Travel blogging, or blogging in general, is the ultimate way to make money on the road and live as a digital nomad. The dream right?
Well, I’m here to tell you something straight up that a lot of others won’t tell you… it’s fucking hard work and there’s a big chance you won’t make it, or maybe go years before you see any kind of income. Or maybe one of the lucky few that breakthrough. The reality is you just don’t know.
I started blogging in mid-2013 when I quit my life in Amsterdam and headed out across East Africa. I made a lot of mistakes, maybe didn’t put the right kind of effort in, got unlucky in parts, and sucked at writing. Who knows. I made more money from freelance writing and photography work rather than my blog.
So why bother right?
Well even, after all, I have said there is a simple reason – it will only cost you around $50 a year to have a blog up and running and you never know, you could be one of the lucky ones and make it as a blogger.
At worst, you have a journal for the life of your travels. It can also just be a hobby. Maybe it will be a photoblog and help you improve your photography. Maybe you will write an article that genuinely inspires or helps someone (the reason I remind myself I blog).
So fuck it, start up your travel/whatever blog.
I’ll be totally honest again – I’m writing this post for 2 reasons.
1. I honestly want you to start up a blog because I believe you will enjoy the experience and hopefully you can make some money as well.
2. Speaking of money, I want to make some! This post has affiliate links and when you click on them and buy something I get a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Number 2 is the bloggers’ dilemma at times. I enjoyed blogging much more when I wasn’t thinking about what posts would attract more readers or how to monetise.
My most popular post back in the day is about how I wanted more people to visit Japan as I love the country and was trying to tell people it was cheaper than they may think. I wrote it in 30 minutes while waiting for a train from Hiroshima (it’s since been updated and expanded on). Many readers have written in saying how it inspired them to visit.
In contrast, I have spent several hours on some posts I wasn’t really passionate about, but knew about the topic and thought it would be helpful for traffic numbers and yet no one really bothers reading them.
My biggest advice with blogging – people follow blogs for the person behind them. Be yourself always, it’s how you will stand out from the crowd and have loyal readers. I would rather have a less-read blog with people who genuinely enjoy reading regularly rather than a big blog with just one visit and go.
In all seriousness starting a travel blog could end up being one of the best things you will do. Could be…
At least you will be hanging out in lots of cool coffee shops with a good drink to do your blogging!
Anyway… I guess I should get to the subject title of the article…
How To Start a Travel Blog
Choosing a Domain Name
The first thing you will need to do is get a domain name for your website.
Now this is a total bitch these days as so many names are taken and you will probably spend a long time just figuring this out.
Websites I used to help find my domain name are knowem and thesaurus.
These days though namecheckr is my favourite one for finding names.
In namecheckr or knowem you can search for names you are interested in and it will show if it’s available as a .com and other formats as well as the most popular social media channels.
It’s a very useful website.
A thesaurus is great for finding meanings that are similar to a word you wanted to use but were taken. For example, if you search for “travel” it will show you alternatives like “trip” “tour” etc.
You can be creative in your name but just remember the audience you are targeting. For example, if you have a blog ‘letstraveleurope’ and you’re writing about Europe that’s fine. But what if you end up travelling to Asia after a year or whatever?
The Europe name in your blog will sound weird if someone is searching to travel to China!
If you are 100% planning to be niched into a certain area and only plan to write about that place then it’s fine to use Europe, as going by the example above.
Planning to write about Oregon only? oregonexplorer would work, etc.
Always remember your target audience for future planning of what you want out of your blog.
My name backpackingman is great for people interested in backpacking, world travel on a budget, adventure, hiking, and more. If you search ‘backpacking in Japan’ I will show up in the search results and with my name, you will be more likely to click on my article.
On the flip side, if I did a review of a luxury resort (which I don’t) and you searched that, you would be less likely to click my website as what does backpacking have to do with luxury?
Also in the future after travelling or wherever you blog about, and you end up settling somewhere, you can always start a second blog about that place and niche into it.
Now if you are not niching into a specific area then be more creative in names that represent travel in general.
I also recommend not to use your name on your website.
It’s important to make sure that the website name you choose is available on the most popular social media channels or at the very least the top 2 social media channels you plan to use.
This is about name branding. I was very lucky that in 2013 my domain name “backpackingman” was available on all social media channels.
You will be best off using a .com for your website as it is the most commonly associated one used when people think of searching for a website.
Register Your Domain Name
Right, so now you have your domain name it’s time to get things moving.
Your next step is to register your travel blog name on a hosting site. You could use the same site for your domain name registration and your hosting of the website, or use one site for your domain registration and point it to the hosting site.
The good thing about the second option, and what I do, is that if you grow dissatisfied with your hosting service you can transfer your website to a new service and then just point to the new server from your domain registration site and then cancel the service of the old hosting provider.
I use NameCheap for my domain name registrations and recommend them.
Find a Hosting Provider
I have gone through 4 hosting sites over the past several years and am now finally happy with the host I have. I use a2hosting and it’s the best one for website speed and support that I have used.
There are plenty of options out there to choose from but make sure you get a good one (trust me, go with a2hosting).
There’s another reason for this and that is part of Google’s algorithm for ranking is based on a website’s speed of loading.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg as far as learning the ins and outs of how to get a good ranking in the search results.
Find a Website Theme and Start Your Website
Most bloggers use WordPress for their website (I do) and hosting providers like a2hosting have a program built in that will install it for you.
First, link your domain name to the hosting provider’s server, install the WordPress software, and choose a theme for your website to get going.
WordPress come with a free theme to get started but it’s best to use a more professional theme if you want to look more, well, professional with your website.
Some pro themes are free to get and have the option of upgrading to an even more Pro version. I have gone through many themes since I started blogging in 2013 and am finally happy with my current theme Neve.
Neve has a free version for you to get started with and is a lightweight theme, which means it’s fast.
I highly recommend is to keep your theme relatively simple and not bloated with loads of features as this may slow your website down which may affect your rankings in search results (more on that below).
Start Writing!
Now to the most important thing in this whole article about how to start your own travel blog. Writing some articles!
Now you’ve got all the basics set up it’s time to start writing and you will have to decide if you want to try to make your blog make money down the line or just have it as a personal journal.
This is an important thing to consider because the posts that you may make money from in the future are going to be the ones you try to rank for on Google and that advertisers want to advertise on.
You may write for example “My Jungle Adventure in Thailand” and write a passionate post about your experience, but it doesn’t mean that it will rank.
But if you wrote something like “The best jungle treks in Thailand” and recommended the one you did, then that has a better chance to rank and is more clickable for someone interested in the practical information on how to do it.
On a personal note, I have a mix of articles, some story-based, and others with practical information for other travellers. I would say though that there is only around 10% of my website that are personal stories and the rest are guides for other travellers on how to do it themselves.
You could of course write a guide on how to do “Jungle treks in Thailand” and write you’re personal story of the experience into the article.
One of my most popular articles is about the 20 best day trips from Osaka in Japan as it offers good information on how to do them yourself and has a clickable title.
You kind of have to “sell your soul” a little bit if you want to make money travel blogging.
The most important thing is to be passionate about the places you write about and it will show in your writing and your expertise on what you write about.
The other thing to consider when writing is that you will have to learn the basics of blogging SEO (search engine optimisation) if you want any chance to rank your posts. Read that article I linked to to get started.
I could write a long section on how to write travel blog posts but my travel blogging friends GoatsOnTheRoad already have an excellent article about that which you can read here.
The post they wrote is very in-depth and is the one I recommend you to read but if you want a shorter “tell me quickly” article then have a look at this one from a respected SEO company.
Travel Blogging
Travel blogging can be one of the best things you can do if you love travelling and want to have at the very least a journal of all your adventures.
At the very best your blog may become popular and you end up making an income for it as well.
Either way, I wish you all the best of luck on your travel blogging journey!
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