The Atlas Heart

Hi! I’m Mimi.

As someone who has spent over 80% of her life in California, I created this space to share local insight, practical travel tips, and everything you need to explore the best of the Golden State. From cities to beaches, historic sights, and raw natural beauty, let’s go find somewhere beautiful to get lost!

Hi! I’m Mimi.

As someone who has spent over 80% of her life in California, I created this space to share local insight, practical travel tips, and everything you need to explore the best of the Golden State. From cities to beaches, historic sights, and raw natural beauty, let’s go find somewhere beautiful to get lost!

POPULAR POSTS

Skateboardings riding down Venice Beach Boardwalk on a nice day to demonstrate one of the best things to do in Los Angeles.

85+ Best & Fun Things to Do in LA (Los Angeles) in 2023

A San Diego street at sunset with palm trees and the ocean in the distance, best things to do in San Diego, California.

77 Best & Fun Things to do in San Diego, California [2023]

101 things to do in Sacramento, California | The Ultimate Bucket List

71 Fun & Best Things to do in Sacramento, California [Ultimate Bucket List]

Things to do in Santa Cruz

101 Things to Do in Santa Cruz, California (From a Local)

tieks reviews - are Tieks worth the cost?

Tieks Review (for 2023): Are Tieks Really Worth the Cost?

Figueroa Mountain Brewing - Santa Barbara, California - 30 California Breweries to Visit

The 30 Best California Breweries to Visit

DESTINATIONS

LATEST ADVENTURES

A luxury campsite with a canvas teepee and a folding camping kitchen table, with smoke rising in the background.

11 BEST Camping Kitchens for Easy Outdoor Cooking [2023]

Best Wheeled Backpacks

12 Best Wheeled Backpacks (Ultimate 2023 Buying Guide)

best camping canopy

11 BEST Camping Canopies for Your Next Outdoor Trip [2023]

Two pairs of feet dangling from green roller coaster seats with a clear blue sky in the background.

15 BEST Shoes for Disneyland for Walking All Day [2023]

Best Winter Tents

BEST Winter Tents for Cold Weather Camping [2023 Guide]

A woman in a striped dress and a man in a maroon sweatshirt and glasses holding a grey hardside suitcase stand on the stone patio outside a vacation rental and unlock the door.

21 BEST Airbnb Alternatives for Your Next Trip [2023 Guide]

26

YEARS IN CALIFORNIA

3

REGIONS I’VE LIVED

10

YEARS OF BLOGGING

ITINERARIES & BUCKET LISTS

Death Valley National Park to Joshua Tree National Park

Death Valley National Park to Joshua Tree National Park

MY TRAVEL ESSENTIALS

All of my favorite travel essentials in one place! Find out my recommended travel resources, preferred products, and must-have gear that I use in my own travels so you can be prepared for your next trip.

What a beautiful day for a banna 💛 Day 2 of the

What a beautiful day for a banna 💛 Day 2 of the wedding festivities and my now most favorite photos of Suneel [3,4, and 5].

Mehndi part II ❤️The best way to start off the

Mehndi part II ❤️The best way to start off the wedding weekend = delicious Indian food, music, henna, and hanging out with some of my favorite women. 🥰

Mehndi vibes, part I ❤️

Mehndi vibes, part I ❤️

4.29.23 ❤️

Since it’s that time of year for reflection and

Since it’s that time of year for reflection and goals, I just finished tallying up my budgeting spreadsheets. Here’s a look at The Atlas Heart’s growth in the past four years, and our projected growth for 2023. Letzzzz go!

✨2019✨
Annual revenue = $4,787
Total pageviews = 256,245

✨2020✨
Annual revenue = $12,600
Total pageviews = 349,658

✨2021✨*started working on TAH full-time
Annual revenue = $66,797
Pageviews = 872,919

✨2022✨
Annual revenue = $194,974
Pageviews = 2,386,618

✨2023 (Projected)✨
Annual revenue = $470,000
Pageviews = 3,600,000

✨Milestone Goal (projected to reach by 2025)✨
Become a million dollar business

💰Breakdown of income💰
Ad revenue = 56.5%
Affiliate revenue = 43.3%
Products = 0.2%
.
.
Happy New Year!! ✨🍾

Even though I’ve been running my website since 2

Even though I’ve been running my website since 2012, it always used to be my passion not my main source of income.   It was a way of sharing my experiences and perspective about the places I traveled. I never had a business plan or looked all that much into how to make money from it.

Over the next six years, I went from bartending to running a somewhat successful consulting business as a freelance marketer that still allowed me to travel and work remotely.

Although I always imagined being able to make a living from my website, it honestly seemed unlikely that I’d be able to make money from something that I enjoyed so much.

It wasn’t until 2018 that I started teaching myself SEO and invested in numerous courses.   It took another year after that to start looking into how to monetize my website, and that was only after I lost one of my biggest clients and my monthly income was cut by 80%.

I thought it was as good a time as any to finally give it my best shot to create a successful blog that supported me.

I started building up a monetization strategy, intertwining my SEO skills to start making a little more money, one month at a time.

And then seven months later, March 2020 happened. And we all know how that went for the travel industry.

l was very close to walking away at that point, but I had seen how much growth there was in just seven months before everything came tumbling down. I couldn’t unsee that potential. So, after three months of a lot of languishing, I kept working on my site, more determined than ever.

It took another year and two months after that to finally be making just enough to end all my client work and start focusing on my website full time. I wrote an income report a month after that in June of 2021.

It was called “How I made $6,598 from my blog in June 2021.” When I wrote that article, I had big goals to hit 100,000 page views in a month before the end of the year (which I did!) and to make over $6,000 in a month again.

Secretly, I was hoping to double that amount by the following year, but looking back, I probably should’ve dreamed bigger.

Continued in the comments below👇

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