My resources page built with travel bloggers and other digital nomads in mind!

You’ll find products, books, and services I use to maintain my sanity and run this travel site. If you’re looking into becoming location independent and need inspiration to get pumped up and build an online business, I’ve found some favorite people who do not tout themselves as gurus and offer up amazing advice.

Successful Travel Blogging: The Simple Things I Use & Love

• WordPress: Free and opensource, there is simply no other option for self-hosted travel blogs. It’s fantastic.
• Blue Host or GoDaddy: If you’ve just got a single site (your travel blog) then Blue Host is a popular and safe hosting option. GoDaddy is best for domain registration, but a decent hosting option!
• SmugMug: I love this site for hosting and storing all of the photos for my blog. I used to use Flickr, but I like the SmugMug interface better and that you can integrate it into your site URL.
• 15 Paying Travel Magazines: Love this round-up for getting your work seen in the travel community and a little bit of $$ in your pocket too.

Ebooks and Products to Speed You Along

• MatadorU Travel Writing Course: Matador is a trusted name in the travel sphere and breeds personal confidence in your writing style and connects travel writers with paid writing opportunities.
• MatadorU Travel Photography Course: If your site is much more of a travel photography blog than Matador’s course is a launching point to battling the overwhelm in the marketplace and getting your photos seen.
• Search Engine Optimization Guide: Simple and easy to implement it will keep your site placing in the search engines for your travel content for years to come.
• Blog Blueprint: for links

Building a Location Independent Lifestyle

• Empire Building Kit: Chris Guillebeau is the man for building location independence. This entire start to finish course enables you to really and truly build that EPIC idea you’ve been tinkering with for awhile.
• Break Out of the 9-5: If you’re still in the cubicle and looking for inspiration and an EPIC idea this guide is spot-on for asking insightful questions that will have building the life you want.
• Seth Godin: Read his blog and if you’re building a brand, buy his book Tribes, you’ll never look back.

Random Things for Digital Nomads

• Fiverr.com: People post things they’ll do for $5 – great for small tasks like logos, social media, a video intro…
• iPhone: An unlocked iPhone can be used anywhere in the world with different SIM cards. Very nearly essential for running a digital business overseas.
• WordPress Premium Themes: First off, you don’t need to pay for a theme, WP is opensource and there are a lot of fantastic free themes on the market. Paid themes are great because they have support, and the code is often much cleaner. That being said, I like the Catalyst Theme for newbie bloggers – very easy control panel. Thesis Theme is the holy grail for many knowledgeable developers (they get rhapsodic over their love for the theme), so if you have some skills it’s an excellent option.

Books You Should Read.

• Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuck: Gary is an intense guy but he gives a serious kick in the pants and it’s a great read for anyone who’s been wanting to build an online presence/blog but doesn’t know where to start.
• Four Hour Work Week: Read it for motivation and a sense of what’s possible in the grand scheme, but don’t fall into the trap of treating it like gospel.