Looking for Guest Bloggers

My little guy eating a green strawberry
 at Sweet Berry Farms when he was small.

This webpage is and has always been a total labor of love for me.

It is hard to believe, but the Austin Top 50 list is over 12 years old.  

For those of you who don't know the history, it began when my boys were small. I don't offer much personal information about myself on this page, but suffice it to say that I was a new stay-at-home mom and there were days we all really just needed to GET OUT.  

And you know I found?  When we got out of the house, we all became nicer people. I became more patient; my boys laughed more and fought less.

So during the cold winter months (cold being relative since this is Austin), I found myself combing the web, looking for fun places to go.  I created my summer bucket list.  At first it was just a spreadsheet, but as time went on, I found a webpage with links was the easiest way to track the info.

Over time, I'd share this webpage with friends who were looking for things to do. They would ask if it was okay to share with their friends. Until one day I looked at my site traffic, and it had ballooned to over one hundred visitors a day. Yikes! This was more than just friends of friends.

At that point, I decided to change the webpage domain from my husband's personal webpage (firstlastname.com) to austintop50.com. And the webpage was born.  That was five years ago...

Fast forward twelve years.  I mentioned my boys were small.  Right.  Well, for those of you with wee ones at home, I can tell you, the time from their first bike ride until their first car drive is a blink of an eye.  Seriously.  It was like yesterday - the bike ride.  My hands are still clenched from the car ride ;o)

This year, we are more likely to visit college campuses than park playgrounds.  

We still like to get out and explore, but between summer classes, boy scout trips and band camp... the need has changed from getting out, to the desire to sometimes just  STAY IN, if only for a day ;o)

So, that is why I am putting a call out, to see if there are any people out there interested in writing up their visit to local haunts. 

Over the years, I have had numerous people reach out to me to thank me for the Austin Top 50 list. Newcomers to town, grandmas with visiting grandchildren, or stay-at-home moms just looking to GET OUT.

I'd love to continue the tradition.  Would you be willing to help?  If so, please feel free to contact me at bloggeradmin@austintop50.com. Send me a write-up of somewhere you've been recently along with some photos. Includes some tips for those who might also visit.  I'd love to post it to this webpage, and keep the labor of love alive :o)

Enjoy!

Annemarie


PS.  If you are a business owner looking to spread the work about your location, please feel free to contact me about advertising opportunities.  But for blog entries, I am only looking for personal posts.