From building a community to the biggest scandals, here’s what I’ve learned in my ten years as a travel blogger.
Almost 10 years ago, I bought a domain name and embarked on an adventure around Central America and Cuba. I was there to clear my head, attempt to reverse a career burnout, and as cliched as it sounds ‘find myself’. Before I go all Eat, Pray, Love on you, I want to say that this three month trip marked the start of a much bigger journey. It kicked off my new career.
This year I’m celebrating my tenth year as a travel blogger. I’m proud to have lasted so long in a highly competitive and ever-evolving industry. Many have come and gone in that time. That trip may have helped me find my passion, but I had no clue about the entrepreneurial streak that would develop alongside it. I started as a passionate traveller, transformed into a content creator, and now I’m a business woman too!
I’ve travelled all over the world for work, from Mexico to Australia, Canada to Italy. I’ve been hot air ballooning in Cappadocia, volcano boarded in Nicaragua and lived the high life at five-star resorts in the Caribbean. It’s not a life built on holidays and freebies. I’ve worked extremely hard, collaborated with an amazing roster of clients and earned very well along the way.
I’ve also been lucky enough to connect with amazing people along this journey – locals in destinations, PRs, journalists and fellow content creators. Hey, I even met my husband through the industry. Maybe this is an Eat, Pray, Love story after all!
There have been a huge number of changes over my ten years in the industry. I’ve experienced highs and lows, witnessed exciting developments and disturbing scandals. In this post I’m going to share a personal look at the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
If you’re already in this world, no doubt you’ll relate to a lot of what I’m about to share. Or, if you’re starting out as a content creator, hopefully this will inspire you on your own journey.
10 Things I’ve Learned In 10 Years Of Travel Blogging
Find your voice
I started my travel blog in 2014. I’d just left a hectic full-time job in music management and had pretty severe burnout. I booked a three-month backpacking trip around Central America. I was hoping it would give me what I needed… what that was, I didn’t yet know!
I set up a site on Blogspot (remember that platform?!) before leaving, and over the three months I posted photos and short tales from the road. I couldn’t upload from a laptop on superfast Wi-Fi. I had to trek to internet cafes, where I sat and uploaded each picture manually! It was for my friends and family to see. I mean, no one else was going to look at this stuff… or were they?
When I returned home around Christmas, I was hooked. I’d not only caught the travel bug; I’d caught the travel blogging bug! I booked short trips, wrote about everything, learned about travel photography, website development and started approaching travel brands. I had a few hundred views per month, but these were the early days of blogging. It wasn’t about having millions of followers, it was about having a voice, style and passion.
I am grateful that I started during a less-competitive period. I honestly can’t imagine setting up now in such an oversaturated landscape. I had time to figure out what I wanted my blog to be, how to share my stories and find my voice. Soon, I was lining up my first jobs, creating content about a group tour through Scandinavia and a sailing trip through Croatia.
TIP: Don’t stress about perfecting your voice right away – it will evolve naturally. Enjoy the process! And remember, numbers aren’t everything… more on that later.
Authenticity is key
How can you live and breathe your blog, if it’s not a true reflection of you? I guess this applies if you’re the person in front of and behind your blog. Some blogs are faceless / nameless, but I’d still say authenticity is still a huge reason for success.
I’ve always seen my blog as an extension of me. It’s about how travelling makes me feel. I share what I love, what I find hard and lots about a destination’s culture. Now that we have a baby too, I love sharing the reality of travelling with a little one. It’s not all pretty sunrises and sunsets. Sometimes there’s awful jetlag, illnesses or culture shocks. To make my content useful, I try to share my true feelings at all times.
TIP: If you’re starting out, thinking I’ll ‘fake it ‘til I make it’ I’d suggest you avoid faking it! Be yourself from the beginning so that people can relate to you.
Learn some basic SEO and technical skills
I think it’s vital to learn some of the technical side when you start your own blog. You don’t need to learn coding from scratch, but some basic web development skills and SEO knowledge will really help.
I’ve learned 90% of it as I’ve gone along. I invested in an SEO course, which really helped my website gain traffic through search engines. I taught myself about photo editing, image resizing, WordPress themes, plugins and shortcuts. I improved site speed, fixed some bad habits and I’ve gradually gone from a newbie blogger, to one with ten years of experience.
TIP: Intersperse content creation with increasing your knowledge of the technical side. The two elements go hand in hand.
Diversifying and adapting
If you want to become a full-time travel blogger, it’s probably because you love sharing stories from the destinations you’ve visited. I absolutely adore crafting new blogs and showcasing unique and special places to my audience.
But, over the past five years, diversification has become an essential part of my business plan. In the first five years of blogging, I earned the majority of my income from travel campaigns. I went on amazing trips around the world and created content for pre-agreed fees. These trips were organised by tourism boards, PR companies and brands.
While I still work on travel campaigns and collaborations, over 50% of my monthly earnings now come from advertising and affiliate bookings (when you guys book hotels or tours). I learned I could earn money through multiple revenue streams, which made me look at my blog differently. I still wanted to provide practical information, but I also wanted to look at how that could convert to bookings. The success of this is also linked to traffic, so as my site gained more traffic, so did the revenue earned through bookings and advertising.
Anyone who has been in this industry over the last year will probably know about the HCU – Google’s so-called “Helpful Content Update”. Many of us watched as Google decimated our traffic, seemingly not with users’ best interests at heart. Old Reddit threads, Trip Advisor reviews and huge corporate websites took over search results, and smaller content platforms, with individuals at the forefront started to lose out. It was another reminder of the importance of diversifying.
TIP: If you’re going into this as a full-time career plan, be sure to think about ways to diversify beyond of your website. Look at Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. Developing an email marketing list strategy is also beneficial.
Once you reach the thresholds required, consider applying to an ad network such as Mediavine. In terms of affiliates, I recommend signing up for Stay22 for accommodation bookings and GetYourGuide for tour bookings. They’re great for content creators – user friendly and can be very lucrative too.
Networking and Friendships
The biggest shift from what I was doing ten years ago, to my life as a content creator has been going from working in an office with colleagues, to living a rather solitary life (at times). Sure, when I’m on a work trip I meet lots of great people or travel with a group of fellow content creators. But, there’s a lot of time spent at home in front of a laptop too.
One of the greatest rewards of being a travel blogger has been the amazing friendships I’ve established. Most are with other travel bloggers and content creators. We met on trips, at conferences such as World Travel Market, IMM and Traverse, at networking events and even online. I’m in a few WhatsApp groups with them too, which are great places to chat about life in the blogging world, job opportunities, fees and personal things too!
There’s an amazingly supportive and open community in the travel sphere – it’s definitely one of the warmest niches within blogging. I might not have colleagues, but I have plenty of great friends who are just a WhatsApp away!
TIP: Find your community! Attend events, join Facebook groups for your niche and arrange meet ups with fellow content creators.
Move with the times
When I launched Wanderlust Chloe in 2014, I wrote short blog posts accompanied by a few photos. These would take me a couple of hours to write. I might also fling up a photo on social media too, but that wasn’t essential.
Oh, how times have changed! Now my average destination blog post is over 2,000 words long, has 15-20 photos and takes 1-2 days to plan, write and upload. I spend time on keyword research, edit photos in Lightroom and create graphics in Canva. Once I’ve finished, I write social media posts to promote the blog and schedule pins to Pinterest.
My day also involves editing Reels for Instagram and Facebook, making videos for TikTok, posting daily Instagram stories, researching keywords for future blogs, replying to client emails, making campaign reports and accounting.
I like that my days are more varied now, but there’s also a lot more work to do! And so many distractions! You try going on Instagram to post a Reel, without getting lost in the scroll hole for half an hour!
I’ve realised that simply posting a quick blog with a few photos isn’t enough. I need to adapt to what people are looking for today—travel inspiration paired with practical tips to make those trips a reality. With so much competition online, standing out requires dedication, hard work, and very long hours.
TIP: Stay up to date with current trends, register with new platforms and invest time in elements that support your blog or improve your online presence.
Niches matter, but they’re not as critical as some make you think
One of the standout periods in my ten years of blogging was the Covid pandemic. I watched the world grind to a halt, and with it, my blog. Flights were grounded and destinations shut their doors. Some didn’t open fully for several years. It was a very challenging time, but I’m proud that my business survived.
Lots of bloggers used that time to set up niche blogs. These are sites that are laser focused on one topic or destination. For many, this strategy paid off. When you’re an expert in a single area, your passion and expertise truly stand out.
However, while I did set up some niche sites (and experienced varying degrees of success with each) I have found my main website remains the most profitable. It doesn’t have a niche, other than travel. It isn’t laser focused on a part of the world or a specific style of travel. And do you know what? It still works!
TIP: If people are saying there’s no point starting a blog unless it’s got an obvious niche, don’t feel you have to listen to them! Yes, you might find that route less competitive, but if you work hard you can still find your audience.
The perils of burnout
What does burnout feel like for a travel blogger? I’m sad to admit that I’ve experienced this a few times in my ten years of travel blogging. But then again, I’m sure most people have in their chosen careers.
I experienced a mix of exhaustion, a drop in motivation and a lack of creativity. My mood was low and I wondered how to drag myself out of the head funk. One instance occurred when I was overwhelmingly busy. Trips backed up on top of each other, I had content lists as long as my arm, and I panicked that I wasn’t producing my best work, while dealing with huge stress and tiredness. I missed out on times with friends and family, and questioned what was more important.
It was lovely to be so in demand, but it took the magic away from some of the amazing travel experiences too. I took note that it was time to slow down and improve my work/life balance.
TIP: Blogging and content creation can seep into every part of your life. Make a conscious effort to make time for friends and family, hobbies and a bit of ‘me time’. As a result, you’ll have a better balance and appreciate your work more too.
Navigating Industry Scandals
I’ve lived through ten years of travel blogging, and within that time I’ve seen my fair share of scandals!
There were the years when everyone wanted to grow their social media platforms quickly and started buying followers. Flash forward to seeing people on glitzy press trips with 100k+ followers, only getting a few likes per photo. It was scandalous behaviour which made me feel very sad for an industry that had been pretty squeaky clean.
Right now, the biggest scandals revolve around AI and its use for content creation. I don’t want to stop my site from being crawled, as that’s part of how my posts are found by search engines, resulting in them ranking.
But, I’m unhappy that ChatGPT and other AI tools are scraping my site for the information I’ve spent a huge amount of time researching (travelling!) and writing. I’ve actually tested it and seen my own words rephrased and regurgitated back to me. Sometimes I get a small credit, but often there’s nothing.
Some content creators are using these platforms to churn out content quickly. It’s a new form of plagiarism, and it’s hard to spot, regulate or stop. I do think there are ways to embrace the use of AI, perhaps for idea generation, or to check spelling or grammar, but not for content theft.
TIP: Avoid scandals! Use your brain, be passionate about what you’re doing and if it feels wrong, it probably is.
It’s not just about numbers – it’s about impact
One thing I’ve struggled with over my ten years as a travel blogger? Comparison. It can be hard in this industry. You’re constantly looking at the social media accounts and blogs of others. It’s easy to feel inadequate or like you can’t break through the noise already out there. If you can’t make something look as good as someone else, why bother?
Here’s a reminder: you don’t need a million followers to land great opportunities, make an impact with your work, and live a fulfilling life. While my blog has grown significantly over the past decade, I’ve not got the hugest presence on social media. Still, many clients choose to work with me because I create quality content and have an engaged audience. Plus, they value the lasting influence that comes with blog posts.
Some of my most popular blogs were written over five years ago. I refresh them regularly, but they’ve continued to bring in traffic years after my trips. There’s a real longevity to blog content, more so than with print journalism or social media posts.
You could have a few hundred followers or readers, but if most of them are engaged, your influence can be huge. I’ve had chats with a lot of my friends in this industry and we all say we love following people who are relatable. We enjoy the insight into the mundane part of life as well as more exciting elements, like international trips or home renovations!
TIP: Work hard to build your community. Be relatable, share a mix of content so people really get to know you. The more people invest in YOU, the more influence you will have.
So, there we have it. A decade of blogging summarised into ten helpful lessons… and I’m still learning now.
If you’re just starting out, I hope you’ve found this a useful read. It should be a reminder that success doesn’t happen overnight – it took a number of years to earn a steady income and feel established in the travel sphere.
Will I last another ten years? And what will blogging be like in ten years? Who knows, but I’ve powered through a Covid pandemic, Google algorithm updates and numerous changes, so I’m ready to embrace whatever comes next! Many of you have been on this journey with me for a long time already, so I hope you stick around for the next 10 years too.
Here’s to 2034…!