I often get asked for tips and advice on how to start a travel blog. Since starting my travel blog in 2019, and leaving my corporate job to pursue blogging full-time in 2022, I’ve learnt a LOT. Both about what to do and what NOT to do when it comes to blogging and making money from it.
In this guide, I’ll list out in an easy step-by-step guide exactly what you need to do to start a travel blog. I also share exactly what it cost me to start, set-up and now maintain a successful travel blog.
This is an in-depth and detailed guide packed full of information and tips, so I’d recommend letting it sink and then re-reading it a couple of times.
Step 1: Why Do You Want to Start a Blog? (Don’t Skip This!)
I won’t sugar coat – running a successful blog is hard work. Despite the mental image you may have of someone travelling the world, sitting by the pool with their laptop and cocktail in hand while writing travel articles, the real side of travel blogging isn’t that glamorous.
A lot of the time, it looks like a lot of long days sitting behind a computer screen, doing keyword and content analysis, editing, resizing and compressing images and writing detailed travel guides that may or may not bring you traffic and revenue.
It will require consistency, discipline and time. For example, the majority of my itinerary articles, like my Ultimate Perth Itinerary, are in the range of 4,000 – 6,000 words (sometimes more!).
These can take me nearly a full week to research, write, edit, upload images and add affiliate links – just for one blog post!
But I don’t mind – because I love what I do, and I’m good at it. It brings me a lot of joy when I get emails and comments from my readers sharing with me how helpful my guides were in allowing them to plan their own trips.
But to put it into context, it took me 4 years from starting my blog as a hobby blog before it started making any reasonable form of income.
I don’t write this to put you off starting a blog, but rather to be open and transparent about the amount of hard work and challenges travel bloggers face behind the scenes.
If you want to start a hobby blog for personal reasons, such as to share your travels with friends and family, or to look back on later, good on you and go for it! I would absolutely encourage this.
But if you are starting a travel blog with the intention and aim to monetise it, be warned that it isn’t an easy or glamorous job most of the time.
Blogging vs Instagram
I’d also like to touch on travel blogging vs Instagram: despite many accounts on Instagram calling themselves “travel bloggers,” simply posting images and videos to Instagram and maybe having a website on the side to sell your digital products does not make you a travel blogger.
If you aren’t interested in writing, aren’t prepared to be consistent in publishing travel blogs that yield long-term results or find yourself more interested in sharing just photos and videos, then starting an Instagram travel account may be a better approach for you.
What is My Why?
When I created this travel blog in 2019 after a life-changing volunteering experience in Broome, I never, ever anticipated quitting my “real job” three years later to pursue travel blogging full-time.
It’s been a rollercoaster of a journey – there have been many times that I contemplate throwing it all in the bin and giving up to go back to a stable “regular” job – and have to seriously remind myself of my why.
My why is that my travel blog is the avenue to allow me to pursue a life of adventure, freedom and autonomy. It allows me to be time and location flexible, and gives me the opportunity to share my greatest passion in life (travel) with other like-minded people.
Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to travel to new countries like Sri Lanka, or relocate from Perth to Margaret River, or make new friendships from events like TBEX.
When spending the last decade of my life working in corporate finance in Perth, I always felt like I wasn’t living up to my full potential and I was wasting my life away trapped in an office where creativity and passion weren’t valued.
At the time of writing this article in May 2024, I am currently earning less than I did in my corporate job, but I am the happiest I have ever been – with this blog being the driver underpinning all of these life changes.
Step 2: Choose your Niche
The rest of this article is my advice for starting a successful travel blog, with success being defined as a blog that makes money. However, I’ll also provide some tips and advice for personal / hobby bloggers, such as around step 4 (choosing a blogging platform).
An important step in creating a successful travel blog is defining your niche.
In 2024, for both social media and blogging, simply creating a broad range of content under the travel niche isn’t sufficient. You need to niche down and choose a sub-niche that will be your guiding beacon for the type of content you will create.
For example, I am an adventure travel blogger. My content is focused around getting outdoors, hiking, bucket list activities, road trips and adventurous itineraries that explore lesser-known or less touristy destinations and experiences.
Other examples of niches are:
- Family travel
- Solo travel
- Budget travel
- Food travel
- Sustainable travel
- Luxury travel
- Types of travel e.g. cruising, train travel etc
- Specific location e.g. a certain city or region or maybe even a country like my friend Tracy at UK Travel Planning.
You might even combine niches, such as budget travel for families or sustainable adventure travel. I would start my travel blog focussed on one niche and destination, and look to expand it as my content and traffic grew.
For example, if you simply wrote travel guides like the best things to do in Paris, followed by how to spend a weekend on the Gold Coast and then a Tokyo itinerary blog post, it is very unlikely you would be able to rank in search engines like Google for any of these posts.
Many people think travel bloggers simply write about where they travel and what they do. While this may be true to a certain extent, you need to be strategic and intentional about the articles you write and publish. To run a successful travel blog in 2024, you need to demonstrate EEAT (expertise, experience, authority and trust).
As another example, I wrote solely about Western Australia for almost four years until I expanded my content into covering other parts of Australia like Queensland and then Asia.
By doing this, it established me as an authority on the topic of Western Australia adventure travel in the eyes of both Google and my readers, which in turn helped my blogging business grow (although I don’t recommend waiting as long to do this like I did, but starting my blog during the pandemic left me little choice due to travel restrictions!).
Step 3: Pick Your Domain Name
Now it’s time to get into one of the more fun items – picking your domain name.
Your domain name is your website URL e.g. “tessomewhere”.com.
It’s important to pick something that is memorable, easy to spell and reflective of your niche and / or brand. It shouldn’t be too long either.
It should give your audience an immediate sense of what your content is about, but also make sure that it is versatile enough that it will grow as your blog and content does.
For example, if you chose the domain name solotravellingKate, will you always be solo travelling? Or if you chose to write a blog about van life in Australia and the domain name Laparoundaustralia, what happens when you finish your lap?
Does the domain name allow the blog to evolve as your travels do? Or if you choose simply your full name e.g. “KateSmith”.com – does this tell your readers what your blog is likely to be about or what they should expect if they click through to your blog in the google search results?
I’ll be honest, I didn’t put a huge amount of thought into choosing my domain name in 2019 as I didn’t think I’d be doing this long-term and professionally.
However, I’m still really happy with my choice of blog name as this blog is first and foremost focused on my personal travel experiences and advice I can provide my readers – I always include a personal element of storytelling in my articles.
So combining my first name with “somewhere” which invokes a sense of travel and adventure, works well.
However the downside to this domain name is that if one day, I were to try and sell this blog for whatever reason, it may be more difficult to find a buyer given the domain name is built around my personal brand.
Check if your domain name is available here
Tip: If you’re going to use social media alongside your blog, check that your domain name is available on all major platforms e.g. youtube, Instagram, TikTok etc (or as close as match as possible – like Olivia from Inspired by Croatia – her Instagram handle matches her blog name but has an underscore at the end i.e. @inspiredbycroatia_)
.Com vs .Com.au
If your site is going to be purely focused on an Australian topic (e.g. travelling Australia), or targetting an Australian audience, consider purchasing a .com.au domain (or relevant country domain eg .uk).
Otherwise .com would be my go-to.
If your preferred domain name isn’t available as a .com, get creative with variations or consider alternative domain extensions such as .co or .net.
Once you’ve chosen your domain name and checked it’s available, it’s time to purchase it.
I use NameSilo for my .com domain, and pay about $20 AUD a year. You can get $1 USD off your domain name with my code TESSOMEWHERE.
Step 4: Choose a Blogging Platform
Now we get into the more technical space – what content management system software you use. Depending on which content management system you pick, you may need separate website hosting too.
Content Management System (CMS): A CMS is a software tool that helps you create, manage, and modify content on your website without needing to interact directly with the code. It provides a user-friendly interface where you can add new pages, blog posts, images, and other features easily.
Hosting: Hosting, on the other hand, is a service that allows your website to be accessible on the Internet. It involves a server where your website’s data is stored and can be accessed by visitors through the web. It’s like renting a space on the Internet where your website lives. When someone enters your web address, the hosting service connects them to the server holding your data, allowing them to view your site.
In essence, the CMS lets you create and manage your content easily without technical skills, while the hosting service makes sure that content is available on the web for others to see.
If you are starting a travel blog with the intention to monetise it long-term, I recommend and use WordPress.org, one of the most popular content management systems. It’s free to use and download, but you need to pay for hosting (see next section).
If you want an easy all-in-one solution which doesn’t require as much technical know-how, and want your blog to be a personal or hobby blog, I would recommend looking into a content management system such as Squarespace, as they provide you with a ready to go website and hosting in one package.
Tip: WordPress.com and WordPress.org are different businesses and platforms – don’t get them mixed up! You want the .org one.
The rest of the steps from this point on are advice for those using wordpress.org – if you’ve chosen Squarespace, a lot of the following technical “stuff” doesn’t apply.
Step 5: Choose Host
If you’re going with wordpress.org, you’ll need to choose and pay for website hosting.
For the first 3 years of my blog, I used Bluehost, which is a low-cost and very popular hosting service.
With low-cost however, comes low service. If you run into any issues with your website, they can be tricky to contact and get help. However, they are one of the cheapest hosting providers, and I honestly had no issues with them for over 3 years whilst I was still building up traffic and income from my website.
If you’re happy to be a self-starter and rely on Google or Youtube to learn or troubleshoot things, Bluehost is a great option in the early days of your blogging journey. There’s lots of free resources online with how-to guides for Bluehost too, as it’s one of the more popular hosts.
To put into context, I was paying around $50 AUD a year for my hosting with Bluehost.
As my website traffic has grown, I’ve now upgraded to Lyrical Host as they came recommended by many fellow bloggers. The support you get from Lyrical Host is top-notch – I can raise a ticket and get email support from a real human usually within a few hours.
Their server speeds are faster, and they have their own built in caching tool which has saved me from paying for my former WP Rocket subscription.
I’m now paying around $300 AUD a year for my hosting plan with Lyrical Host (on their multiple websites plan). Get 10% off Lyrical Host plans with my code TESS10!
In comparison, a website with Squarespace (which includes hosting with them) costs around $200 a year for their base level plan.
Tip: I recommend purchasing your domain name separate to your hosting provider. It’s usually cheaper this way too. Bluehost offer a hosting + domain name package, but after the first year they jack up the domain name pricing so it’s cheaper to go with someone like NameSilo from the beginning and not have to migrate it over after a year (like I did).
Step 6: Design your Website
Now you’ve got your blogging platform (CMS) and hosting sorted, it’s time to make it look pretty!
If you’re using WordPress.org, the way your website looks to external users is based on your WordPress theme. A WordPress theme is essentially a pre-designed template that determines the look and layout of your WordPress website.
Over the last 4 years, I’ve had three different WordPress themes.
When I first published my blog in 2019, I used a free theme from the WordPress.org library. However, it was pretty slow and clunky, and didn’t look very professional.
After a year, I upgraded to my first paid theme with 17th Avenue Designs – they create beautiful, feminine and easy to use designs and have a large support database to help you configure their templates to your style.
This was a one-off cost of around $60 AUD at the time and served me well from 2020 to 2022.
However, at the end of 2022 when I had just left my corporate job to go all-in on full-time blogging, I wanted a website theme that I could customise further and have complete control over.
I was recommended Generatepress, which offers a minimalist design that is highly customizable without any coding knowledge. Focused on speed and usability, GeneratePress supports seamless integration with WordPress’s page block building tools.
This cost ~$90 AUD for their premium option, but they also have a basic free option too if you want to try it out before you commit to the premium version with the full functionality and tools.
The site you see today has been built by myself using Generatepress (and a whole lot of Youtube tutorial watching!).
A word of warning: It can feel pretty overwhelming to begin with!
My advice would be not to spend ages fussing around with your website design at the very beginning – it will grow and evolve as you do. Your time will be better off spent writing and publishing blogs, and as you learn and upskill you can focus on how your website looks later down the track.
The key is to make sure it’s user friendly (even if it may be a bit “ugly”!)
Step 7: Download Essential Plugins
WordPress plugins are add-ons that extend the functionality and features of a WordPress website. They allow you to add new capabilities and customise your site beyond the default WordPress framework.
Essentially, plugins are like apps for your website; they can add anything from social media buttons, SEO tools, security enhancements, and other functionalities. Using plug-ins allow you to meet specific needs, without having to write complex code.
These are the essential plug-ins I recommend to begin with:
- Akismet Anti-Spam: Prevents spam comments
- Imagify: Compresses images
- Rank Math or Yoast SEO: A free tool to provide SEO analysis of articles as you write them
- UpdraftPlus: Backs up my website files every week to my Google Drive
- Wordfence Security: Free security protection to protect against hackers
I installed Jetpack as a beginner blogger, because all the blogs I read said to – turns out Jetpack is an extremely bloated plug-in which slows down your website while not adding much value, so I don’t recommend using it.
I use some paid plug-ins, such as WP Rocket which optimises my caching and website speed, however you could also try a free product such as WP Optimize.
Step 8: Learn SEO Basics
The overwhelming majority of my website traffic (around 90%) comes from Google. When a user types in a search term such as “Perth to Exmouth Road Trip,” my website comes up on the first page of Google (usually).
To get the most traffic to your well-written and researched articles, you want to try and crack getting on the first page of Google. We do this using SEO, Search Engine Optimisation. The main element of SEO is writing articles to keywords, or the words and phrases that people type into search engines.
To get traffic as a new blogger, you want to target keywords in your niche that are low competition (and ideally, high traffic but this is rare!).
If you want to write an article on the keyword “best things to do in Paris”, this is a highly competitive search term and the first page of Google is dominated by results from large blogs and publishers.
However if you were to search “things to do in Paris with kids,” this might be a less competitive search term that if you were a family travel blogger, you might be able to rank for.
To upskill in SEO, start learning from the many free resources. Websites, YouTube, Facebook Groups, Podcasts, TikTok and more all offer so much free knowledge around this topic.
Good places to start include Moz, Ahrefs and She Knows SEO.
I’ve spent around $1,000 on SEO courses after I got to the point where I had consumed the available free resources and wanted to advance my learning. However, it’s not necessary to start with a paid course in the beginning (unless you want to invest early and upskill quickly, of course!).
If you’re looking for somewhere to start and learn the foundations to getting traffic and monetising, I recommend the 6 Months to 50K Masterclass by Nina of She Knows SEO.
It’s a lower priced course to other offerings (she also offers her signature SEO Roadmap course which is over $1,000!), but it’s designed for bloggers looking to reach the 50K traffic goal that is required to get into Mediavine (the premium ad network which pays bloggers well).
She also teaches the strategies required to make your first $100/month with affiliates, and then how to scale this to 4 figures and beyond. Read more about the masterclass and whether it’s a good fit for you right here.
Keyword Research
I use Keysearch to do all my keyword research (which is where these screenshots have come from). It’s one of the cheapest tools available but is highly recommended and widely used by many bloggers.
I pay around $180 AUD a year for my annual Keysearch subscription. For the first year of my blog, I didn’t use it but until I invested in Keysearch, my website traffic didn’t take off.
A free online tool is Ubersuggest.
Step 9: Start Writing
WELL DONE for making it this far!
Now the real blogging begins – it’s time to write your first few blog posts.
I recommend writing at least three to five blog posts around one content pillar (such as a particular location) before hitting the all-exciting Go Live button on your blog.
Don’t forget to celebrate this exciting milestone in your blogging journey too! Recognise all the hard work you’ve put in to get to this point!
Tip: When adding images to your posts, don’t make them too big as this will slow down your site speed. I size my images to be 600 x 900 px and compress them using a free online tool like compressjpeg.com before uploading them to WordPress.
Other Important Website Pages
Other important pages to consider are an About Me page, and a Contact page.
It’s also important to have some necessary legal stuff, like a website T&Cs, Privacy Policy and Disclaimer.
I’ll be honest, when I first started my blog I had a very streamlined and simple version of these that I wrote myself based on some good ol’ Google research.
As my blog grew and started to make me money, I paid for the Legal Bundle templates from A Self Guru which cost around $200 USD (but this included some extras like a Sponsored Posts contracts).
They also sell cheaper bundles or one-off templates like a website Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.
Step 10: What’s Next
This is just the start of your blogging journey. Once your website is live and you’ve shared your first few blog posts, you’ll continue to discover there’s so much more to learn (and always SO much more to do especially haha) as a blogger.
I’ll touch on a few important elements to keep in mind for the next stage of your blog.
Build Backlinks
Your blog is more likely to rank on Google if it is seen as a more authoritative and trustworthy site.
One way to help this is to build your blog’s Domain Authority (DA). DA is a measure by Moz, and measures the ranking strength of a website over time.
When you start, your blog will have a DA of 0 or 1. You want to build this over time by getting other websites to link to your own website. The easiest way to do this is by contributing to guest blog posts by other bloggers in exchange for a backlink to your website.
You can see an example of a guest blog post I’ve hosted on my own website (DA 29 at the time of writing) here.
I find guest blog posts I can contribute to through Facebook groups such as:
- Travel Collabs and Link Swaps – Women Travel Bloggers
- Link Building + Guest Posts (Travel Bloggers Club)
- Travel Collab Post Opportunities
It’s slow going – for example my domain authority was DA 8 in July 2021, and in May 2024 it’s DA 29.
Build your Blogging Community
Speaking of Facebook groups, these are a great way to begin building your community of like-minded travel bloggers. Blogging can be quite a lonely journey, so it’s worth it to build your network of bloggers.
They can provide you with advice, support or just an ear to rant to when Google does yet ANOTHER update.
Here’s some of my favourites:
As the next step, look for blogging events and conferences you can attend. I’ve now attended two TBEX events and have met some of my closest blogger friends through this.
I’m also a Digital Publisher member of the Australian Society of Travel Writers, which doesn’t bring a lot of direct benefits for my blog, but is a great way to connect with other Australian media.
Connect your Site to Google Analytics and Google Search Console
These two free tools provided by Google are essential in analysing and understanding your website traffic. I’ve watched a lot of Youtube videos to learn more about these, but I’ll provide a quick summary of each of them below.
Google Analytics is a tool that helps you understand your website visitors by tracking how they interact with your site. It can show you how many people visit your site, how they found it (like from social media, a search engine, or another website), what pages they visit, and how long they stay. This information is invaluable for understanding what your audience likes and how you can improve your content.
Google Search Console, on the other hand, focuses on your site’s visibility in Google search results. It helps you understand which queries bring users to your site, how high you rank for those queries, and detects any issues with your site that might affect your performance in search results (like broken links or security issues). It also allows you to submit sitemaps and individual URLs for crawling, helping to ensure your pages are known to Google.
Both tools are crucial for bloggers looking to grow their audience and improve their site based on data-driven insights.
Here’s a beginner guide to Google Analytics by the all-helpful Moz.
Grow an Email List
This is something I’ve only recently started focusing on in the last 12 months. Building an engaged email list is a great way to share your new blog posts with your existing audience. There’s a lot to learn, and I’m still learning! My email list is currently around 500 subscribers, and I try to send a regular newsletter fortnightly.
PS: Sign up to my mailing list through the sign up form on my home page if you’d like to see what these look like.
Learn, Learn, Learn
You may have picked up on this theme already, but I can’t stress how much blogging is a continual learning process.
There’s always more to learn and improve on, or new aspects to consider as you and your blog evolve. I love listening to podcasts, reading detailed analysis on websites and hearing about others experiences in my favourite blogging Facebook groups.
This is all free too!
How Much Does It Cost to Have a Blog?
Adding up the costs involved to have a self-hosted WordPress.org blog, here are the costs involved.
Essential Costs:
- Domain Name: $20 / year
- Hosting (with a cheap provider like Bluehost): $50 / year
Total: $70 year
Optional, but recommended:
- Premium WordPress theme: $60 – 80 one-off
- Keyword Research tool like Keysearch: $200/ year
- Speed optimisation like WP Rocket: $70 / year
- Legal templates: $100 – 300 one-off
- Lightroom (photo editing program): $170 / year
I pay about $700 a year at the moment for all costs associated with running my blog, but when I first started, I only paid about $70 a year.
My blog also made me no money back then, but today, I earn around $3k – 4k per month from affiliate revenue.
Final Thoughts
That wraps up this mega guide on how to start a blog.
I hope this has been helpful in giving you some easy to follow, step by step practical guidance on starting a blog, as well as some deeper insight into all of the behind the scenes “stuff” that is required to run a (successful) blog.
It’s definitely not easy at times, but I love what I do, the freedom it gives me, and the experiences I’ve been able to have from it, so it’s very worthwhile for me.
Just a quick note that I’ve written this guide purely to help out others in my community.
The keyword “how to start a travel blog” is actually VERY competitive so it’s unlikely that this article (which has taken me 4,500 words and 2 days to write!) will bring me much organic traffic or income.
If you’ve found this helpful, please consider purchasing any products / tools I’ve recommended using my affiliate links above at no extra cost to you (like always, I’ve only recommended tools I have used or currently use), or you can always buy me a coffee to say thanks in the meantime.
Thanks for your support!
Let me know in the comments below if you have any burning unanswered questions, or feel free to send me a DM on Instagram too and I’ll try my best to answer them for you.
Also let me know if you’re interested in learning more about how I make money from blogging, and I’ll consider doing another detailed article deep diving into this!
Discount Codes
- Hosting with Lyrical Host: 10% off with TESS10
- Domain Name with NameSilo: $1 USD off your domain name with TESSOMEWHERE
- More coming soon 🙂
Wow what a fabulous resource Tess!
I have always loved your writing and obvious passion for what you do, but this guide just shows how much work goes on behind the scenes. You deserve all your success.
Hi Tess
Thank you for writing this detailed blog
I have a question, do you use the free version of generatepress or the premium, and what do you recommend?
Thanks for reading, Sally! Answered your DM on IG, but let me know if you have any more burning questions 🙂
Two words. “You Rock”! Hopefully I will be able to write my blog soon.