Discover . Book . Travel Blog 1st Year Birthday!

Dear Readers,

Discover . Book . Travel is celebrating its very first birthday today!

We would like to say "Thank you" to all of you who have been following us on our travel adventures!

To commemorate this milestone, we thought it might be good time to reflect on our first year and see how much Discover. Book. Travel has grown in the past 12 months.

DISCOVER . BOOK . TRAVEL WAS BORN!

Our very first post was published on 23 June 2012, sharing our flight experience on board Air Asia Flight to Kuala Lumpur. From then on, we had gone on to share a total of 130 posts for the past one year!

A YEAR IN REFLECTION

Alaska Cruise Series

One of our most popular series was the Alaska Cruise series, which have encouraged a number of our readers to make their trips to Alaska too! This was the in fact the most comprehensive travel trip that we had written. If you have not read the posts, please visit here for the full listing of the posts.

The Alaska Cruise Series consists of a total of 46 posts starting from our embarkation in Vancouver, sneak peep of our Balcony Cabin to the shore excursions that we took at the ports of calls (Ketchikan - Bear Watching, Juneau - Whale Watching and Mendahall Glacier, and Skagway - Yukon White Pass Railway). There was of course the highlight of the trip - Glacier Bay National Park followed by College Fjord.

Our readers have also keenly followed our post-cruise land tour from Princess Cruises, reading our reviews of the places that we stayed - McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge, Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge and finally Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge.

We also shared our daily menus on board the cruise ship Diamond Princess, which was itself attracting a popular following from our readers. To help first time travellers to Alaska, we compiled some travel resources to help them plan their trip - including our top 10 tips for travelling to Alaska, 6 most common questions asked when planning an Alaskan cruise trip and the type of cruise meals on board the cruise.

Following the success of the Alaska Cruise series, we started to share our pre and post cruise itineraries in San Franciso, Seattle and Vancouver to serve as a reference for readers who would like to extend their cruise travel with a few more days' stay in USA and Canada. Do bookmark this link as we continue to update it with new posts.

Singapore Short Getaway Series

Budget is a concern for many when travelling (and that includes us!) and most of us simply can't afford to travel to Alaska or other faraway places a few times every year. Based in Singapore, we travel a few times a year to nearby places such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia for short getaway trips, as a means to recharge our batteries.

In fact, the very first few trips that we published on our blog were to neighboring locations such as Kuala Lumpur, Redang and Langkawi in Malaysia.

After writing our Alaska Cruise series, we continued with sharing our January 2013 trip to Penang and November 2012 trip to Surabaya. These two trip reviews had attracted many readers who were keen on a short getaway from Singapore. In fact, the Penang trip itinerary that we shared was so popular that it is currently ranked 2nd in our all time top visited post!

We then decided to start a new series - Singapore Short Getaway Series in early May 2013 starting with Surabaya where we shared the 4 questions that travellers typically ask when planning for a trip - How to Go, When to Go, Where to Stay and What to Do. This proved to be quite popular with our readers and has in fact risen to become the No 8 ranked post in our all time posts by visits.

Mount Bromo (Credits: indonesia.gunadarma.ac.id)

We have since written 2 more posts in the series - Langkawi and Penang.

USA (Niagara Falls and New York) + Gold Coast Australia Trips

Besides our two popular series, we also shared our trips to the magnificient Niagara Falls USA and the Big Apple New York as well as our August Short Getaway trip to Gold Coast Australia where our popular review of the airline that we took (Scoot) still stands on top of the list of our all time visits.

Blog by Numbers

Here's the statistics that define our travel stories for the past one year.

Countries Featured - 5 (Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia and USA)
Airlines Reviewed - 6 (Air Asia 1-2-3, Berjaya Air, Scoot 1-2-3, Silkair, Southwest, United Airlines)
Accommodations Reviewed - 15
Restaurants Reviewed - 19

Top 10 Posts by Visits

To celebrate this blog's one year birthday, we thought it would be meaningful to share with our readers our top 10 most viewed posts. Do check them out! :)

10. Day 1 Diamond Princess Alaska Cruise - Embarkation
9. Scoot Outta here to Gold Coast!
8. Surabaya - Singapore Short Getaway Series
7. Sumptuous Afternoon High Tea Buffet @ G Hotel Penang
6. Our Scoot Airline review of our flight to Gold Coast on Scoot - The "Works in Progress"
5. Day 1 Diamond Princess Alaska Cruise - Oceanview Double with Balcony at Caribe Deck
4. Hotel Review – Mt McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge
3. Penang Island 4 Days 3 Nights Short Getaway Trip Report
2. Alaska Cruise Trip - Our Full Story

Our Top Post for the Year!
1. Scoot Airline Experience - Review of our flight to Gold Coast on Scoot - The Good

Moving Forward

As we enter our second year of blogging, we would like to share with our readers our plans for the 2nd half of 2013.

Blog Plans

1. More posts coming up for the following 2 series

• Alaska Pre and Post Cruise Itinerary - Amazing Canada, USA and Alaska
• Singapore Short Getaway Series - We will be adding more destinations besides Surabaya, Langkawi and Penang

2. New Trip Reviews

• Sydney 7 Days 6 Nights Trip on Scoot
• Hanoi 7 Days 6 Nights Trip on Vietnam Airlines

A BIG THANK YOU!

To Our Readers and Fellow Travel Bloggers:

Thank you for following our blog and sharing it with your friends and family.Your support means a lot of us, be it a comment left on our posts, a retweet on our tweets, or a like or recommendation on Facebook and Google+.

Thank you so much for your continued support for Discover . Book . Travel and we hoped to continue sharing our travel experiences with all of you!

Yours Sincerely,

Tommy and Samantha

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