfirst into the Covid-19 pandemic, I rebranded my blog from “Logan’s Run” to “All Things Wanderful.” The change was twofold: 1) to have a name that more closely aligned with the content I was producing, and 2) to avoid competing with the film “Logan’s Run” in search results. So far, it seems to be helping with exposure, as the page views and unique visitors keep rising month after month and year after year.
These days, I only write about two or three posts a month, if that. My blog is still primarily a hobby, and I have fun doing it, but it can also feel like work at times. Even so, I have no plans to quit anytime soon.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s been a fairly smooth road. Most of the struggles along the way have been self-imposed. I started out writing five posts a month, but that was not sustainable over the long haul. As much as I love traveling and writing about it, I would often feel burnt out trying to keep up with that schedule. Nowadays, I write as often as I feel compelled to, with my only real goal being to hopefully publish something new at least once a month.
The other struggle has been keeping up with the blog generally. I have a full-time job and also work as a freelance writer, and there are times when I wonder how long I can actually keep this thing going. Don’t worry, though: I don’t see myself quitting anytime soon.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I write myriad content centered around travel, from trip logs to bucket-list destinations and general advice. The content that always seems to hit home with my audience the most is the stuff I write about Michigan. Not coincidentally, one of the pieces I’m most proud of is the article I wrote after attending the Beaver Island Music Festival in the summer of 2019.
Earlier that year, I had written a post simply trying to raise awareness of the festival, which takes place every July on the largest island in Lake Michigan. As fate would have it, the organizer of the festival, Carol Burton, stumbled upon my post, shared it on Facebook, and subsequently asked me if I wanted to attend the festival *for free. All I had to do in return was write a post about my experience.
The article that resulted from my time on Beaver Island in July 2019 is still one of my favorites and serves as a reminder of the power that words can have. Had I never written that preview post on the festival, I never would have ended up on an island in the middle of Lake Michigan, rocking out to some of the best folk and rock music the Mitten State has to offer.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
I read somewhere that most travel blogs — or blogs of any kind, I would imagine — aren’t successful because people aren’t willing to stick it out for the long haul. I may not be hauling in wheelbarrows full of cash from the writing I do on my blog, and there’s a good chance I never will, but staying with it and continuing to create content throughout these last five or six years has proved rewarding, and my audience is continuing to grow all the time. I don’t know what will happen down the line, but I do know that continuing this journey is the only way to find out.
Contact Info:
- Email: logan.hansen24@gmail.com
- Website: https://allthingswanderful.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wanderful_thing/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/allthingswanderful
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/wanderful_thing
