Tips for starting a travel blog with no money or experience: Lessons from two years of travel blogging
Somehow I have been working on my travel blog for two years, and I still haven’t finished everything I want to finish.
I first started my travel blog when I was in Madeira, at the end of 2021.
I had just read a newsletter from Steph Dyson, about how she makes more than $100,000 a year from her travel blog, Wordly Adventurer.
I had first connected with Steph when we were both in a travel writing internship with GoAbroad, several years earlier. We were both travel writers, so I had loosly followed her writing career — but I had no idea she could be making so much money from her own website.
Fair to say my mind was blown.
And even though that month I happened to have landed some pretty lucractive contracts with major media organisations, I was already tired of the freelance life. Six months into being a freelancer and the whiplash of having plenty of money coming in and then having nothing coming in was leaving me exhausted.
The idea of having a website that would generate me money in my sleep sounded like the perfect solution.
So, I took a leaf out of Steph’s book and started publishing content to my website — at that point in time, I had a Squarespace website for my freelance writing portfolio.
I didn’t invest in a different domain, or website. I just started throwing posts up on my pre-existing site. I didn’t pay for any tools, or invest in any blogging courses.
I just started doing it.
For the first few months, nothing really happened. I was travelling around Europe and then Mexico, and still freelancing as my main source of income. So I didn’t dedicate a lot of time to my blog, and what I did spend my time doing was pretty random.
I published things based on keyword gaps around ideas like ‘best cafes in X city.’ I knew I wanted to write about New Zealand (most of my freelance travel writing was on New Zealand) but I had no strategy and no real understanding of how to monetise content.
Lesson 1: Even if you have no idea what you’re doing, just start
Even though I have mostly removed those early posts I wrote from my site, I don’t regret writing them.
Getting that content out was the start of my blogging journey, and part of the trial and error process of honing my content strategy.
It will most likely be the same for you. You have to start publishing things to see what works. Just start, and make corrections as you go.
If you spend too long obsessing over what the best things to write are, or how you’re going to lay out your website, or what the branding will be — you’re wasting time.
SEO is a long game, so the sooner you start publishing the better.
Lesson 2: Don’t worry too much about your travel blog design when you start publishing
I am constantly tweaking the layouts of my blog posts, as I learn what helps convert better for affiliate links, what is most aesthetically pleasing, and what will increase user engagement.
I definitely fall into the trap of getting bored with how my site looks, and changing the layout, colours, and other branding elements periodically. I grant myself that time every couple of months because having fun with it is part of what keeps me motivated, but realistically, I know that no one cares about the way my website looks as much as I do.
Lesson 3: You don’t need to pay for expensive tools when you first start
I started travel blogging on my existing website. If you don’t have one yet, you will have to invest in either a website builder like Squarespace, or hosting and a domain to get set up on Wordpress (although these are by no means the only options).
I do think that investing that first hundred dollars or so is a positive step, as it means you have some skin in the game. If you go for a completely free option, you may not feel as committed to making it work.
But beyond those expenses, you really don’t need to pay for much else. I never paid for any SEO tools, and still managed to grow my traffic exponentially.
I still use the free versions of SEMRush (which lets me track a few keywords for free) and Ahrefs (which runs a pretty thorough site audit). The free versions of these tools give me an overview of my site health, and let me stay on top of broken links, missing alt text, and other minor issues.
As far as keyword research goes, you can use Google’s Keyword Planner, which is free.
Ahrefs also has a free keyword planning tool, which I use for ideas all the time. They also have a website checker tool you can use to look at other websites, to see what they are ranking for.
I truly believe that SEO tools are not necessary for good search performance. What you really need is to create amazing content that addresses a user need. You will need to learn how to do that, but aside from a few technical details, it should mostly feel intuitive.
Lesson 4: The best resource for understanding what your readers want is your readers themselves
Encourage people to email you. Respond on social media.
You won’t get anywhere without an engaged audience, so you have to do your bit to engage as well.
I also think that the most valuable lessons I have learned about which direction I need to steer my content in have come directly from my audience.
Lesson 5: Know that you are in this for the long game
There are some very impressive success stories around of travel bloggers who exploded their income.
But honestly, those are the outliers in a lot of cases. I think the trajectory for a lot of others is slow and steady growth, that compounds over time.
It can be very disheartening to pour so much work into something and know that you might not see results for a long time. Trust me, I feel this all the time. I still feel it, even when I’m making what I consider to be a full time income from my blog.
Running a travel blog is ultimately a business (if you want to make money, anyway) so you have to treat it like one. A lot of businesses don’t make profit straight off the bat — just look at Uber.
Give yourself grace, have savings or freelance work you can fall back on, and treat your travel blog like a little garden — it’s going to need time and love to grow.
If you found this helpful, you might also like to take a peek at my other tips on blogging on Squarespace:
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