10 expert ideas To become A (Successful) travel blogger

These days, it seems as though everyone wants to learn how to become a travel blogger, and I don’t blame them! having the opportunity to make money online while following your passion for travel is something that we in the Internet generation are lucky to have.

Nick and I have been running Goats On The road for 6 years now, and for the past 5 years it’s been our sole source of income – earning us six figures a year.

In my opinion, there’s no better way to get paid to travel! If you want to learn how to become a travel blogger, but not just any travel blogger, a successful one, you’ve come to the ideal place. 

In this post, I’ll share our best ideas to help you become a travel blogger. Let’s get started.

(Note: This post may consist of affiliate links, which indicates we may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. thank you in development for your support.)

1. start A travel blog – The ideal Way

First of all, you need to actually create a travel blog in buy for it to become successful. It sounds basic enough, right?

There are many steps to starting a website. You’ll need to pick a travel blog name, choose a hosting company, decide on a blog theme, and then navigate your way through the murky waters of WordPress. 

For us, this is simple. We’re always in the back end of our web site messing around with coding or the design. As I said, we’ve been at this for 6 years, so it’s second nature to us.

But for newbies who are learning how to become a travel blogger, it’s not so basic and can be a daunting, hair-pulling task. Every little mistake you make in the beginning could come back to bite you down the road.  

Starting your travel blog the right way is exceptionally important.

That’s why we’ve created our Beginner blogging Course, which helps you set up your travel blog step-by-step. I wish we had this course when we started out – hours of Googling and YouTubing could have been avoided…not to mention, all of the mistakes!

If you start a travel blog through our link here, then you get the course for free. Plus, we will give you our best blogging ideas eBook, SEO checklist and access to our VIP Facebook group as well.

Our VIP Facebook group for our students – some terrific information and engagement in there!
Here’s what one of our students has said about our course:

“I made a decision to give this course a go because at least when I was paying for my blog I was getting something extra for it. Well, I got a whole lot a lot more than I could ever have imagined! Nick’s videos give clear step by step instructions that are easy to follow even for someone who is absolutely new to this.

I set up my blog simply by enjoying the videos, pausing when Nick told me to do something, and often rewinding if it was difficult so I could hear the explanation as I did it. The additional help sheets give you something concrete to refer back to which is terrific as you make your way through the course. As a teacher, I was pleased at Nick’s ability to break things down and describe them clearly.

The Facebook community is amazing! I love seeing where other people are up to and getting ideas and advice. If you’re thinking about setting up a blog, I wouldn’t hesitate with this purchase. You’ll not only get an amazing course, you’ll get ongoing support and a new community of online colleagues who all want the best for one another!”

– Jo Needham, Beginner blogging course student

Start your blog the ideal way so it grows faster, reaches a lot more people, and earns you money sooner. 

2. pick a Niche

According to Worldometers, today alone there were 2,760,019 blog articles published on WordPress somewhere in the world. Those aren’t strictly travel related blog posts, but still, that’s a lot of content! 

Now a lot more than ever, it’s imperative that you have a niche when learning how to become a travel blogger. You need to stick out and be an authority on the topic that your blog is about. I personally don’t believe that you can be just a travel blog anymore, you need more.

So how do your get your blog articles seen? You niche down.

Here are some examples of various travel niches:

Budget family travel

Travel in (city or country specific)

UNESCO travel

Travelling with a pet

Luxury adventure travel 

Travel in Europe

Travelling on a sailboat 

Travelling with a disability

Scuba diving around the world 

Vegan travel

Travelling in a van

Travelling in a van as a vegan

You get the picture. 

If someone is reading your blog and they see that it’s a luxury travel Blog, they’ll think “cool, I’m luxury too!”

Then if they keep reading and realize that it’s also a luxury travel blog for female Travellers, they’ll likely think “Wow, luxury female Travel, that’s exactly me!”

This multi-level assimilation is what makes a niche so crucial and will help you genuinely connect with your followers. 

3. create epic Content

When I was learning how to become a travel blogger, I was regularly told by fellow bloggers that “content is king”. To this day, I still believe that 100%. 

But what does that mean? 

It indicates creating informative articles for your readers. If you look back on our earlier posts, they’re a bit embarrassing – there’s a lot of “I did this, and today we travelled here” – which is ok (it’s a blog after all), but there wasn’t anything substantial that our readers could take away from the articles.  

Once we realized that in buy to become professional bloggers (rather than hobby bloggers) we needed to create epic, practical, beneficial content, our mindset and writing style changed and we started seeing traffic to our website. 

Writing epic content while overlooking a lake in Argentina

If you want to blog as a hobby, then write about whatever you want. But, if you want this to be a successful service and make money from travel blogging, then you need to think about your audience.

I hate to say it, but no one cares where you went last week, or the bus ride you took. BUT, they do care about the details of where you went (the restaurants, the landscape, the people, the culture, the overall vibe) and they do care about the logistics of that bus ride you took like how much it cost, where you booked it and how long it took.

Reading someone’s diary is boring. reading someone’s stories about travel and finding beneficial information is what people want when they’re using Google. 

If you’re going to Colombia, write an thorough travel guide, or a compelling story about a particular place that makes the reader want to travel there. focus on lists – the top things to do in Colombia, the best places to hike in the country, the top spots for foodies, what to pack for the trip, or things people must know when travelling to Colombia. 

Within those articles, keep your voice and your flavour (that’s why people read blogs), and when your personality mixes with beneficial content, that’s when you’ve hit the jackpot. find the sweet spot between being informative and being personable.

Articles must be well researched, supply as much information as possible, be lengthy (1,500+ words), have images throughout, and be reader friendly (focus on font size, paragraph length, using headings to split up content, etc.)

The goal of travel blogging is to inspire people to do something or go somewhere, and then give them details on how to do so. blogging isn’t just about you, it’s about those you are reaching with your words. Not only will your readers like your articles, but so will Google and other search engines. 

4. Be Your amazing Self

Being a travel blogger indicates supplying travel information to your followers, but it also indicates being YOU. 

Most likely, the reason that people started following you in the first place was because of your writing style, your personal story, or how you portray yourself on camera.

People will like your content and find it useful, but they’ll also feel like they’re connecting with you personally. having that relationship with your audience is what being a successful blogger is all about. We absolutely love interacting with our readers through email, blog comments and social media.

Just being our “awesome” selves ?

Be authentic and genuine in the articles you write, the social media articles you add, the emails you send out and the videos you create. Your followers want to feel like they are a part of your journey, and your community. 

Being authentic and genuine also indicates being 100% transparent with your audience when you write posts. If a trip is sponsored, tell them. If you have affiliate links in an article, make sure you disclose that. If you’ve made a mistake about something, own up to it. 

Just be sincere and open and let your amazing self shine through. 

5. get Noticed

How do travel bloggers get observed when there are so lots of blogs online today?

Four main ways:

being niche (as discussed above)

doing something unique

knowing SEO

marketing yourself

Like I said above, you need to have a niche to stick out from the crowd, but you also need to be doing something interesting.

Are you travelling to every country in the world? Do you house sit abroad and earn complimentary accommodation? Are you planning to cycle the Pamir highway in central Asia? Driving a camper van across new Zealand? teaching English in China? rock climbing in California?

Those are all very exciting and special takes on travel and lifestyle. If you market yourself properly, people will hear about the amazing trip you’re doing and want to follow your journey, while getting insights on how they can follow in your footsteps.

But, how do people see those amazing things you’re doing? Either by chance, from SEO (more on that below), or by marketing yourself and your website.

Here’s a few way to market your travel blog:

1. guest Posting: This is what will get you noticed. reach out to bloggers in your niche and pitch them an post idea. once they agree, write a compelling post while linking back to your website, a particular post or upcoming adventure. Do this multiple times, not once, not twice, but ten or a lot more times. find at minimum ten blogs in your genre, write a new post for each of them and have them all published around the same date within the same month – we’ve dubbed this the “guest post bomb“. We did this when we were embarking on our trip through central Asia and Iran and gained a lot of new followers this way. 

2. Getting Featured: Getting featured on a large publication is an exceptional way to reach a lot more people, and in turn, have them follow your blog. If you’re doing something special that gets noticed, large publications will reach out to you, but if they don’t, you can always pitch them. write to Lonely Planet, NatGeo, BBC, Forbes, etc. and pitch them your story / angle. If they accept and feature you on their website, you’ll receive thousands of new followers. (you can actually get paid to write online with these companies – lots of of which are big brands)

 3. Attending Events: There’s something to be said about actually meeting people in person rather than just reaching out online. attending travel conferences or press trips with fellow bloggers and pr reps for companies is a terrific way to get your name out there. once they meet you in person and see your personality (and travel blog stats), they’ll want to collaborate with you – whether in the form of guest posting, social / video collaborations, or press trips. The a lot more connections you make, the much easier it will be to market your travel blog.  

4. Being Social: By this I indicate being social online and interacting with those in your niche. There are many travel groups and communities on Facebook that you can join, and there are lots of sharing groups as well where bloggers share each other’s content to help give it a boost. read other relevant articles and leave genuine comments on them to get yourself noticed. joining Twitter chats are a terrific way to interact with those who are interested in the same things as you, in real-time. Plus, they’ll get to know you better and in turn, follow you. (More on social media below).

When we went on our 5 month trip through central Asia and Iran, we gained a large following because we promoted it
6. Don’t forget about Social Media

Love it or hate it, social media isn’t going anywhere! And, for those who want to become successful travel bloggers, this is a good thing. 

Every time you write a new blog post, share it across your social media accounts – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and of course, Pinterest (Google+ is dead). use relevant hashtags on Twitter and Instagram, and to get a additionally reach, identify people who you think would be interested in your post – without being spammy.

Facebook: post a large variety of things on your