In Retrospect: our year in review

On April 10, wonder | wander | women launched our first post, touching down and reaching out. A little over a year later and over 100,000 readers, we take a look back on our favourites, our most popular posts, and tributes to our inspirations.

Many of our posts for the first few months revolved around our base on the East Coast. Our number one most-viewed blog post was our lunchtime trip to Little Manila in Jersey City, a little island of Philippine home goodness transplanted to New Jersey. We happily ate our favourite desserts with a family friend and returned home loaded with food we had been craving.

Early this year, wonder | wander | women's US half went on holiday to gorgeous and fascinating Bali. We posted about mesmerising views, beautiful jewellery and - a recurring theme in our blog! - delicious food, and you must have liked it, because this was our second most viewed post.

Our third most-viewed post went back to our roots, talking about the bittersweet land of sugar. Negros Island in the Philippines has a complex and sometimes uncomfortable history, but no one can deny that it's beautiful.

It was hard to pick only three favourite posts, but we did our best. Here's where Mom gives sage advice on following your daughter while she's celebrity hunting in a big city. (Disclaimer: this post is humorous, we do not actually condone stalking in any form!)

We also like to look back on our post on green spaces in London. There are so many strange, beautiful, historic places in this great city, but we're most attracted to parks and gardens.

We just can't resist living scenery - see our recent blog on spring in NYC. Flowers make a gorgeous backdrop, and their variety feeds our scientific curiosity.

Inspirations and influences are also a great part of this blog. Many experiences influence our art and writing; in June of last year we began our inspirational blog wonder | wander | world to share what was most meaningful to us. Of course writers are a huge part of that; we love travelling to events to see our favourite writers, like George R. R. Martin.

On the topic of great influences, this year was also bittersweet: Leonard Nimoy and Terry Pratchett passed away, compelling us to make tribute posts on their separate legacies to science fiction and fantasy.

We hope that the coming year has brighter things in store. We look forward to exploring more, creating and discovering more, and of course writing more. Most of all we look forward to sharing these experiences with you.

Thank you for our happy trails together!