Katie Joll

My family took a camping trip to California's Lassen Volcanic National Park in early June.
We could admire the park's volcanoes and geothermal features without worrying about large crowds.
Even though it's still recovering from a large fire in 2021, the hiking trails were impressive.
Yellowstone may be known for its geothermal areas, but Lassen Volcanic National Park — a smaller, less-visited national park with its own fair share of geothermal features — is also worth exploring.
Located in no...

I visited Great Basin, one of the least-visited national parks in the US, for the first time.
To get there, I drove six hours on US 50, a highway nicknamed America's "Loneliest Road."
Great Basin's stunning night skies, hiking trails, and ancient artifacts made the trip worth it.
Getting to Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada requires quite the journey, no matter which direction you come from.
The nearest airport is over two hours away, there's no public transportation, and cell servi...

New Zealand remains a land of more sheep than people so, for the meat eaters, we serve lamb for Sunday roasts or special occasions. In the US, I'll often slow-cook a boneless lamb leg from Trader Joe's for Thanksgiving or Christmas instead of roasting a turkey.
The boneless lamb leg at Trader Joe's is from New Zealand and is delicious when slow-cooked with garlic, rosemary, and red wine.
I also love a good glass of red or white wine. Trader Joe's stocks a rotating variety of New Zealand wines...

I went on a two-week road trip with a friend and met the man who is now my husband.
Even though the meeting was romantic, the visa paperwork afterward wasn't.
10 years later, I've got my US citizenship, and he and I are married and have a kid together.
After a life-changing road trip, I went from single living in New Zealand's biggest city to married life in small-town California.
I never thought I'd move for love until I did. But between filling out the paperwork and waiting for residency st...

I moved across the Pacific from New Zealand to Lake Tahoe, California, about 10 years ago.
There were a lot of stereotypes I was exposed to growing up that aren't true for the whole state.
From food portions to geography, everything seems larger in California than in the island country.
In 2012, I packed my trusty backpack and left my birthplace New Zealand, eventually settling down in California after a period of travel.
Almost 10 years later, I'm still here in Lake Tahoe, enjoying a life ce...

Have you been wondering what to do about your content marketing efforts lately?
If so, you’re not alone. Many businesses are grappling with which direction to take given the current global pandemic. Is it business as usual? Is it time for a new message?
Whatever your choice, you still have a story to tell and customers to help. Business is different right now for most, but underlying all of that, you still have an audience out there, and they have needs you may be able to meet.
What can you d...

What's the deal when you're an adult "of a certain age" learning to ski for the first time? Here's what to know before you go:

It’s never easy to carve out your own niche successfully, but that’s exactly what Dhiren Bhatia and the team at Cloudscape have done.
Its restaurant and retail productized service is the first of its kind, and is a popular choice among their clients. A key milestone has been to reach over $1 million in revenue. What do they do? The company helps businesses put the right cloud-based solutions in place, those that will bring the most benefits.
We spoke with Dhiren recently on our podcast and as...

Have you ever conducted an SEO audit on your website?
For many small businesses, SEO falls somewhere into the category of the almost-magical or woo-woo. It’s a mystical art and the two things you know for sure are that a) you need SEO and b) the “rules” always seem to be changing.
If you were to hire an SEO expert to conduct an audit of your site, you can often end up spending thousands of dollars on a multi-week exercise. Yep, SEO audits can be technical and time-consuming, especially if you...

As your business grows, there comes a time when you just have to get help. For many WordPress agencies, that means hiring a remote team.
It makes a lot of sense to hire remotely - you don’t have the overheads that you would for a co-located office and you immediately open up your pool of candidates to qualified people who don’t live near you.
Hiring a remote team can be both an exciting and daunting time. By sharing the workload, you open up your growth possibilities, however, sometimes it’s ...

Your WordPress business is ideally placed to operate as a productised service.
As Troy has highlighted previously, there are many potential elements in your business that you can turn into a product - meaning that you have something that you sell with clearly defined parameters. This differs from a “service” in that it cuts out many of the more taxing elements. For example, back and forth over what will be done.
This can be a little difficult to wrap your head around, especially if you have a...

“It’s an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be in San Francisco.” —Oscar Wilde
San Francisco has inspired some of the world’s great minds for generations. It’s a city full of surprises and, yes, it is a place to disappear into, as my friend Jen and I discovered on a recent visit.
We’re small-town gals, but the lure of the big city caught us. The city that has captured poets, playwrights, songwriters, and authors loomed large in our minds as we arrived for a couple of days of uniq...

Local's tips for enjoying Lake Tahoe.

Explore Sonoma in the "hoof steps" of Jack London and take to heart his words; "the proper function of man is to live, not to exist."