How To Start a Travel Blog? 5 Steps and Examples
July 25th, 2023
Are you passionate about traveling and love to share your experiences with others? Starting a travel blog is a great way to document your adventures and connect with like-minded people worldwide. And if you are successful, you can even make money through it. Learn 5 important points to become a thriving travel blogger.
1. Find your Travel Blog Topics and Ideas
Travel is a broad topic, and clarifying what you want to write about is good. Maybe you want to publish rambling, diary-like posts about your six-month backpacking trip, or maybe you want to focus on weekend trips in the region where you live.
When thinking of travel topic ideas, go from the general to the specific, from the wider to the narrower. Focus on your own experiences, hobbies, and dreams. Write about what is close to your heart and can be connected to travel. For example:
- travel to “off the beaten path” locations
- personal relationships during extended travel
- modes of transportation (cars, trains, bicycles, etc.)
- cooking while traveling
- how to travel without being overly dependent on technology
- traveling with pets
2. Choose (Webnode) Blogging Platform
While there are a lot of options to choose from, for those just starting out, Webnode offers a fairly simple and very intuitive blogging platform where you can focus solely on your content.
You can either choose from a pre-designed template or add the blog feature to any existing Webnode website or online store. Each pre-designed article comes with formatting and styling tips for your next post. You can use audio, videos, maps, photos, and other types of content in your posts to make them more appealing to your readers.
The easy-to-use blog management allows you to add, copy, reorganize, or delete posts with just a few clicks. For those who follow a strict publishing schedule, another feature offers to postpone publication until an exact date.
3. Customize your Travel Website Design
A well-chosen travel website template will give you a good start for launching your blog but you are not limited to its default design. You can change fonts and colors, and add a logo and other design elements. You can make your website your own by adding photos and photo galleries and choosing the layouts that highlight who you are.
Website templates on Webnode
All Webnode templates are fully responsive so your readers will have no trouble following your content on any type of screen. You can also edit your blog on the go directly from your smartphone.
4. Create and Add Content
Writing is an exciting and rewarding experience. Similar to our experience of writing a narrative essay at school, writing any other format allows you to explore your mental workings and discover new insights. Taking the time to consider critical factors like tone, content, and audience helps maximize the impact of your writing. With the right approach, your travel blog can become a source of inspiration for others.
Authenticity
Authenticity is the glue that will hold everything together. Instead of trying to copy your favorite blogger, just appreciate and learn from their work, while cultivating your own voice. Many can write about “How to do Istanbul in one weekend”; you might write about “My time with cats in Istanbul”.
Creativity
Notice things around you and the ideas you feel bubbling up from inside. Don’t worry about solving problems or meeting someone else’s expectations for what an article should be. Let your trip inspirations be fuel for your writing and photography.
Helpfulness
Have you learned anything interesting? Share it with others. If you can provide your experiences and tips on how to visit the Rocky Mountains without spending a fortune, it will certainly be useful information for some of your readers.
Consistency
If you want to develop your blog into a business, you need to work on it constantly. You will observe, research, take notes, write, publish, and promote. There are no shortcuts and it’s not easy. Find tools to help you optimize and streamline your workflow wherever possible.
Organize your blog posts into categories so each article can focus on one or two specific topics. In travel blogs, posts are usually divided by length of trip, geographic areas, or budget. In Webnode, you can easily do this by creating a new page. Each post can be displayed in several categories at the same time.
Inspirational categories may be:
- local tips
- local food or music
- meeting people
- products
- city or regional guides
For those who want to share their articles only with certain readers, Webnode offers a membership registration feature. The blog owner can lock posts and make them only available to approved persons.
5. Promote your Travel Blog and Build your Audience
Connecting your blog to social media is a crucial step to expanding your audience. In Webnode, you can display Facebook share and comment buttons below all your posts. Alternatively, you can embed third-party widgets that allow readers to comment directly below each article.
SEO (search engine optimization) is a long-term method of getting eyeballs on your blog. On the Webnode blog, every article has SEO features built in to help you get discovered when people search for the topics you write about. You can change and add the title, URL identifier, meta-description, and keywords to every post.
Social media is for immediate, near-term results, while SEO supports long-term growth. And to track the activity on your blog, you can embed measuring codes in the headers of your posts.
Travel Website Examples Created with Webnode
Minu reisipere – A family that started traveling a little over 4 years ago and tells their stories through their blog.
La Volavka – A mother who gives tips on traveling with children and strollers.
run_Domi – A runner who shares her adventures in the races, mountains, and equipment.
DIRTY PAWS TRAVEL – Bine and Micha travel with their dog Frieda, and provide valuable tips on destinations and gear for traveling with dogs.
Evi & George – A couple with a great passion for traveling and adventures.
Evi & George traveling destination website
Whether you want to start a personal blog for fun or as a business, you can quickly get started with our website builder, without the hassles of managing a web hosting account and blogging software. Getting started is easy and you can focus on your trips and creativity.