The New Nomadic Notes Newsletter
[September 2024] Nomadic Notes and The Travel Wire newsletter updates, flooding in Chiang Mai and Hanoi, new metro sites I'm working on, and Laos-China Railway articles.
Welcome to the rebooted Nomadic Notes Newsletter. This is the first newsletter I’ve posted since splitting the newsletter in two. If you were subscribed to Nomadic Notes for the weekly roundup of best travel reads, those links are now at The Travel Wire. You can unsubscribe from either newsletter if you were only here for one or the other.
I have been wanting to make a dedicated travel reads newsletter for a while, but I didn’t know how to go about it. This was partly due to coming up with a name. The new name is ideal for a travel reads newsletter, so I am looking forward to seeing how it evolves.
The Nomadic Notes Newsletter will probably be monthly, and I will see what it evolves into in this iteration. So far I am thinking that it will be travel updates, stuff I am working on, and a summary of the latest articles at Nomadic Notes. I will also be looking into self-hosting the email list, though I haven’t found a solution I like yet.
Travel updates
I’m in Chiang Mai at the moment, and this is the first time I’ve spend an entire September here (the rainiest month of the rainy season). This year has been extra rainy, and the river area of Chiang Mai is flooding as I write this. I had a walk around the river area this morning, and the market area is holding off the flood, while the Night Bazaar area has flooded. The river is still rising.
[Ping River in Chiang Mai (via @nomadicnotes).]
I will be going to Hanoi next, which has fared even worse this month with floods. October is usually the best month in Hanoi, so hopefully the city can start recovering without further mad storms this year.
What I’m working on
In addition to splitting up the newsletter, I have been reorganising Nomadic Notes. There have been some big changes with Google with their Helpful Content Update, which has demoted small publishers in favour of showing results for sites like Reddit. I din’t get slammed like some sites have, but I am noticing a decline in traffic. This might be from the rollout of AI answers in Google search results (which I have not seen in Thailand).
One area I am doing ok in is urban transit systems, so I’m taking that as a sign that I should separate that content into its own niche. I have already done this before when I split Future Southeast Asia content into its own site. I pivoted from full-time travel blogging during the pandemic, so this is another evolution. These days I am treating Nomadic Notes as an anvil for ideas, so I think the urban transit systems is the next step for me. It might also be that the newsletter becomes the blog.
I have mentioned previously that I set up a guide for the HCMC Metro. There isn’t much on the site yet because there isn’t a metro to write about, but it’s starting to get traffic. Apparently the metro is going to open in Q4 this year, so people are searching about it more. I will be reviewing the metro when it opens.
In addition to the HCMC Metro, I’ve been getting search traffic for the Hanoi Metro from the various construction articles I have written. I figured I should complete the Vietnam metro collection and start a Hanoi Metro guide. I’m using this site to research the future lines and improve my geographic knowledge of Hanoi.
Latest posts at Nomadic Notes
My articles this month have been from my recent trip to Laos.
• How to buy tickets for the Laos-China Railway
There is still no official online ticket site, but there is an agent site for Laos-China Railway tickets.
• Laos-China Railway travel guide
I rode the LCR weeks after Laos reopened to international travel, and some services weren’t available when I first wrote this guide. I’ve now updated the guide.
• Vientiane Khamsavath Railway Station Guide
A guide to Vientiane Khamsavath railway station, including station amenities, tickets, and transport to and from the station.
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James Clark – Chiang Mai, Thailand.