2008’s Year In Review Of Flying With Fish
Web: www.comeflywithfish.com — E-Mail: fish@flyingwithfish.com
31/12/2008 – 2008’s Year In Review Of Flying With Fish
Another year has passed, and for Flying With Fish this marks the end of the second full year of Flying With Fish. This year has seen Flying With Fish grow farther than I could have imagined!
At the end of 2007 Flying With Fish the blog had 53 posts (and only 46 of them were written in 2007). My goal for 2008 was two post twice weekly for 96 posts. If I was lucky I figured Flying With Fish would have 100 posts for 2008.
As of this post, the final post or 2008, Flying With Fish has 325 posts for the year. I think I’ve overshot my goal just slightly…
This year the information I put into Flying With Fish has been recognized by not only photographers seeking travel information, but also by business travellers, national and international media outlets and the folks who created FlyerTalk.
The big move for Flying With Fish was to bring the blog over to BoardingArea from its old home online. BoardingArea was founded by the people who created FlyerTalk and InsideFlyer. I’m still getting settled in at the new home on BoardingArea, but it is nice to have Flying With Fish surrounded by a handful of other outstanding travel blogs. I’d like to thank Randy Peterson for dropping me an e-mail one day and inviting me over!
My consistent relevant information for travellers or all kids, but especially photographers, found references to Flying With Fish popping up in Popular Photography Magazine, PopPhoto.com, News Photographer Magazine, and on The Strobist, as well as other related photography outlets. Additionally I also appeared as a guest a few times on Inside Digital Photo Radio, as well as Photo Talk Radio.
If this was the only outside attention this site got I would have been happy.
Outside of the photo community I was surprised to find Flying With Fish was gaining some attention. In the spring I appeared as a guest on ABC News’ Good Morning America shooting a segment on airport security. Following Good Morning America, I found myself being interviewed by The New York Times, International Herald Tribune and CFO Magazine, as well as appearing on popular Canadian national talk radio show ‘The Charles Adler Show.” A fun interview was not photo, security or business related at all, when I appeared on the national talk radio show “The Doggie Chronicles” discussing the logistics of traveling with pets.
An absolute highlight for me during 2008 was being commissioned to write, “The Traveling Photographer’s Essential Pocket Guide,” by Rocky Nook Publishers. This book is being researched and written at this time, and with any luck (a lot of proof reading) it should be delivered from my computer to the publisher’s desk in June ’09.
One of the most interesting ways my insight as to have photographers travel came from Mountainsmith. For years I have happily used Mountainsmith (my daughter even has a kid-sized Mountainsmith messenger bag she loves), so when the opportunity to provide Mountainsmith with my ideas I was happy. I assumed the few e-mails and friendly phone calls would maybe result in ‘Thank you.’ Well Mountainsmith offered me more than ‘thank you’ when they asked me to join their Design Board, then offered to provide every participant in my No Jet Lag Travel Photo Boot Camps one of their bags to be used during the Boot Camps. It is great when companies actually listen to the people who use (and abuse) their product on a regular basis.
This summer and fall did see me sidelined sporatically due to an unexpected health complications. Medical issues arose in June, but I tried to stay on the road. I underwent serious surgery at the end of August, but went to work 3 days after being released from the hospital, then boarded a transcontinental flight less than 3-hours after my bandages were removed from my neck. While the content on Flying With Fish didn’t suffer, this was not the best move for my health.
…a bit of advise, if your doctor makes a 5″ incision in the base of your neck and spends nearly 5 hours cutting stuff out from inside your neck, call in sick!
Aside from the medical issues, and the unforeseen complications that come with the medical issues, the failing economy, global highs for fuel prices and airlines going out of business in record numbers, 2008 has been a pretty good year for Flying With Fish and its growth.
I am excited for 2009 and hope to make some changes that will benefit the readers of the site. These changes should be good for both travelling photographers who regularly read the site, as well as casual readers just looking for some travel information.
If you like Flying With Fish and want to help support it, feel free to make your purchases from Adorama directly from the link in the left hand column of this page.
If you’d like to support the efforts of Flying With Fish and want an adventure along the way, come fly with Fish and enroll in a No Jet Lag Travel Photo Boot Camp! You can find more information at www.comeflywithfish.com
….and finally if you’d just like some regular travel updates on general travel news, fare sales and other relevant information, follow Flying With Fish on Twitter at www.twitter.com/flyingwithfish
I’d like to thank all the readers of Flying With Fish for their readership and support, and wish everyone a Happy and a Healthy New Year! May the next year be better than the last for the flyers, the airlines and the world!
Happy Flying!
Steven Frischling
Founder
Flying With Fish
www.flyingwithfish.com
www.twitter.com/flyingwithfish
