How to Start a Travel Blog in 6 Steps

A travel blog is a website hosting travel-related content and articles, either run by independent bloggers or a team of creators. Travel bloggers visit destinations around the world to create written, photo, and video content about their experiences to introduce their followers to new destinations, adventures, and activities.

Top travel bloggers typically focus on specific angles (like budget travel or traveling with kids), personality-driven travel stories, or offer a broad range of general travel tips. Starting your own travel blog takes a lot of time and hard work, but bloggers who develop a sizable audience (either through on-site traffic or social media followings) can land free trips and experiences or monetize their efforts through affiliate programs, sponsorships, and paid advertising.

Few people break into the superstar blogging world overnight. Developing a successful travel blog takes time, hustle, and quality content. Luckily, there are some practical blogging tips that anyone can follow if they’re trying to figure out how to become a travel blogger. Here’s a general overview of how to start your own blog devoted to world travel:

1. 1. Carve out an angle. Most successful travel bloggers focus on a specific angle, providing a clear service to attract a loyal audience, and standing out from the competition. New travel bloggers should consider a specific aspect of travel that they’re passionate about that may interest readers. For instance, you could angle your blog at retired travelers, solo backpackers, or families. You could even focus on making location-specific travel guides for one particular city or country.
2. 2. Develop a name. Brainstorm and select a blog name based on your desired angle. Aim for a unique, catchy title that describes your blog’s travel niche succinctly. Avoid overused travel words like “nomadic,” “nomad,” “backpacking,” and “wanderlust,” or hyphens, which make your name longer and more challenging to remember. Once you’ve decided on a name, perform a quick web search to make sure other travel websites aren’t using the same one or something similar.
3. 3. Secure a domain name and web host. You’ll need a domain name (your blog’s internet address) and a hosting account to store your blog’s files. Many domain name registrars double as web hosting companies, providing you with two essentials at once—a hosting plan and a recognizable, web-based brand name. Most hosting companies offer various options, but the most basic plan should suffice when you’re just starting. (It’s always possible to upgrade as your popularity grows.) Seek out a hosting company with a free domain option, if you can, and choose a simple domain name that’s as close to your blog’s name as possible. As an additional security measure, purchase domain privacy protection, which prevents spammers from finding your email address.
4. 4. Choose a blogging platform. Create an account on a respected blogging platform—which offers a user-friendly back-end interface for developing content—to link to your domain, which will be your website. The most popular platforms offer free themes and templates specifically for travel blogs, with options to upgrade to a premium theme for extra customization. Include an “about me” page so that readers can learn more about you and a contact page so that they can reach out with feedback. Consider adding plugins to improve your traffic and user experience, like an SEO plugin to help search engines find your content, filters for spam comments, share buttons for social media platforms, and image gallery features to help share travel photos.
5. 5. Start writing content. Compose a personal post for your first blog article, detailing your unique connection to your blog’s angle and what inspired this endeavor. After that, create travel content based on your niche that will be useful and inspirational for your readers. Photos and videos are just as important as your written content, so include engaging original travel photography to make your travel blog visually appealing. Add new posts at least twice a week, especially initially, to keep readers engaged. Learn how to outline a blog post.
6. 6. Promote and grow your audience. With a few blog posts under your belt, it’s time to build your audience. Create social media accounts for your blog and promote new articles with engaging visuals and teaser copy, calling readers to action. Incentivize your audience to join your email list with exclusive content and insider perks, and keep them updated with the latest activity.

With a sizable audience, anyone can turn their personal travel blog into a profitable side hustle (or full-time job) by taking advantage of the following monetization techniques:

• Affiliate marketing: This fast-growing strategy used by many bloggers involves advertising a third party’s products in your content in exchange for a commission of sales from their site. For example, suppose you write a blog post reviewing luggage. In this case, you could include an affiliate marketing link at the end of the post for readers to buy the luggage in your review.
• Branded content partnerships: Tourism boards and travel industry companies will pay professional travel bloggers to write about their products or services in exchange for free trips or compensation. They may also pay to place guest posts in your blog feed or send you to travel conferences. If you choose to embark on any branded content partnerships, always clearly disclose the sponsored nature of any paid posts at the beginning and end of the piece for legal purposes. A “sponsored post” disclaimer keeps your branded content in compliance with the Federal Trade Commission guidelines for native advertising, which refers to ads that fit organically into your content. Any social media posts that go along with a branded partnership should also disclose that the content is paid, with hashtags in the caption like “#ad,” “#sponsored,” or “#partner.”
  
• Reader donations: Adding a donation button to your site is a simple way to start monetizing your blog. Incentivize dedicated readers to become patrons of your blog with exclusive content, merchandise, or meet-and-greets.
• Website advertisements: Enroll with an ad service that places pertinent ads on your blog. Whenever one of your readers clicks an ad, you get paid. Many of these services will also allow you to control the size and placement of the ads, so you can prevent them from obstructing the user experience. If you are concerned about ads ruining the user experience, placing a small ad in your site’s sidebar is a relatively discreet option.

It’s important to have reasonable expectations when launching a travel blog, especially if it’s your first time embarking on a blogging journey. Most new bloggers are not likely to earn any money from their blogs without vigorous promotion efforts. It takes time and hard work for successful bloggers to grow their audience. If you want to speed up your money-making potential, consider seeking assistance from a reputable blogging course or expert.

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