How to Start a Travel Blog in 2024?

Want to learn how to start a travel blog in 2024? Document your adventures with this easy, step-by-step process.

No matter what time of year it is, it’s never too late to pursue your passions. Don’t you get bored with life and want to do something new and exciting? Maybe, you’re deciding between a few potential hobbies and come across how to start a travel blog. Yes, you’ve been traveling here and there and whenever you do travel, you think about how to document your adventures. Blogging about your travels will not only allow you to remember every detail about your trips, but also allows readers to relate to your experiences.

The beauty about travel blogging is that there is no one right way to blog about a destination. Everyone has different experiences in similar locations, so your story about visiting certain cities will be different from one another. Writing about your experience can also be tough at first, but once you find the balance and passion to write, words will start naturally flowing. Plus, when you’re persistent, you tend to write a lot more than anticipated. From the places you’ve visited to the people you’ve met, your experience will always differ from another. So, without further ado, let’s lay out the fundamentals on how to start a travel blog.

If you’re serious about learning how to start a travel blog, let me warn you that it doesn’t happen over night. Dedication and persistency is what will help your travel blog flourish. As with everything, you need to have an open mind to want to learn. I’m still learning about best blogging practices every day, but there are certain things to consider. From learning how to navigate WordPress to following best SEO practices, these are basic things to consider when starting off your travel blog.

Adding on, it doesn’t take a huge financial dent in your wallet to create a travel blog. For this reason, I’m going to lay 8 steps to take when considering how to start a travel blog.

Step 1: Choose a Name

It’s okay not knowing what exactly your travel niche should be, so just start with a name. Don’t stall on writing just because you have no idea what you want your niche to be. Try to be a little creative, but have a broad name so when your users will remember your name. If you start off a name on the lines along “Grace’s Budget Travels” but end up falling in love with luxury travels, you’re stuck with that niche. Create a name that people will remember you for.

Personally, I chose not to add a generic travel term in my name to differentiate and brand myself from the crowd. For example, I didn’t include the word ‘travels’ or ‘adventure’ in my name. I have nothing against it, but I found it harder to differentiate myself from other travel bloggers. There are travelers who’d prefer to attach a generic travel term with their name, but it’s all comes down to preference.

During the beginning stages of starting a travel blog, many tend to take the most time thinking of what their name is going to be. But lif you’re providing value for your readers, people will engage with your content no matter what your name is. So don’t worry too much about the name and start pumping out content!

Step 2: Purchase your domain

When I started my blog, I had no idea that my blog was going to transform into a travel blog. I started my blog because I wanted to do something new. I started writing a lot plus, it was also super cheap to buy a domain. And that’s how my blog started off! Now, my blog is my greatest asset and dominant way of connecting with my readers.

When you learn how to start a travel blog, there are many websites that sell available domains. I purchased gracefkim through GoDaddy and paid about $10 for it! However, if I were to buy another domain again, I’d purchase it through Google Domains. It’s no more than a preference but since you’re going to be linking up Google Analytics and Google Search Console with your website, it’s an ease of mind centralizing your entire website under one mother account.

Step 3: Sign up for a host

A host, or a web host, is a service provider that takes care of serving your websites pages to users. A server allows you to run ads on your blog, include plugins, and is the engine that allows your site to run. There are a ton of hosts out there, but the two main hosts I recommend are Bluehost and HostGater. Yes, there are other hosts that will let your site run, but these are the two hosts that I recommend when starting off your blog.

If you’re still not understanding how a web host works, think about a house that holds up to 5 rooms. Your house is the server that houses 5 other travel bloggers and you all share the utilities inside the house. That’s exactly what a web host is! Depending on how serious you want your blog to become, I’d prefer getting a separate server for yourself. I did the mistake of getting a shared server and my site speed isn’t the best, but that’s a problem that I’ve got to figure out. Yes, a separate server is more money out of your pocket, but it will be worth it in the end. Trust me!

Personally, I use Bluehost and it’s been doing the job for me. I haven’t had major issues with Bluehost yet but if I do, there is a customer service number that I can contact if problems arise. Especially if on a budget, Bluehost only costs $3.95 a month. Save that Chipotle money and get yourself a server to power your travel blog.

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Step 4: Install WordPress

In the beginning stages of learning how to start a travel blog, the steps are fairly simple. Once you choose a name, purchase the domain and a web host, it’s time for the fun part. The next step is to Install WordPress. WordPress is a content management system (CMS) and blogging platform that makes it that much easier to blog. WordPress comes with countless number of plugins that will help keep your blog healthy and running. Maintaining a blog with appropriate plugins will only help your articles rank on Google over time.

There are other blogging CMS platforms that can provide the base for your travel blog. But the reason why I advocate WordPress over other platforms is because it’s extremely SEO friendly. You’ve probably seen ads running to sign up for other CMS platforms such as Squarespace and Wix. When I first started my blog, I used Squarespace but switched over to WordPress within a few months. Even though I paid the annual fee with Squarespace, I saw more potential hosting my site under WordPress.

What’s the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org?

When I first started my travel blog, I knew absolutely no one who blogged. And because I generally ask a lot of questions, you’d find me on the phone with customer service 24/7. When I couldn’t get my answers from customer service, I’d also read as many blogs and watch Youtube videos as often as I can.

In the beginning stages, I came across a few things that I just didn’t understand. One of which was understanding the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. These two domains look absolutely similar and if you’re not a tech gal like me, let me lay down the differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

Personally, WordPress.org works for me as I’ve been able to change up my blog layout and theme a couple of times. I’ve also been able to introduce a bunch of plugins that’s allowed my blog to be where it currently is today.

Step 5: Set up your travel blog

Once you’ve installed WordPress, you can easily log into your blog by simply searching up www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin. Log in with your user name and password and you’ll finally get into your dashboard.

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Not going to lie, when I first set up my WordPress account, I was as confused as can be. The dashboard looked intimidating and I didn’t know how to navigate the site at all. So if you’re experiencing that, don’t worry! Like anything else, you’ll eventually get used to the formatting and dashboard when using it often. But prior to that, let me briefly describe what you’ll see on your screen.

• Dashboard – the main hub of your website. If you ever want to come back to the main, home page, Dashboard is where to go.
• Home – this will take you back to the main Dashboard page.
• Updates – this will keep you posted on plugin and theme updates.
• Site Kit – the one stop shop solution that manages, deploys, and retrieves insights from the Google tools used from your site. It shows how people find your site and which pages they view directly from the WordPress dashboard.
• Posts – this is where you can find all your written articles in the order that they were created. It also allows you to create new posts, categories and tags.
• Media – if you need to reference any of your previous photos or videos, this is the tab to view. If you would also like to upload new photos or videos, here is where you can upload them.
• Pages – these are individual landing pages on your website. You can add as many pages as you need, such as the About, Contact, and Resource pages.
• Contact Form – if you are using an additional service to set up your newsletter, the contact form is where you can create new forms to send out to your users.
• Comments – every single comment received on any of blog posts can be viewed here. It’s a great way to stay engaged with users that fall onto your blog and provide feedback about your articles.
• Contact – where you can create contact forms when users want to personally reach out. You have the flexibility to create multiple contact forms that you can place on different articles of your blog.
• WPForms – a beginner friendly WordPress contact plugin. This is a drag & drop online form builder that makes it easy for bloggers to create, especially if you’re not tech savvy like me.
• Appearances – this section is the most important when customizing the appearance of your website. This includes anything seen on your menu bar, side bar, sections, etc.
• Plugins – where you can view, edit and update all your plugins.
• Users – if you have more than one person managing your website, you can create separate accounts and give them certain privileges here.
• Tools – certain tools to help you with task management.
• All-in-One WP Migration – this section exports, deploys, migrates, backups and maintains your WordPress website.

This might be an overload of information when first logging into your dashboard. However, these are mandatory tools that will only help you grow your travel blog to where it needs to be.

If you want to install new plugins, the process is super simple. You can simply go into the tab and search up plugins that you want to add. Consider how many plugins to download because the more plugins you have, the slower your site will be. Think about plugins like the apps downloaded on your phone. The more apps you have, the more space used on your phone. The more space used, the slower your phone speed.

Step 6: Install your theme

Besides having quality content on your blog, also ensure that your website is user friendly. Remember that when you start a travel blog, you want to make sure that your content sits on good design and is easy to navigate. A website that is not appealing to the eye can decrease your bounce rate, creating users to not want to return back to your site again.

There are free themes that are offered by WordPress, which are great to start off with. But if you are serious about building up your travel blog, creativity can be limited with free themes.

Instead, there are premium themes that you can purchase and install from other sites. Although premium themes have a cost attached to it, it will be well worth the investment. There’s a lot more flexibility and functionality when migrating onto your site, which depends on the theme developer and features offered.

Step 7: Create your main pages

Time to create the main pages of your site. Feel free to create your blog however you’d like to, but I’d advise on making a couple of pages before you start. When we’re talking about pages, I don’t want to confuse you and think I’m referring to blog posts. Blog posts are simply articles that are written within your industry, whereas pages aren’t updated frequently. Pages are normally used as information you want to share with your readers.

Here are a few examples of blog posts:

>> Read More: How to Travel Full Time With No Income

>> Read More: What is and How to Become a Digital Nomad

>> Read More: How to Budget Travel and Survive Off of Minimalism

Here are a few examples of pages:

>> View: Destinations Page

>> View: Work With Me Page

>> View: About Page

Step 8: Start Pushing Out Content

Congratulations! You’ve got the hardest part down and built up the basic foundations of your travel blog. What now? Knowing that you have all the flexibility in the world to write articles and customize your travel blog to your design is the best. You might consider writing articles on how to start a travel blog, or write about some of the most intriguing destinations traveled to.

However, I do want to provide one tip. The beginning stages of writing and publishing articles on your blog is really exciting. But, I wouldn’t overload on the number of articles you publish when you first start. Why? You don’t want to accidentally shock Google’s system by publishing crazy number of articles all at once and stop and then burn out. Take it step by step and let the SEO run its magic overtime.

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That’s it! You’ve got all the fundamentals needed in order to create a successful travel blog. Now, it’s time for you to start pumping out travel content. Aren’t you super excited to start publishing articles and seeing how much value you can provide to an audience? I get the chills every time I write and publish blogs, and I don’t intend on stopping anytime soon.

I love reading about other people’s travel experience and how they’ve utilized their travel blogs around the world. International or domestic, if you’ve followed these steps on how to start a travel blog, you should have your blog up and ready in no time. Just remember that a blog doesn’t grow overnight. It takes time and patience but once you get the balls rolling, you will start seeing fruit across your blog.

The beginning stages may seem intimidating at first because you’re not sure if you’re doing things correctly. But if that’s the case, feel free to reach out to me. I will help as much as I can! Can’t wait to hear more of your adventures, happy travels everyone!

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