Welcome to the new site (kinda)

If you’re a long-term reader and completely confused by what’s going on, do allow me to explain.  First of all, hello.  I’m still here.  I’ve always been the caretaker, some might say.

Secondly, let’s have a bit of a history lesson.  The Good, The Bad and The Luxurious (GBL) was started as a hobby.  Boredom is a highly persuasive driver for me, and it was boredom that lurched me forward towards the endless riches of blogging.  I found myself in some of the best luxury resorts in the world as a paying guest and knew there were no unbiased reviews, so I stepped in with a plan to save humanity: another blog.

That started almost ten years ago, which is depressing because I can tell, looking at pictures, that the theory that men get more handsome as they grow older is not universally true.  Less depressing is how it’s taken off.  I still believe there are few resources that offer useful insight into luxury hotels.  Fast forward a few years, and Lucie and I decided to set up Dorsia Travel (hello, again, that’s the website you’re reading) as an ultra-luxury travel agency with the first-hand experience, honesty and level of exclusivity that we would have wanted ourselves.

Yet I was still overly proud of GBL and kept it separate from Dorsia.  I cared about having something unique; a blog without sponsorship, completely unbiased, with brutal honesty, that asked for nothing.  It was the last part I cared so much about.  Not sure why, though, as I’m greedy and that goes against my number one and two priorities in life: me and me.

Even though more and more people associated the two, I was conflicted about how to go through the change from hobby to business.  After too many late nights (not thinking about this, just playing the PlayStation), I decided it made no sense to keep them separate anymore.  Therefore, whilst the GBL name continues, it’s merged into the Dorsia website, and the name will eventually be phased out.  This is just the first part of that.  Coming later this year is a complete redesign and rebranding to make that more clear.

The main takeaway, though, is that nothing is actually changing.  I’m being wholly self-centred here: the merge is to grow the business and reduce the hassle of running two sites.  This blog will continue to do precisely what it did before, which is to lose my wife friends when she goes to travel shows and mentions the name of our company to sales reps from properties I’ve reviewed.  So things are staying the same; they’ll be no adverts, no sponsored posts (and who knows, maybe I’ll stop getting endless emails about them), and the frank reviews will continue as before, which depending on your view, is either terrible or awful.  I plan to appeal to both of you.