2023 Website Announcement [FF Vol. 14.5]
It’s high time this newsletter received an upgrade. For the last year, I’ve used the platform beehiiv to host Ferg’s Focus from a web perspective. Truthfully, it has served me splendidly. At the time, I required rapid uplift and a simple platform. I figured the time I would spend building a website in a hostel was better served out in the sweltering cobblestone streets of Panamá or the signal-free backroads of Chile’s lake region.
My ambitions have changed since then, and I’m eager to have this website added to my portfolio. That being said, all content will continue to be a branch from this newsletter, my primary (brace for low-hanging wordplay)… focus.
Everyone Loves an Origin Story
Ferg’s Focus started over a year ago now.
When I kicked it off, I didn’t exactly know what it would be. I knew I liked writing about travel. I knew I preferred bite-sized thoughts more than long-form essays. And I knew that I’d return home to some serious chastisement from my Grandma if I didn’t find a way to share updates that I was, indeed, alive. Thus, an infrequent newsletter appeared as the simplest medium.
My initial structure for this newsletter was unabashedly going to copy that of Tim Ferriss’s Five Bullet Friday and James Clear’s 3-2-1. Those were my favorite weekly newsletters at the time, and my first-ever edition of Ferg’s Focus reflected my desire to imitate.
Shortly after publishing that initial edition though, I recognized I was imitating their formats less out of admiration for their works and more out of laziness in creatively honing my own flow and prose. The evident evolution over the following editions is the result of bearing that in mind.
It wasn’t until I really put finger-to-keyboard that I understood what I was meant to communicate as the core lesson of this newsletter. I never cared much for reading someone’s blog about their recent Friday in Rome broken down chronologically; to me those read about as well as an emotionless itinerary prepped by a booking agency. Destination guides over-saturate mainstream travel writing, and my shoestring budget didn’t lend itself to popping into each minimalist coffee shop and every Instagram-worthy restaurant for the sake of a faceless listicle. Although I visited my fair share.
No, I wanted to write something that I would enjoy reading a few months in the future. Something that I wished I had read when first steeling myself for a one-way jaunt southbound. Something that other vagabonds, ramblers, rogues, and other wanderers could stumble upon online and find a sense of community within.
That was what was missing from my early days; those when I sat, biding my time, until I mustered the personal courage to pursue a highly aspirational path against the grain of conventional wisdom in American society.
In that line of thinking, I found my mission—or rather a question to answer:
How can I use personal, solo, and absurd experiences on the road as a relatable and thoughtful lens into the self-development and growth to be found when traveling with an intention or a mission? And how can I achieve that in an entertaining and inspiring way?
That mission admittedly took a while to arrive at as a coherent, condensed thought, but the idea has prevailed since those early days of writing. I like to believe I’ve accomplished that mission so far. It is precisely what I am determined to continue to do in any case.
Taking notes for the next edition—Amazon River, Pará
Staying Consistent
The format of Ferg’s Focus is not going to change. In fact, it probably looks similar in this email to any other edition. I liked the aesthetic I found with the old platform. However, the content lies underneath Ferg’s Focus is much deeper than before.
For the sake of those who prefer the simplicity of this newsletter, all the other material on my new site is supplemental. That material in no way holds a bearing on the ideas or flow of this newsletter as I fire it off from Location X in the world. To be sure, Ferg’s Focus remains the source of any additional writing and videos on my website.
The only difference to be found here is that historic editions of Ferg’s Focus will now be hosted on www.chaz-ferg.com instead of the old beehiiv-hosted site. I wanted to own the platform I was publishing on, and that’s plainly the crux of my switch.
P.S. If you’ve subscribed to Ferg’s Focus previously, you don’t need to do anything to continue receiving emails. Emails will continue to come from beehiiv with links back to my website. If you no longer wish to receive emails, you can unsubscribe at the bottom of this email.
Happy reading
Lots of Links
Given my recent downtime between self-developmental crusades, I finally got the chance to actualize my vision of a website that had been sitting on the back burner since the first few editions of this newsletter. Having no former experience building webpages, I’m pleased with how it turned out despite a handful of sessions spent frustratedly banging my head on the keyboard. Here are a few quick links to get to know it:
For an overview and site map, visit the homepage.
For a repository of old Ferg’s Focus articles, travel stories, and dives into the psychology of travel, check out the blog.
For a handful of video clips (and hopefully more in the future), take a look at my compiled YouTube videos.
That concludes this meta-edition of Ferg’s Focus. I promise the next will be back to the basics. Expect that one soon. Thanks for sticking with me and my hare-brained writing for as long as you have. I welcome all feedback as I continue this personal project. Just like myself and my goals on-the-go, this newsletter is always looking for opportunities in improvement.
Finally, it would mean a lot to share this newsletter with friends that find this niche interesting. You can do so by copying the subscription link on the button below or forwarding this email on.
More adventures brewing…
