Hello world and welcome to Formidable Joy!
Formidable Joy is a UK travel blog highlighting underrated hidden gems around the UK and Europe, alongside tips, tricks and hacks for budget travel.
As well as travel guides and inspiration, you’ll also find a bunch of lifestyle posts on this blog, covering anything from curated playlists to Christmas and Halloween content.
The name is a play on my second name (my full name is Louise Joy) and my sister was the one who came up with it. The idea is that formidable means to inspire fear or respect by being intense, powerful or capable. But I focus on the fact that it means to inspire. This links back to the original content/aim of this blog, which was all about inspiring people!
But, this blog hasn’t always been known as Formidable Joy…
When I first published this ‘Welcome’ post, all the way back in January 2011, this website was very different with a very different name. And because it’s come such a far way since then (and it’s always fun to look back on these things!), you can see the original version of this post below:
Inspire Magazine Online
Hello everyone and welcome to Inspire Magazine Online. If you’re wondering what this is all about, then look no further. Inspire Magazine is a women’s lifestyle magazine I will be producing in my last year of university and it will be, pretty much, a girl bible! Inside you can expect fashion for all shapes, sizes and budgets and interviews with real women! Also inside you’ll find features on men, sex, love, travelling, food, crafts, cooking… everything you could ever think of! Inspire Magazine basically fills the gap that other women’s lifestyle magazines do not – with a little bit extra thrown in! Inspire Magazine will also rely on you girls to know what to publish because we want to give you exactly what you want. If you don’t want celebrity gossip – that’s fine! If you want more affordable fashion – you’ve got it!
Because the internet is so blooming’ popular these days, Inspire Magazine will also be on Facebook, Twitter and off course – here! So not only will you find more content on here that you can’t get in print, this website will also be heavily interactive. You’ll have the chance to let us know what you think, what you want and how to get involved.
So bear with me as this website develops, take a look around, subscribe and check back often!
(Safe to say, I never actually created any issues of Inspire Magazine in the end – bar the one issue I had to create for my dissertation. My ‘look of the week’ posts soon humbled me enough to realise fashion content would never really work on this blog and I think I only ever wrote one craft post!)
Updating this post 13 years on, I can’t believe I’m still writing. Though the content (and name) has changed, the core values of wanting to inspire people have stayed the same. I hope that with this blog you will be inspired to travel in many ways. I hope you are inspired to travel using budget travel tips, especially if you don’t earn lots of money but still want to experience the wonders of the world. I hope this blog will inspire you to seek out underrated locations and hidden gems.
Travel can be scary, especially if you’re doing it alone or for the first time. But often with these things, the hardest step is just finding the courage to go.
So finally, I hope this blog will inspire you to just get up and go on an adventure.
You can learn more about me here and more about the blog overall here.
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