Best European River Cruise Advice
By Hank Schrader, USMA ’71, Europe Destination & Europe River Cruise Expert
Sometimes it is possible to get so much good content on a website that it becomes confusing.
As I was studying our website, I realized that putting all the blogs about European River Cruising under the category of Europe River Cruise on our blog archives page made it very difficult to quickly find the answer to a question or search you might have about these wonderful trips.
So, with blog # 77 about river cruising, I want to tell about how you can quickly find out the exact information you might be looking for about river cruising in Europe, with the emphasis on our blogs.
I will begin by providing you a little history how our blogs have evolved, tell you about our 2 most important river cruise web pages and finish with our new blog archives organization on our website.
I hope you won’t roll your eyes and scream “TMI” (too much information)—there is really a point to this blog!
Our Blog History in Numbers
Our 2020 visitor traffic as of 20 August 2020 for our website. What this diagram means is that about 65% who visit our site find something worthwhile to read!
We first published our blog using a WordPress website that was not part of our website. In 2016, we started writing the blog regularly, publishing 36 blogs. In 2017, we published 44 blogs. In 2018, we published 31 on WordPress. Our total to date—112 blogs on the WordPress Blog Archives page.
We decided to move our blog to our new website and began publishing on our Squarespace website, starting with our 27 September 2018 blog and wrote 10 more as part of the website in 2018.
We wrote 42 blogs in 2019 and are on pace to produce 42 or probably more in 2020.
2 of our most dedicated blog readers—Jeff and Anne in Prague after our post AmaWaterways Danube cruise at dinner in Prague.
“LOVE IT!!!! Vive’ la France!!! Tres bien mon ami!!! ”
Our Blog Content
Our blogs, by design, are much more detailed than most other blogs—usually 2000 words or more. There are two types of blogs we use to help you understand our topics.
In the first type, we try to tell the story of each topic in a way you can see yourself there—can we capture the experience for you?
While some blogs easily fall into storytelling type of blog, others are designed as informational, data blogs, our second type of blog. Today’s blog is more the informational type blog.
Both have immense value, in my opinion. Sometimes you just need the data in a form you can understand and make comparisons. But this alone is not enough—you need to know what you will experience on a trip to get the full story. A key element of the blogs is a clear separation of facts (usually there is a source) and our opinion.
When possible, we use many pictures in each blog to help enhance our descriptions—Anne has some amazing pictures that are the true highlight of the blogs. We very rarely use free pictures unless we aren’t allowed to take photographs.
With an amazing picture like this one from Anne on the Danube River, you can understand her outstanding contribution to our blog!
As you can see from this blog, we break up our blogs into sub headings to make it easier to understand. Often, there is quite a bit of research that goes into the content—we try to sift through the overwhelming amount of information and advertising to paint an easily understandable summary of each topic. Most is first-hand information from our experiences, but some is news or research, or information facts (internet, blogs, books, travel publications, company brochures or other sources) that you might require to become a better traveler.
Our blogs have two goals—the most important is to inform you so you can decide if a trip you are thinking about is right for you. The second, a bit more subtle, is to help you decide if we are the right folks to help plan your trip.
Our 2 Most Popular Website pages
You might be interested in our reach from our website. We have had over 7,215 visitors our website so far this year. About 2,200+ first visit our home page and then over 4,800+ have gone to another page on the website. This means they find our content worthy of a second look.
By far, our Best Europe River Cruise Routes Guide (1,384 visitors) and our Europe River Cruise Comparisons 2020-2021 (958 visitors) are the two most visited pages on our site. It is a small wonder, because we feel these are as good a resource as is available to most folks on the worldwide web.
Why don’t you read them now? Here are the links:
Our New Europe River Cruise Archive Page (Currently 41 Blogs)
Here is the link: Europe River Cruise Archive Page
We cover 5 topics on this archive page. They are:
· Our River Cruise Services (7 blogs)
· River Cruise Lines Comparisons (3 blogs)
· River Cruise Routes (14 blogs)
· River Cruise Advice (12 blogs)
· River Cruise Reviews (5 blogs)
So, what does this mean for you?
In short, it provides you a way to completely understand river cruising through our eyes.
Perhaps, best of all, it is very good content and often, many blogs are on the first page of Google or very near the top.
Here is what one reader had to say about our 10 Best River Cruise Blogs:
Len and Jane on our 2019 AmaWaterways Captivating Rhine River Cruise.
“#76 is a good blog! I agree with your ratings of your “best” blogs. These are great for folks trying to learn about European river cruise characteristics and options.”
Our Updated Blog Archive Page (Currently 52 Blogs)
Here is the link to our: Blog Archive Page
We cover 6 topics on our Blog Archive Page. They are:
· Europe Travel (12 blogs)
· Europe Destinations (8 blogs)
· Best Value Travel (16 blogs)
· Travel Planning (9 blogs)
· Ocean Cruises (1 blog)
· Veterans (6 blogs)
These 52 blogs also are another great resource. They are resources for you about our total travel agency services and will help you become a smarter traveler.
Jakie S at Pointe du Hoc 2019
Here is some really good feedback from one of the blog readers about our blog Omaha and Utah Beaches, 1944
“I wouldn’t have thought such a huge tasking could be put in such a clear, succinct, one read, to-the-point summary. However, you did it brilliantly, especially throwing in the key numbers for us “numbers” guys and then supporting it with pictures. I’ve never seen it done so well, that’s a fact! ”
My Final Thoughts
I think our blog is exactly what we hoped it would be—it represents an unmatched resource for you to learn about European River Cruising, Europe Travel and how we can help you travel better and get more value for your money.
It is wonderful to hear so many good comments about our blog—it sure makes all the hard work worth it!
We would like to thank those of you who have trusted us for their travel needs and look for to help you again and anyone else in the future who might need our help.
When you are spending your hard-earned money for a vacation, you want an advisor who can match you with the right trip. You want someone who will understand your expectations and fuel your anticipation (or excitement) to get you the best possible trip experience. And, you want someone who can help you with the decision making process. We think we have all these qualities.
Whatever your Dream Destinations are, we are here to help you get the best possible vacation based on what is important to you! We will provide you high quality, expertly planned travel. Please give me a call 713-397-0188 (Hank) or email me at hschrader@dreamdestinations.com. We want to help you: Savor life…make memories…Visit Dream Destinations! Your journey begins here!
HANK is a certified Western European Destination Specialist (DS) who has been traveling to Europe for 49 years. He is also an Accredited Cruise Counselor (ACC), conferred by the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA). This recognized expert in cruise and leisure travel is a retired Army Officer, and taught World Geography for 8 years. He is a `71 graduate of West Point and has earned 2 master’s degrees. His other Certifications:
AmaWaterways River Cruise Specialist
Viking River Cruise Specialist
Scenic River Cruise Specialist
Emerald Waterways Specialist
Avalon Waterways Specialist
Brit Agent
“Good Morning Hank,
You never cease to amaze. What a wonderful blog this is😊
”
