A Little Question…Should You Start a Travel Blog Before Your Trip?
So, you’re heading out on your round the world trip and you want to document all of your travels. The big question crops up, should you start a travel blog to record stories and photos?
If you’ve already decided yes and want some fantastic resources for developing the blog, check out Develop Your RTW Travel Blog.
I field this question an awful lot and it’s hard to answer, mostly because blogging from the road is not all roses, cake, and flowers. It takes a lot of work to keep any site going from the road, and a full travel blog (with photos, stories, and videos) may not actually serve you best on your trip; consider your goals and objectives for starting the blog and the compromises you’ll make on the road to keep the blog going.
What are my options for starting a travel blog:
- Self-Hosted Wordpress site: A powerful and customizable blogging platform – you must purchase the domain name and hosting package (I like GoDaddy)but have supreme control over the look and feel of your site.
- Free Blogging Sites: Top two options here are Blogger and Wordpress – both of these sites offer incredibly easy interfaces and are entirely free. You have your own URL and you can send this to friends and family members.
- Travel Blogging Sites: These sites are also free, but the blogging interface is specifically designed for travelers; it’s easy to map locations and visually show your journey. Best choices: TravellersPoint, TravelBlog, and WorldNomads. (Travel Fish compares the major travel blog sites).
- Share Photos/Mini Stories: Tumblr is a fairly new site that combines the brevity of Twitter with a blogging interface – it’s pretty neat and a great compromise to running a full blog while still sharing photos and stories.
- Share Photos and Write Emails: Flikr and Picasa are top options if photo sharing is your preference but you’re not willing to stop your trip to write out longer stories and thoughts.
Which option should I choose?
How you share your trip depends on your travel goals; consider these viewpoints and what they mean for starting your own travel blog:
I like the Internet and All, but I’m Soul Searching and This Trip is My Own
Goal: You want to share your best photos and maybe a few thoughts from the road, but decided against bringing a laptop. Your goal is to focus on the experience and you don’t want the obligation that comes from regularly updating a site.
Consider: It’s virtually impossible to run a full travel blog without carrying a laptop with you and it does take time out of your trip. Consider options (4) and (5). Tumblr has my highest recommendation. Tumblr enables you to share mini-thoughts, accompanied by a photo or video with the hassle of designing a full site. Couple Tumblr with one of the photo sharing sites (Flickr) and the occasional email and you’ll have the control to share as much/little as you want without feeling guilty if you get caught up in your travels and forget to post for a week or two.
Oh, I’m Sharing Stories but When I Come Home, It’s Back to Work
Goal: You want to tap your creativity and share stories with family and friends, but at the end of the day, this is a once in a lifetime trip. You’re bringing a laptop, you’ll sort photos and share stories, but if you skip a week or two, well, it’s not the end of the world. You’re committed to keeping the site going, but it’s not the focus of your trip…oh, and you might not be very “techie” oriented, so you don’t want the headache of configuring HMTL while your supposed to be rock climbing and scuba diving.
Consider: Top choices here are definitely (2) and (3); consider one of the free blogging sites. If this is truly a once-in-a-lifetime trip, you don’t need the added expense of a domain name. Plus, if you purchase a domain name and hosting, your site is only going to run for as long as you continue paying that expense. If you think you might keep the site going occasionally once your back then Wordpress and Blogger are the best choice – these sites allow you to easily export all of your content and comments onto a self-hosted Web site if you ever make that choice. The travel specific blog sites (TravellersPoint, etc) are ideal for a single trip and very easy interfaces – the learning curve is low and your blog will be up and running in no time.
Send Me my Fruit Basket, I’m a Part of the Blogging Community & Here to Stay!
Goal: You’re bringing a laptop and you’ve likely got some techie skills (or you’re willing to learn!). You’re in this for the long haul and plan to extend the site beyond just a single RTW trip. You likely even dream of monetizing your blog and perhaps buying yourself a few beers along the way. In addition to your personal stories you plan on sharing tips and reviews and you’ll spend some time before your travels (and in downtime) socially networking with the community (via Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook, etc). You want the community aspect of blogging and the creativity that comes from creating a site exactly how you envision it.
Consider: You will be spending time on this blog – and you’re going to have to make sacrifices to get a post written, formatted and uploaded. Although the Internet is ubiquitous, you could very well spend half a day sitting in a cramped internet café uploading photos at dialup speeds for your next blog. You’re also carrying your laptop, which is an added liability. You will spend days and evenings away from the sites and smells of new cultures so that you can update your blog; most full-time travel bloggers thoroughly embrace this trade-off because they truly love what they are doing.
If you’re still sold on travel blogging, then let me be the first to welcome you to the community! You’ll need a self-hosted Wordpress blog (I use GoDaddy, but Blue Host is also popular); Wordpress is pretty much the standard in the travel blogging industry (and blogging in general). Wordpress sites are highly customizable and much of the software is free. You only need mild techie skills to set up a basic site (and you can pay someone if you want a specific design). Shoot me an email and I’ll add your site to my links page and offer any tips I can!
Final Thoughts on Starting Your Own Travel Blog
There are so many sides to this question, and you’re the only one who can decide if a full travel blog is right for you. The vast majority of RTW trippers abandon their blogs partway through their trips when they discover the time commitment involved in keeping the site updated – this doesn’t have to happen! There are a lot of choices out there – accurately assess your travel goals and decide which blogging options most closely align.
But all of this is not to scare you away – because travel blogging is a lot of fun, and I can’t imagine my RTW trip without it – I loved seeing experiences through the lens of how I could share this with others, and it made the time spent doing the more mundane tasks so very worth it to be a part of such a large international community.
Check out these resources I recommend for launching your own travel blog. And if you’re looking for more thoughts, Christine at Almost Fearless covers this same exact travel blogging questions with perhaps an alternative POV on a couple of the areas.
First photo: liquene. Some of these links give me an affiliate commission if you click through and purchase something – the commission does not affect my recommendation – at most it buys me a coffee somewhere in Asia! I only recommend products I truly support.
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