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Published: February 20th 2022
Elk Island National Park
Going for winter walks in Elk Island National Park just outside of EdmontonI’m writing this post to mark the two-year anniversary of the event which has transformed all of our lives, mostly for the worse. Of course, I’m talking about the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the first part below, I’m going to tell the story of how my family and I moved around the world (from Taiwan to Canada) just before COVID started, and what happened to me and my business, a successful travel website, as a result (spoiler: it died).
In the second part, I’ll talk about how we’ve passed these two years in my hometown, Edmonton, after being away for many years, and how things are going now.
Moving to Canada (+ COVID)
The timing of COVID was, ironically, rather ideal for my family. For some context, I first moved to Taiwan in 2008 as an English teacher, after several years of backpacking solo to various corners of the world (as I used to document mostly here on Travelblog.org).
Initially planning to stay in Taiwan for a single year then relocate to South America, I ended up falling in love (with both the country and a Taiwanese woman, Emily), getting married, having two kids, publishing a book,
Our house in Taiwan
Our kids on the street in front of our apartment in Taiwan and transitioning from English teacher to textbook writer/editor to full time travel blogger.
I always missed my home and family in Edmonton, Canada. But after having kids, these feelings amplified. On top of that, Emily and I felt that Canada would be a better place to raise our kids as they got older, in terms of environment, family support, and education. In Canada, they could even attend a Mandarin bilingual school and continue learning Chinese. So, after a few years of planning for the big move, we sold our apartment and most of our possessions, packed up, and left Taiwan in September of 2019.
Because Emily and I were, for the first and possibly last time ever in our careers, both unemployed at the same time, we figured this was the perfect opportunity to travel. So we shipped our adopted Taiwanese street cat to Canada ahead of us, then we embarked on a 10-week journey of a lifetime, with stops in Oman, Istanbul, southern Italy, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Austria, Czech Republic, and Budapest. Our kids (aged 4 and 5 at the time) became travellers in the making, and they still vividly remember much of the
Taiwan tea farm
Hiking to high mountain tea farms in Taiwan trip today.
Arriving in Canada just in time for Christmas of 2019, life was blissful. My travel blog, which had been a hobby for many years, had taken off that year after I’d decided to monetize it and transform it into a business. Not knowing what I would do in Canada job-wise (and the same for Emily), I’d decided to turn my passion project into a full-time job.
My countless hours of effort were finally paying off, and December 2019 was the first month that I broke 10,000 USD in earnings, an amount I had never imagined possible. It’s no exaggeration to say that it was a life dream come true for me, to be able to support my family doing the thing I love the most. This also took away all the stress of not knowing how we'd get by in Canada after our big move.
So anyways, back in Canada, we camped out at my parents’ place, and within a month, we had a car (the first one I’ve ever personally owned, at nearly 40 in age), a mortgage, and the first backyard (and tree!) I’ve ever been able to call my own.
In
Muscat, Oman
Visiting Oman's largest mosque January 2020, when COVID first broke out in Asia, few people in Canada took notice. The traffic on my travel blog nosedived as Taiwan began imposing restrictions in order to curb their outbreak. Since my website, at that time, was mostly about Taiwan, the impact was sudden and dramatic. In other words, I lost all my income a solid two months before so many others in Canada did and the government started offering support.
I remember meeting my new accountant that month and mentioning this, and he said he had only briefly noted in the news that there was some kind of virus spreading in Asia, but he admitted he didn’t know anything about it. In Canada, people are quite accustomed to hearing about disasters in places that seem far away and not paying much attention to them.
On January 23, 2020, the first case appeared in Canada, when it was still called the “Wuhan novel coronavirus.” In February, we started to hear more about it. Even then, like most Canadians, I remained skeptical that it would ever reach or really impact us in Edmonton, a rather isolated city that feels far away from, well, everything. And then
Traveling in Europe
Our family in Kotor, Montenegro in March, of course, it did, and the rest is history.
Because of the way travel bloggers get paid (mostly from advertising networks and affiliate programs), it usually takes 1-3 months for us to actually receive income from a given month. So in those first few months of traffic loss, I was still receiving some of the biggest paychecks I’ve ever made. I figured that the longest this could last was a few months; everything would be fine by summer. I'd only be short a few months' pay, so I wasn’t overly concerned. The loss of my grandfather around the same time was another shock.
Remember earlier when I said that the timing of COVID was actually good for us? Well, that’s because, for the first time in my life, I had a house of my own. After living in a tiny apartment in Taiwan since they were born, my kids now had a whole basement and backyard to play in. We had renovations to do. And after moving across the world and traveling for months, we were finally settled into one spot, which felt nice. Despite all the craziness happening out there, we welcomed the chance to
Ice skating
My son ice skating in Rundle Park, Edmonton just stay at home and chill out for a while.
Emily and I both worked from home for years before COVID, so this wasn’t a tough transformation for us, as it was for so many other parents. Likewise, our kids hadn’t really started school yet (Sage actually missed his first half a year of kindergarten because we were traveling in Europe), so they were already used to being at home all the time, too.
Lastly, we had saved up quite a bit of money before leaving Taiwan, so we could afford to earn less for a while. Emily still had work teaching kids from Taiwan online (except at brutally early hours because of the time difference), and I had old freelance writing jobs from Taiwan to fall back on. Still the income loss was so dramatic that for a few months, I actually qualified for and received Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) checks.
Eventually my income surpassed the limit for receiving government assistance, but just barely, and remained a fraction of what it had been before. But unlike traditional workers who lost their jobs, I still had my job and worked full time on it; I just
Red Rock Coulee
Solo travels in Southern Alberta didn’t get paid for all those hours of work anymore, and that's still where I'm at today.
Still, in many ways, we were secure and well set up to hunker down and ride this thing out for as long as necessary. That’s why I consider that we were very lucky, and I really feel for all the families out there that I know had it way harder than us. Like everyone, we just didn’t realize how bloody long this would go on for.
Everyone always asks us how the kids are adjusting to Canada. The answer is that kids are super adaptable; it's actually much harder for us adults to adapt to such big changes. They couldn't be better. Sage (just about 8) is an avid Pokemon fan and is obsessed with cats, while Lavender (age 6) loves reading graphic novels and regular novels and is learning to play the keyboard. They are in a Mandarin bilingual program, where most of their classmates are of Chinese or Taiwanese descent (or mixed, like they are). This means we've also had a chance to meet a lot of other Chinese-speaking parents and are starting to become friends with some of
Vegreville Giant Egg
One of the numerous "Giants of the Prairies" in Alberta them.
Exploring Edmonton and Alberta
Being back in the city I grew up in after being away for so long definitely came with some reverse culture shock. But this was made weirder, and in some ways more difficult, by the fact that COVID was raging and we were almost never leaving our house.
It was less than ideal circumstances for Emily to adjust to life in Canada, not to mention seek employment or go back to school (which she ended up doing later on). I found it hard to reconnect with old friends, let along make new ones. We could barely even see my family in Canada, one of the main reasons we’d decided to move here.
One of the biggest differences between Taiwan and Canada is how lively the former is, and how quiet the latter is. In Taiwan, you can just step out your front door and there are crowds of people, noisy traffic, food stalls, 24-hour convenience stores, and things going on everywhere. Want to go hiking in the mountains? Hop the local train for literally a couple bucks, and you’ll be there in an hour or two. Same goes for beaches, surfing,
Hiking in Jasper
A fun hike with the kids in Jasper National Park, Alberta hot springs, outdoor raves, and more.
Having been used to that for years, I loved the fresh air in Canada, the quietness (especially for sleeping at night), but I also felt bored within weeks, as could be expected.
In the first few months of COVID, when everyone was in shock and everything was closed, we resorted to family hiking trips. Elk Island National Park, just outside of Edmonton, became our favourite place. As the situation continuously changed like a rollercoaster, we ventured as far as Jasper and Banff in the Rocky Mountains when it was considered safe to do so, and come summer, did a whole lot of camping.
Once in a while, when I needed solitude and a break from the mundane daily routine of commuting from my bed to my study room for work, I would slip out to go for
road trips around Edmonton, just driving for hours and checking out the "Giants of the Prairies" spread across the Alberta prairies, which include the world's largest sausage, pyrogie, Mallard duck, and Ukrainian egg.
The following school year was a mess, with the kids forced to stay at home and endure counterproductive online classes every time the
Edmonton Sunflower Farm
Sunflowers at the Edmonton Corn Maze case numbers exploded. We were so happy the kids had each other; they played together and kept themselves occupied for hours and hours every day while Emily and I worked in our office.
By late afternoon, the kids would get restless, and I’d spend the rest of my day playing with them, reading to them, teaching them, etc. Despite how tiring and repetitive these days became, I constantly reminded myself how lucky I am to be able to spend so much time with kids. I’ve essentially been a stay-at-home dad since by kids were born, and I see all this time spent with them as an investment in the incredible little humans they are growing into.
Around December 2020, I went through a rough patch; I had really thought things would improve by the end of the year, but they only seemed to be getting worse and worse. I’d spent the whole year continuing to work on my travel blog under the assumption that everything would soon go back to normal, so I should use the time to gain an advantage on my competitors. I’d also started a second non-travel website, focused on Amazon products, but my heart
Dinosaur Provincial Park
A real dinosaur leg fossil in Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta wasn’t in it and it was failing, so I ended up selling it at a loss.
With almost everything closed in the city, we ended up doing a whole lot of ice skating that winter. I even built a little skating rink in our backyard. As summer of 2021 approached, things seemed to be getting better. My road trips also got longer, as I took the chance to explore the many parts of my province I’d never been to before. This opportunity to get to know my own home better was another silver lining of the pandemic for me.
Like most travel bloggers, I’m really not good at sitting still. All in all, I visited Red Deer, Calgary, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Drumheller, Dinosaur Provincial Park, Fort McMurray, Canmore and Kananaskis, Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park, and Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta (just to name a few), plus ventures into neighbouring Saskatchewan and British Columbia when things were going better. I won’t link to all the articles here, but if you search the Canada section of my website (nickkembel.com), you’ll find ‘em.
Even more locally, we’ve been exploring the heck out of Edmonton, especially as things open up more
Waterton Lakes National Park
Kayaking on Cameron Lake in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta and more. In this post,
99 things to do in Edmonton (99 being the number of Wayne Gretzky, the “Great One”, a hockey player who led the Edmonton Oilers to countless victories), you'll get an idea of just how busy we've been on the local travel front.
These explorations grew into a goal of pivoting my mostly Taiwan-focused travel blog to one that focuses equally on Canada. It takes serious time and effort to break into a new niche and do well in it, though, so this remains an ongoing project.
If anything, this pandemic has taught me the importance of not putting all my eggs into one basket. Even after travel returns to Taiwan and my website takes off again, a similar event in the future (or, for example, an invasion by China) could disrupt the travel industry and rob me of all my income again.
In summer of 2021, the idiotic leadership of my province declared the pandemic over and said it would be the “best summer ever.” Of course that backfired, the case numbers went insane again after, and hundreds more people died. Then the kids were right back in school again, and despite the fact that we, along
Lethbridge High Level Bridge
A famous bridge in Lethbridge, southern Alberta with 80% of the people in our country, were now vaccinated, Omicron took off and messed up our lives once again.
I reached a low point once again in December 2021. I'd lost a cousin to COVID, and I it was starting to feel like things would never get better. Only now as I write this, in February 2022, things are FINALLY starting to look hopeful in the travel industry. Taiwan remains totally closed to tourists, one of the few remaining countries in the world like that, so my main website remains at almost precisely 90% down (in traffic and income), as it has ever since the start of COVID.
But things are starting to change. More and more people are gaining the confidence to travel again, and I think that is going to compound leading up to summer. Some of my Europe and Canada articles are starting get more traffic, and that will hopefully continue.
Next month there’s a good chance Taiwan will be making the first steps to opening up, which will involve the shortening of mandatory hotel quarantine time (for citizens and residents) from 14 days to 10, 7, 5, and eventually none. They
Fort Edmonton Park
The original fur trading post in Edmonton are also opening to business travellers, and regular tourists should be able to enter by summertime or fall.
For these reasons, I’m feeling more hopeful than ever. I expect my traffic and income to come back gradually as things open up more and more, and summertime should be a turning point. My third website, FunWorldFacts, which I started in October last year and have been growing as quickly as possible, is also just starting to see some traffic, and I expect that to really take off in summer as well, potentially monetizing it by the end of the year.
For this new site, I wanted something that was loosely related to travel, but not dependent on the travel industry doing well to receive traffic. That’s how I came up with the idea of a website that provides fun and interesting facts about places around the world. Ultimately, I’m planning to cover every country, major city, and major attraction in the world. I really enjoy working on it and I’m learning so much as I do it.
Just like having a second child is easier than the first, so is making your second or third website. There’s way
William A. Switzer Provincial Park, Alberta
One of the nearly 500 provincial parks in Alberta less of a learning curve; you know what needs to be done and how to do it. I’m publishing about one article every two days (whereas on my main site, it’s more like one every two weeks). I’m also learning how to source out work, such as hiring writers and streamlining other processes.
We really miss Taiwan; our friends, our family, the convenient lifestyle, and of course, the food. After cancelling our flights to Taiwan in 2020 and again in 2021, this year, we’re finally going. We will spend all of May and June there, to make up for lost time.
This will probably be the last time we can make such a long trip there; as our kids get older, it will be harder to pull them out of school for that long. Plus, Emily is currently in university here to get a certificate for teaching in Canada.
Despite having many years of teaching experience and a Master’s Degree is TESL, she doesn’t have a BEd and needs one to teach in Canada. Once she graduates in spring of 2023, she may be teaching full time and will be limited to shorter trips, and in summer only (when Taiwan is brutally hot). Since her classes are mostly online still, things haven’t changed too much in terms of our daily schedule. Ironically, even if COVID hadn’t happened, we probably wouldn’t have been making any big trips abroad in these couple years anyway.
As life slowly returns to normal here, I am also blessed to have such a supportive family here, including a sister who has loads of amazing friends and is into the same underground music scenes that I am, so I can piggyback off her social life. This summer, we are finally going to Shambhala in BC, a music festival I've been wanting to go to since I was a teenager, and which we already bought tickets for but was cancelled for the last two years.
That pretty much brings us up to now! Thank you if you’ve read this far! I hope that, whoever or wherever you, that your life is also gradually improving and you are also finding reasons to feel more positive and hopeful for what’s to come!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Nick, it is fantastic seeing you blogging again. We've always enjoyed your adventures. The world has changed and it has been hard not traveling. We are excited for you that your businesses seem to be taking off and the Taiwan work will come back sooner than later. We hope to go to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan in fall of 2023. We may reach out to you or your website for ideas. We hope you keep blogging. MJ