Five years of UrbanDuniya

It was exactly five years ago today that I started blogging in earnest for my website UrbanDuniya. It’s a cliche but it’s true; the past five years have been a huge learning curve; and at risk of sounding even more trite, it has been a lot of fun along the way.

When I first started I thought I knew a lot about what I was getting into – I would write, add a few pictures, and post an article three times per week. I would share the articles on social media and people would read them. What I lacked in immediate audience reach could be bridged through other means – creative advertisements, interesting polls and fresh content about offbeat destinations.

One of my first promotional images for UrbanDuniya

Alas, nothing in life is so simple. Writing is not enough on its own – what one writes must be of value to others. And by ‘value’ I mean it needs to be providing something that people can’t find elsewhere. Simply writing dreamily about the beauty of a place is not enough – and where it is enough, the market is usually already well catered for anyway. Three articles per week was also an ambitious aim, especially in the past few years while I’ve been writing books at the same time. I’ve gradually tapered down to between one and two high quality articles per week.

UrbanDuniya’s 2013 ‘look’

Getting the message out there is not as easy as it seemed either – and it is getting tricker as time goes by. The sheer amount of content out there on social media nowadays, not only in travel but across all genres, is my competition. Being heard or seen on social media is not simply a matter of putting yourself out there – it’s a matter of standing out in a marketplace of millions of other creative people. Money spent often, but not always, helps spread the message. Media outlets come and go, blogs start and fail, apps appear (Snapchat wasn’t nearly as big when I started as it is now), and algorithms change. It’s not enough to know social media – you need to know what is happening and changing, every day.

Sunrise at one of my offices…

That said, it was never my intention to make a lot of money from UrbanDuniya. My intention was to put my writing, photographs and travel out into spaces where they could be shared – not just on a weekly travel dairy-style email like I used to send out in 2004 and 2005 when I went travelling. A great example of those emails can be seen in my articles about the Middle East which I published on UrbanDuniya ten years after they were written. Much had changed, especially in the case of Syria, where some of the sights I witnessed had almost ceased to exist in the ensuing decade.

Working on an UrbanDuniya project at the Shrine of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, Bhit Shah, Pakistan

Through time the focus of my blog has changed – it’s become less city lifestyle-based and more travel-based, in line with a more global audience. In that sense it has become less ‘urban’ and more “duniya”. I still have a fondness for the cities that I began from; Melbourne, Lahore, Sydney and Chennai; even if I don’t call some of them home as much as I used to (I would like to say I had been to Chennai recently, but it’s been three years since I walked down Marina Beach). Nevertheless the original four cities still have a place in my blog, something which you’ll see in the next year or so on my YouTube channel.

On the beach in Chennai

Over the past five years there have predictably been some hits and misses – my articles about styles of Muslim womens headscarves is one of my most visited, as are articles about transport in Sydney, my recommendations of places to see around the world and three things I love about Melbourne. I started weekly video blogs (vlogs) in October 2015, but when I realised that things were not quite working I began to build a bank of other material which I thought would. After watching a lot of other videos I prepared to relaunch my YouTube channel on 1st January 2017 – and I haven’t looked back. It took time, but YouTube is now a major part of my connection with the internet. There’s much more to come on YouTube as well, and a lot more to learn – admittedly videography doesn’t come as naturally to me as writing, but I can definitely see improvements, as well as the corresponding payoff.

Undoubtedly the proudest moment of the past five years has been the publication of my book Pakistan Traveller. It was my first ever book when it hit the e-bookshelves in 2015, and I was actually astounded with myself that I pulled it off. My learning experience from publishing Pakistan Traveller gave me the motivation I needed to publish Recipes for Ramadan just twelve months later. In 2017 the second edition of Pakistan Traveller was published on the occasion of Pakistan’s seventieth birthday. While the first edition of Pakistan Traveller was a very proud moment for me, and Recipes for Ramadan built my confidence and accuracy as a writer, Pakistan Traveller 2 was simply huge; it was the moment when I felt that I had “arrived” as a writer and publisher. I’m happy to say that it’s selling well, and opened up many more opportunities for me as one of only a handful of writers who specialise in Pakistan.

Of course there have been some amazing family and friends who have supported me, but I feel that after only five years in it would be premature to start thanking people as if I had been blogging for decades. There are plenty of people who deserve to be recognised, but if I may name just a few I would thank Cez Krol and Agness Walewinder of eTramping.com for inspiring me to start a blog in the first place (not to mention all the support you have given me over the years). Fellow bloggers of note include Andrew Boland of Andy’s World Journeys who has reliably kept in touch whenever I got lost in a world of writing and filming; Ashray and Zara at Backpack ME and Renuka from Voyager for Life for always thinking of me when it comes to writing a collaborative post, and The Guy Who Flies for consistently promoting me as a Pakistan expert on Twitter.

Personally I would like everyone who has been a part of the blog – who has taken me to their villages in Pakistan for photography, provided amazing hospitality, driven me to places I wasn’t familiar with, shown me things I never knew existed, and posed for photos or videos where required. to thank my parents Fay and Chris, and my aunty and uncle Barbara and Michael, who always take a keen interest in my work, and consistently promote it thought their social media channels. I must thank my brother Josh and his gorgeous woman Sarah for their contributions. In Pakistan I thank Aehsun for being there from the start when I was setting up in Lahore, and Moazam for being there everywhere else. And of course I thank Amit, who I know always believes in me and supports me, no matter how bizarre the concept I’ve come up with.

The past five years have been a blast, and there’s so much more exciting stuff to come. Now, back to writing…