I started my travel blog in September 2019 in the hope to have a source for passive income. It wasn’t easy but I did figure out how to start a travel blog and monetize it eventually.
Note: You can only start and sustain a travel blog if you have THE TRAVEL BUG.
People know when you are fooling around, and they know when you are being authentic. So don’t do it because you think it’s cool and you’ll get to travel full-time. Do it because traveling is more than just looking cool on Instagram to you.
For every individual, traveling offers different things. Some people like to visit the local shops and markets, some like architecture, some like to visit the oldest cafes in town, a place’s history is what intrigues some of them, their art, their culture….. the list is endless.
Traveling helps me to get close to nature and get away from the city, to feel the sun on my skin, to take a dip in the fresh river water up in the mountains, where it is untouched by human debris. I travel to meet the people that haven’t been infected by the chaos of the cities and the constant struggle of being visible and finding ‘passion’.
So step one on how to start a travel blog is to find your reason to travel.
If you don’t know why you travel, you will probably never make it. So open your laptop, go through your pictures of all your favorite trips and see what is it that excites you the most. If you ever go back to the same place, what is the first thing you would do? Or, even better, why would you ever go back?
The reason can help you decide the basis for your travel blog. Once you know why you do what you do, the journey will be a piece of cake.
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”
Confucius
Once you know what you have to write, the next thing is to find a place to write it.
Why choose WordPress for your travel blog
When I say find a place to write it, I mean a platform, not a room, chair, or a table.
Out of all the website builders out there, WordPress has the strongest SEO game ever. If you want to be discovered by search engines, I suggest you get a wordpress.org website.
WordPress is the most popular content management system today, hosting over 75 million websites. Plugins such as Yoast SEO, in WordPress, make it easier to optimize the website. Along with many other plugins that can keep the website Search engine friendly by keeping it up-to-date, helping you find broken links (which are otherwise penalized), page acceleration, integrating social media, google analytics and more.
I would suggest you choose WordPress over Wix or any other website builder if blogging is your intent.
But there is a catch. If you are building a WordPress website, you will need a WebHost.
I use Hostgator
When I was building the website, I was tight on budget and needed something economical. I compared between Bluehost and Hostgator and chose Hostgator. All professionals recommended Bluehost and the thing that I liked the best about Hostgator was 24X7 helpline. That I had to use within the first week.
I forgot to verify my email address is why my website stopped working in the first three days. So I called the Hostgator helpline and they walked me through the steps. My website was once again up and running in less than an hour.
If you use these links so sign up, you get a discount and I get a commission, so it’s a win-win!
Using this link you can get Up to 50% Off On WordPress Hosting
With Hostgator, I was able to get a website for 3 years in a little less than INR10,000 and complimentary domain registration for a year. Which is a good deal.
Some Coupon Codes that you can try for hostgator are: HGCRACKER (for upto 55% off), SUNSHINE (for upto 50% off), HGIN (for hostgator.in), HGCOM (for hostgator.com website).
Setting up the website
Since I did not know how to start a travel blog, I followed everything in this video step and step. I was new to building websites, the concept of plugins and WordPress.
Although now, after 6 weeks of having a website and working on it, I have made a few changes and added some more plugins to suit my requirements.
How to write a travel blog?
Now that you have the framework of your website ready, it’s time to get to the blogging part. After all, it’s a travel blog!
The usual categories that you can write about are
- Destination Overviews
- Travel Itineraries
- Culinary Places
- Do’s and Don’ts
- Travel Experiences
- Architecture
Whereas, if you want some offbeat ideas, you can look through here.
Making personal experience the base of your blog
Like we talked about earlier, if you are travel blogging because you think it’s cool, you are not getting very far. But if you have the travel bug, then you are already on your way to success.
It is important that you blog about something that you strongly feel about. It has to be your vision of the world. How you see things, and how you experience them.
No two people experience the same thing the same way. So even while writing, blogging or vlogging, make sure to stay true to your belief. Don’t get carried away with what people might like, dislike, or meme about. Once you publish an article, it’s open to perception and critiquing.
So just have fun doing what you love and let the rest take shape by itself.
Read more: How to Travel on a Budget
My vision
My vision for this blog is to be able to highlight the possibilities of traveling by sharing my experiences as I travel the road less taken.
I hope you’ll be here to support me as I do it.
Read more: Backpacking can change your life
So what is it that you like about traveling the best? Let me know in the comments below.
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