Over the past three days, I have spent at least 30 hours working with our hosting provider to determine why a select few of our readers are no longer receiving our daily posts in their email inboxes. This has not been a quick phone call or a single support ticket. It has been hours of back-and-forth communication, testing, re-testing, screenshots, log reviews, and walking through every possible scenario we could think of.
We have checked every aspect, every box, and every setting of WordPress’s SMTP automatic email system. We have verified domains, authentication records, sending limits, spam thresholds, delivery logs, and everything in between. At this point, we have not identified any errors on our end. That doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist; it clearly does, but it does mean we’ve hit a roadblock in what we can realistically fix for a few.
This also doesn’t mean we’re going to stop trying. This means that after exhausting the tools and access we have, there is no obvious next step. After conducting extensive research over the past few days, we’ve found that this is unfortunately a common issue for some WordPress websites. Given WordPress’s substantial size, our site is unique. In many cases, the solutions involve convoluted, expensive, and time-consuming processes that may or may not even resolve the problem. In other words, there is no guaranteed fix.
Managing a site as large as ours requires significant ongoing effort to keep it running efficiently. Much of that work happens behind the scenes and is never seen by readers. If we were able to hire an expensive site management company, there’s a chance this issue could be tracked down and resolved. Given that we earn so little from advertising, hiring such a company is not feasible.
We don’t ask our readers for donations. We don’t have “buy me a cup of coffee” links. We don’t charge monthly fees, and we have no plans to start doing so. After almost 14 years of posting, since March of 2012, we’ve made the conscious decision to keep this site free and accessible to everyone. That decision hasn’t always been easy, but it’s one we stand by.
Due to this email delivery issue, we kindly ask readers who are not receiving our daily post to bookmark our website or create a link, icon, or shortcut on your device to www.Worldwidewaftage.com. By clicking on it once a day, you will always find our latest post. It’s the simplest and most reliable workaround we can suggest right now.
The only time a new post won’t be there is in an emergency, when we didn’t mention “No post today,” or on a travel day when we had no access to WiFi. Aside from those rare situations, our daily posts will always be available by this means.
Yesterday, we posted our first new itinerary in 13 months: a 558-day itinerary! You can find that post here. It will continue to require significant planning, time, and effort, and we’re excited to share added content along the way. Any updates to this itinerary will be made in the future.
We truly appreciate every reader who has followed us over the years. Your support, messages, and continued interest mean more to us than we can adequately express. We sincerely hope this issue, which is affecting some recipients of our emails, does not deter you from continuing to enjoy our journey.
Thank you for your kindness and understanding.
Be well.
Photo from ten years ago today, January 13, 2016:
There was no post on this date.