Through this site, I’ve funded 11 years of full-time travel and gained a book deal for my travel memoir, along with a big New york city agent. I’ve been featured in large publications, like the Wall Street Journal, the Independent, and the BBC. I’ve been interviewed on the radio in front of an audience of 1. 6 million audience members. And I make a comfortable six figures each year in entirely 하노이 KTV passive income, meaning the money comes in whether I’m working or not. (In 2023, I average about three hours a day of work).
And yet, before starting Never ending Footsteps, I had zero writing experience, had no idea how to run a website, didn’t really know what a blog was, and had never heard of WordPress.
I didn’t even own a camera.
I’d just graduated from college with a physics degree and was fully going to throw myself into a career in particle physics — that is, after i took a year-long round-the-world trip.
Guys, I’ve now been travelling full-time for over eleven. freaking. years. That’s 11 years of travel paid for entirely through this travel blog. I want to cry when i think about it.
But do you know what? Success to me isn’t just about the money, the book deal, and the media mentions.
Running Never ending Footsteps has led to life-changing friendships with one of the most fascinating and inspirational people I’ve ever met. It’s taught me dozens of new skills and taken me to over a hundred countries. I even found my boyfriend of several years through this travel blog!
So yeah, I’d say starting a travel blog was the best decision I’ve made.
There are approximately seventeen bajillion articles describing how to begin a travel blog in 2023, so i hesitated throwing my take into the mix for many years because of it. After reading some articles and cringing my way through them, though, I couldn’t wait and see. So much of the information was outdated and wrong! And so, I want to write an article about how you can actually take up a travel blog.
I want to show that you can build a six figure business without selling out. That you can be unconventional and embrace your weirdness and find a residential district of people who love you — without going broke.
You don’t need to do what everyone else is performing — in fact, I recommend make an effort to avoiding it. In a space as congested as the travel blogging world, you need to stand out and that’s why my guide is the one you should follow. It’s one that’s based around what will give you the best odds of success in today’s day.
And how do i know it works? Because I’ve been mentoring around several brand new travel bloggers over the past two years, helping them get set up and find financial success in lighting-fast time. I know what works in 2023 because I’ve been successful at starting in 2023.
COMING UP WITH A NAME FOR YOUR TRAVEL BLOG
Finding the perfect name feels like it must be one of the most challenging areas of starting a travel blog. In reality, though, as long as your chosen site name isn’t offensive, you’ll be all good.
When you’re focusing on building passive income (money you make while you’re not make an effort to working), the name of your site becomes way less important. Within a year of starting your travel blog, eighty percent of your site’s visitors are going to come from Google (not social media), and in this situation, the name of your site doesn’t matter.
Think about it: when you’re searching online for travel tips — maybe googling “things to do in Paris” — how much attention do you get the names of the travel blogs you wind up visiting? You probably don’t even notice it until you’re actually on the site! That’s why your website name is less important than you think. If you can rank in Google (don’t worry — I’ll coach you on how to accomplish this! ), you can easily utilizing that traffic. And the name of your blog? It could be anything and you would nevertheless be attracting that income.
With that being said, here’s what I recommend keeping in mind:
Find a method to stand out: Names like Nomadic [name], Adventurous [name], Treking [name], [name]’s Travels, and Wandering [name]have all been done to death, so if you go down that route, know that your site is going to be fairly simple. That’s not necessarily a bad thing! But if you’re looking for name recognition in the travel blogging world, it’s a good idea to think of something more original.
Why not consider your name?: If in doubt, register your own name as the name of your travel blog! Why not? You’re never going to grow from the jawhorse, it’s an accurate representation of who you are, and it makes branding a hell of a lot easier.
Don’t forget to take a long-term view: Don’t call your website Travel For a Year if your trip has the potential to last longer; don’t call yourself The Thirty-Year-Old Passenger for the same reason. Likewise, My Photography equipment Adventures is going to lead to you feeling like you can’t venture not in the continent. Having a travel style in the blog name — like Treking James or Ruth Loves Luxury Travel may cause problems down the line if you decide, for example, you no longer want to stay in dorms every night.
Keep it classy: If you’re hoping to eventually end up taking press trips or working with companies in different capacity, think about how you’ll feel when passing over your business card or pitching for a trip. “Hey, I run the successful travel blog, “Sex, Drugs, and Travel” won’t necessarily make for the best first impression — although it may possibly get me to subscribe, haha. Imagine introducing your site to the CEO of a tour company to see if it feels right. Imagine being several years over you are now — will the name hold up when you’re 40, 50, or 60?
Make the name as easy as possible to remember: I’d avoid a web page name that contains more than around five words, and I’d also recommend against using hyphens, because they make it tricky to describe your site address to people. Imagine being on a podcast and having to say, “my site is travel hyphen like hyphen a hyphen local, ” or, “my site is Travel Like a Local with hyphens in-between every word. ” Most bloggers I know with hyphens in their url have come to hate it.
Similarly, long, complicated words causes it to be tough for many who may not know how to spell them off the top of their heads. The word peripatetic describes a person who moves from destination to place — sounds like a great word to include in your travel blog name, right? Now imagine how much of the general public can spell the word correctly first time, aside from know what it means!
Keep in mind that nobody uses American English or Commonwealth English — if you’re Canadian and call your website a product like My Favourite Places or The Bold Passenger, nobody will spell those words in the same manner, so may not be able to find your site.
Make sure the. com website address is available: It’s not that important, but people are very much accustomed to websites ending with. com they’ll probably forget any other domain proxy. If my website address was neverendingfootsteps. corp. uk, for example, I bet half the people would automatically type. com and struggle to find my blog!
Check out the social media options before buying the domain: Before purchasing your domain, make sure that the name of your site is available on every social media network you can think of. It’s not the end of the world if your chosen site name is too long for a username, though, because you can modify it slightly. I’m NEFootsteps on everything but Facebook, for example. And if you’re really gets interested your website name, just use your actual name for social media — lots of bloggers do that.
Think of puns and quotes: If you’re really struggling, I suggest finding a long list of travel quotes and seeing if any of them resonate. Do you have your favourite inspirational saying that you can work into a post name? Can you think of a play on words with your name to twist it into a travel-themed phrase? How about your favourite songs? Are there any lyrics that resonate with your current mindset?