As a blogger, I am often spending a lot of time on social media. Whether that is to promote my blog, or to research trends to grow my presence, I feel like I spend most of my free time on there. As a lot of us know, too much time on social media can sometimes become a bit toxic, as we may find ourselves comparing our lives to others too much. That's why I've come up with a list of activities you or your child could try instead of scrolling social media for hours.

Social media can be great in moderation, as it helps us to connect with people we may not get to see a lot, especially in recent times in the pandemic. It can also help us to connect with new people too, but it's important to take breaks from it too.

Activities to try instead of using social media

1. Exercise

2. Painting

3. Gaming

4. Reading

5. Go for a walk

The return coach journey was a gifted PR service, however, all views are my own.

This week, my boyfriend Joe and I went on a press visit to London with National Express coaches. In this blog post I will be sharing my day with you and what we got up to, while also reviewing my return coach journey.

First of all, we got our coach into London from Bournemouth bright and early at 6:30am. We got into Victoria Coach Station at 9:50am so we could spend a lot of time in London. Our coach had phone charging facilities which was needed for a day out in London, air conditioning, leather seats and a toilet (also needed).

National Express have competitive prices and are often cheaper than trains. It didn't even take much longer than the train journey from Bournemouth to London and it didn't feel too long at all. Coaches are also the most environmentally friendly form of public transport, so well worth considering for your next trip away. I'll be honest, I never really thought of travelling anywhere by coach until this experience but it's definitely worth doing for a day trip like this.

Related: UK cities you need to visit

Exploring London

The first thing we saw when we left Victoria Coach Station was Peggy Porschen cakes. I had seen it all over Instagram so we decided to go in and try a cake. We had the salted caramel and popcorn cupcakes and it was the best cupcake I've had in my life. It should have been for £4.50 per cake but I didn't mind spending that as I enjoyed it so much in the end.

After sitting in Hyde Park for a short while eating our cakes, we decided to go to Covent Garden. We had a walk round there, then Leicester Square and finally China Town. I had to refrain from going into M&M world because I always want to go in but never buy anything. London was actually quite quiet, probably because it was a Monday, but I thought it would be a lot busier than it was being the first day indoor places were open.

Camden Market

We then went to Camden and looked around the market for a while. Of course, we ended up getting food at the market! I got a cheeseburger from Burger and Beyond which was amazing, and mac and cheese from The Mac Factory which was also amazing. We had planned a boat trip on the canal that goes around the zoo and ends up in Little Venice, but we didn't get to go because it started pouring down just as we were about to depart. Classic.

When the weather turned and we couldn't get on our boat trip, we ended up just going inside places to stay and stay dry, and away from the thunder and lightning. Our coach back was at 7pm so we just made our way to Victoria again and went inside pubs to stay dry.

Related: 48 hours in Lincoln

Home time

We then got the coach back and ended up back in Bournemouth at around 9:20pm, it was a lot quicker on the day home due to less traffic. By this point we were so tired from getting up so early, but a good tired as we had a lovely day out. We walked almost 8 miles and over 20,000 steps.

We both went straight to sleep when we got in and I had the best sleep I've had in so long! It was such a lovely day, despite not going quite to plan with the weather, and getting the coach was so easy too. It was also very well socially distanced on the coach which I was happy with, I felt safe due to the limited seating and wearing of face coverings.

Related: 3 days in Suffolk

Thank you to the National Express for a lovely journey, we had a great day.

Have you ever travelled by coach before?

AD - This is a sponsored post.

This month marks 5 years of Wool of the King, so I thought I’d share my experiences over the years and the sort of things I have got from blogging and growing my social media channels, including gifted products and payment. I am hoping this post will encourage young people, bloggers or not, to pursue their goals.

Early years

When I first started my blog in 2016, I was at college and I only really wrote blog posts occasionally. It was just a space for me to chat about things I wanted to chat about as a hobby. When I started university, I still only occasionally posted updates and one day, one of my posts got over 1000 reads. I was so happy and this really motivated me to write more, but with assignments, a part-time job and a uni social life, I found it really hard to keep up with my blog so I stopped writing for a while.

It wasn’t until 2020 at the start of the pandemic that I started to write weekly blog posts and really start focusing on my growth. At first, it was just out of boredom, I had so much more free time so I decided to use that time to grow my blog and social media.

Growing my online presence

Once I started blogging more regularly, I wanted to make sure these posts were being seen and gaining an audience, so I focused on growing my social media channels including Twitter and Instagram. As a result of this, my blog views were growing each month and I began to partake in gifted influencer campaigns on my blog and over on Instagram. I was so excited by this because I never expected to be doing anything like that!

If you want to find out more about influencer marketing, check out the Mindy Parisi Influencer Spotlight.

In this instance, engagement is key! The more you engage with others, the more they will engage with you, it’s so important in growing your blog and socials.

Onwards and upwards

This year is the first year I have started making money through blogging and I never thought I would be able to say that. It may not be a lot to some, and it’s not enough to make a living from at the moment but having any extra money through blogging is crazy to me as it started out as just a hobby when I was 17.

So far, I have made money through sponsored posts on my blog, influencer ads, advertising slots on my blog and affiliate sales. Last month I made a total of £184 which has been my highest paid month yet. I would love to be able to write E-books one day and sell those.

I have spoken a lot about blogging in this post, but a lot of my influencer campaigns are on Instagram. These days, lots of brands look to collaborate with content creators on there. I used to think you had to have over 10k followers to collaborate with brands but this is not the case anymore as smaller accounts often have higher engagement.

Read more about the rise in influencer marketing. 

I have really loved my blogging journey, but it hasn’t always been easy. There have often been times where I’ve wanted to give up, or thought no one was going to take me seriously and it’s fine for that to happen. The trick is to just not give up when you feel like that, and keep pushing through with whatever it is you may be wanting to do. I have been blogging for 5 years now, but it has only been in the last year that I have started seeing signs of success.

When was a time that you wanted to give up on something but kept going?

This product was gifted to me as a PR product but all views are my own and I will be honest in my review. This post also contains affiliate links, meaning if you purchase a product through the links I will gain a small commission at no extra cost to you.

So if you're in the blogging community, you will probably already know that Eleanor from Not So Modern Girl, recently released an E-Book called The Art of Blog Writing, and I am so excited to have a copy to review!

Even the most seasoned bloggers need advice on blog writing from time to time and it's always great to hear advice from different sources, so we can keep on top of our game.