I’m sure your social feed is full of travel bloggers posting incredible images of their lifestyles enticing you to go do the same. And I bet you’ve been considering doing it, which is fair enough. Travel is a great opportunity to explore our beautiful planet, meet lots of great people, experience the unusual and make incredible memories that will last a lifetime.
So here’s the thing: Why blog about it? The last time I did a big trip, which was over six years ago now, I did it just because I wanted to and I could. It goes without saying that it was an awesome experience where I explored, ate, partied, drank, hiked, dived, swam, chilled and generally lived ‘the life’. And I didn’t write a single blog post about it (at the time).
It’s only when I came back and was yearning for the lifestyle that I started my career as a writer, and pitched articles to online blogs and travel magazines. Since then, yes, I have blogged about my past experiences and current trips that I make — which has highlighted to me the sheer volume of people doing the same thing.
A search online today for ‘travel blogs’ brings up over 8 billion results. Yes, that’s not a typo. 8,700,000,000 results in Google for travel blogs. Which means that if you’re setting up a travel blog today you’re going straight to the back of that queue. Of course you can get higher up that queue by blogging regularly and on niche subjects, building your social media following, building backlinks, guest posting, doing video blogs and spending a lot of time on your computer creating great shareable content on all the destinations you visit.
Which brings me to the point of this article…. That is, don’t bother. If you arrive at any hostel anywhere in the world right now you’ll be able to throw your laptop across the room and hit about four travel bloggers. So here’s what I propose you do: Write for them instead.
With so many travel bloggers out there, why go to all the hard work of building a social media following, customising your WordPress site, signing up for countless affiliate sites and crucially, wasting your time writing when you could be enjoying your travels? Honestly, the amount of time it takes to build a blog post and promote it is lonnnnnng. Just writing it and popping it on your Insta feed isn’t going to make you some kind of travel influencer over night — even if you do look great in a bikini (although actually that really will help).
The huge majority of travel bloggers also cover much of the same ground, writing endlessly about experiences that are the travel equivalent of a postcard. Granted some also do write about unique experiences or places that are more obscure or less travelled. I’ll hazard a guess that around 95% of travel blogging is about something that you can read in a Lonely Planet book.
And another crucial factor? Travel is supposed to broaden the mind, help us understand what it is to be human, connect with different cultures and remind us that we are all inter-connected. It’s a break from that feeling that you’re a slave to a wage packet working your way towards the grave while trying to get laid, make babies, eat food and pay bills. So why spend all your time of this incredible experience trying to get the perfect shot for your feed? Or seeking out the most generic experiences because ‘that’s what you’re supposed to do’.
But can’t you get paid for travel blogging? Well… Yes and no. The sites that turn over a good income are well established and well run with teams of marketing people alongside the regular writers. For you to get there will take a lot of time and effort. That’s not to say it’s not possible, and if you’ve got the drive and the strategy to get there then hey, why the hell not. But to plan to be a highly paid travel blogger? The world doesn’t need more travel bloggers I’m afraid. But journalists? Story tellers? Contributors? Now we’re talking…
The Alternative to Travel Blogging
If you’re about to set up a travel blog, don’t.
Instead find travel blogs or magazines and pitch to them. A lot of them will pay you for contributions and straight off the bat you’re getting the exposure that it will take you months or years to get. When I started out I started writing for sites like Graybit.com and TheTravelMagazine.net, who paid fairly low amounts for articles but it was experience and exposure.
After speaking with a friend of mine, who had a dormant domain name we decided to set up a travel magazine similar to the two sites above. And although this gave me a platform to blog on my own terms, the aim was to encourage other travel writers to share their experiences with others without the hassle of formatting, promoting and doing all the other legwork.
If you’re looking at being a travel writer, I suggest searching for travel magazines and travel blogs and offering to write for them instead. But what about your own exposure? How can you capitalise on that?
Having been working online and looking at the successful digital nomads I know, none of them are travel bloggers. What they do is offer specialist remote services like coding, specialist content writing, journalism, social media strategy and remote personal assistants. So I suggest that the money you’re going to spend on setting up a travel blog is better spent focusing on an online business more focused on a service. This also allows you to link to your contributions, perhaps through a portfolio page, and be more assured of making the money required to pay for your travels. So when you arrive at that hostel and you start speaking to people, you’re not just another travel blogger. You’re a forward thinking digital nomad who has a plan and a strategy.
Crucially this also frees you up to do more of what you should be doing when travelling, which is enjoying the world. Not staring into a screen and checking your Instagram stories every twenty minutes.
So go! Get out there… Explore, experience, take great pictures and post it all over your social media. And if you’re still harbouring blogging ambitions, pitch to one of the thousands of bloggers and magazines that are already out there.
Oli is a London based content writer who edits two travel blogs. When not writing propaganda for Russian fake news sites, he likes walks on the beach and shouting at children. You can catch more rants like this over at his personal (non travel related) site www.olilynch.com.
