Travel-wise, this was a quiet year--a mostly stay-at-home year. Even so, I managed to post a few stories about travel experiences past and present in 2012. Better yet, I managed to get a few of you to take a look-see at some of my stories.
The following are my top 10 most popular blog posts of the past year, going by how many hits each post got. With a little fudging. I had a few posts that got a lot of views but that I didn't include here, as they were more "timely" posts or strictly advertising. These would be a post on my tour company's upcoming women's tour of Ireland in August--September 2013, and a post on the Passports With Purpose fundraiser for Haiti I participated in a month or so ago by hosting a prize.
(By the way, that prize--a space on my Ireland 2013 tour--was won by a fellow travel writer named Kayte. We welcome her to the tour and can't wait to meet her in Ireland. In the meantime, if you donated to the fundraiser or entered for a prize, congratulate yourself on having helped raise a whopping $110,000 for Water.org to build much-needed wells in Haiti. That's a promise of clean and safe water for several communities in Haiti in 2013. The new year already looks brighter.)
But back to the top 10. Time's a running out on 2012. These were the posts that caught your eye the most this year. If you missed any on the list, click and take a look now...or as you nurse your new year's hangover or draw up your list of 2013's resolutions. Hope that list of resolutions includes some traveling--mine sure does.
10. The Last Four Years, For This American. Right after our most recent U.S. presidential election, I looked back on my last 4 years of traveling, which kicked off right after the historic 2008 election with a cross-country bus trip of my home country.
9. All Souls Rich and Poor: Chicago's Graceland Cemetery, on one of the city's most famous, beautiful, haunted, and fascinating graveyards.
8. Blue Views and High Dunes. Ever been to Michigan's mighty dunes? Didja even know Michigan and the Great Lakes had such amazing natural beauty? Go to this post and now you will.
7. Pictures for St. Patrick's Day. Check out these photos of beautiful Ireland over the last decade or so. Posted in honor of Ireland's main national holiday.
6. Dubuque: Of All Places -- on the familiar joys of eastern Iowa.
5. An Irish Trifecta. I wrote 3 articles on Irish topics for the Britannica Blog in the first half of the year. Here you can link to them and read 'em.
4. A Well Written Story, a link to a link. Read about the holy well on the smallest of the Aran Islands and its magic healing powers.
3. The Giant's Causeway vs. Golfers' Cashflow, about the very misguided deal to build a multi-million dollar golf complex on the doorstep of Northern Ireland's most popular and stunning natural attraction.
2. My Grandfather and the Eastland Disaster, a post on the Eastland boat tragedy in Chicago in 1915, which my grandfather Ostberg witnessed as a rescue diver.
1. And the top post of the year is... I Shouldn't Be Alive: Bolivian Edition -- a swashbuckler on the 3-day El Choro trek I took on the old Inca Trail in Bolivia.
Enjoy the posts. Hope to bring you more interesting stories and travel tales in 2013!
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