10 Lessons I’ve Learnt from 15 Years as a Travel Blogger

Avoid these ten Travel Blogging Mistakes.

Nothing beats learning from one’s mistakes, and I have made plenty in my 15 years as a travel blogger.

I started my first travel blog in December 2011. I’d just got back from my 549-day non-stop jaunt, which took me through a whole bunch of countries.

I backpacked my way from Bletchley, as in Bletchley Park – Home of The Codebreakers and MK Dons, through Europe to Lebanon, all without flying, then Jordan, Israel and Egypt. India and Nepal followed, as did Southeast Asia, China and Pakistan. Then it was Turkey and back to Bletchley, overland to complete what I still regard as my finest trip.

As the trip drew to a close, I met a traveller in the hostel in Ljubljana, who introduced me to Weebly and the world of blogging.

All I did was use it as a place to post my photos.

Then I started writing about my travels. But I made all the classic travel blogging mistakes.

The blog eventually got hacked in 2017, so I took it offline.

In 2018, I set up Nomadic Backpacker, using a free Weebly site, but in the first days of 2020, I bought the Nomadic Backpacker domain.

Avoid these 10 Travel Blogging Mistakes

1. Go self-hosted with WordPress

I spent almost six years running this blog on Weebly, relying on unorthodox methods to accomplish tasks that would have been straightforward on WordPress.

Not that I regret my time with Weebly. I learnt heaps about blogging, coding and SEO, but I sometimes think of how much bigger and better my blog would have been had I started out on WordPress.

So this is my biggest travel blogging mistake.

Wade of Vagabond Journey had been telling me for years to get off Weebly and go self-hosted on WordPress. He was kinda pleased when I messaged him to say that I was finally doing it.

If someone with years of blogging experience suggests something, best to follow their advice and not be so hot-headed.

One of the reasons why I stayed that long with Weebly was because it worked, and I saw no reason to change.

But of course, everything is great until it isn’t.

Weebly shot itself in the foot.

Things started to go wrong, which I couldn’t fix, so I took a leap of faith and made the switch.

I had Hannah Henderson‘s tech guys set up a WordPress staging site for me. I then spent the best part of three months manually moving everything over. Time that could have been spent learning Spanish or exploring Mexico City.

Yes, what the blogging guys don’t tell you is that you can’t automatically transfer standard pages from Weebly to another platform. You can only do that with blog-style pages.

And of course, my blog posts were all written/built using standard pages, all 800+ of them.

But the need to migrate everything manually made me take a good, long, hard look at the blog.

I culled over 400 blog posts. Posts that didn’t perform, posts that were out of date and posts that were badly written.

Five months in, and I am so happy that I am now running Nomadic Backpacker on WordPress.

I was warned that running a WordPress blog was a bit complicated. Actually, I found it very easy. Thanks, Weebly, for the learning curve.

2. Stick to one niche

Don’t try to be a jack of all trades.

I used to add posts about blogging on Weebly. I had a section entitled health. There were even some lifestyle hacks.

I have been a budget traveller for more than 30 years. I have backpacked my way through 130 countries and territories. My niche is backpacking on a low budget.

Though I thought I’d sneak this post in. It’s about travel blogging!! I am a travel blogger who writes about travelling on a budget.

I go places and write about them with a heavy focus on the logistics of getting there and away.

By focusing on just one niche, I have become a trusted authority on travelling on a budget. This is helped by the fact that there is no hard sell. I am not trying to sell you anything. There are no affiliate links on this blog. There are no ads from AdSense or MediaVine.

3. Don’t put numbers in the URL

Imagine a blog post detailing eight Cheap Bars in Warsaw, and you include the eight in the URL: /8-cheap-bars-in-warsaw.

What happens when a new bar opens and suddenly you have nine on the blog post? Changing URLs can complicate matters. Even more so if those posts have incoming links.

Avoid any possible issues by not putting numbers in the URL.

4. Don’t run sponsored posts

Running sponsored posts is a very controversial subject.

If you don’t want to piss Google off, you must openly disclose if posts are sponsored, that you have received money for the link, or that you have been paid in kind.

If you don’t care/rely on Google for your blog traffic, then do what the hell you want. You own your blog. Who is Google to tell you what you can and cannot do? Another Born In The USA bully.

I link to external sites so readers can find out more if they are interested in a subject I don’t cover in full.

I link to museums, for example, to make it easy for the reader to check the latest admission fees.

How does Google know if I have been paid (given a free ticket) to mention them? They don’t. If the links are relevant, Google is none the wiser.

But linking to websites that Google has flagged will get you into a load of crap. They could de-index your entire site. But that only really matters if you rely on Google.

Running sponsored posts has been and is a way for travel bloggers to make money. You can make up to 300 bucks for a post with a link.

You could also say that your readers might land on the sponsored post and realise you didn’t write it, and see a link to a site that is off-niche. They might think less of you and decide not to return to your blog.

Worry not; with the Hide Posts plug-in, you can block the post from appearing on your home page and even from the post navigation, so your loyal readers won’t even see it. The only way anyone could actually land on it is by having Googled something, and to be honest, paid posts never get any hits. They are in it for the link juice.

5. Use social media to drive indirect traffic to your blog

Post stuff that makes people think, “hey, this dude writes epic shit”, and makes them look you up and check out your blog.

Maybe they will share your latest blog post.

Maybe they will retweet you or share the FB post on their feed.

If they have a high following, you just hit the jackpot. Your blog post is suddenly in front of a high number of people who potentially could buy a book or eBook you are selling on or through your blog.

This is called indirect traffic.

The goal is to get interested people to visit your blog.

You don’t need people with an attention span of a hamster. They have their 30-second reels and TikTok videos. They will never read your 3,000-word essay on travelling overland from Cairo to Cape Town.

I used to use Social Media just for posting links to my blog. For Social Media to work, you have to engage. It’s not always easy, and I don’t have a lot of patience for Social, but it’s a necessary part of blogging

6. Check for broken links

You need to check your site for broken links. Websites come and go. Nothing worse than being greeted with a 404 Page Not Found error when clicking on an external link. A bad experience, in my opinion.

I run Broken Link Check a few times a week to keep track of all outgoing links.

If you delete a blog post, set up a redirect, but only if the target post is similar. Redirecting readers to the home page or a completely unrelated page results in a bad UX.

When I migrated to WordPress, I had 400 or 500 pages that didn’t make the cut. I let nearly all of them return a 404 error. Not good for the first month or so, but then the old posts gradually disappeared from Google.

You can set up your own 404 page using the Smart Custom 404 Error Page plug-in, informing readers that the post is no longer available and giving the reader some suggestions on what they could also find interesting. Better that than just the standard Page Not Found response.

Checking for 301 redirects on external links is also a good idea. You can do this using Ahrefs. Some sites get sold, and they can add a redirect from the old travel blog to a casino or porn website. Not what you want.

7. Make your blog AI-proof

Add the Human Touch to your blog.

People are becoming quickly sick and tired of regurgitated crap. Everyone thought AI was a good idea. But think about it, AI just copies whatever is already published, something Google used to frown upon; now they are guilty as charged.

And if the blog post that AI scanned was crap, what you are left with is yet more crap.

AI is great until they copy your blog post. You go some place, you take the time and effort to get a story, take some good photos and then write it up at the end of the day. And then AI or some other blogging wannabe, that sits in an office all day pretending he or she is a travel writer, comes along and steals your stuff. WTAF!

The best way to make your blog AI-proof is to write in first-person.

Create something personal by adding selfie photos of you in said place, name drop your blog name, Nomadic Backpacker in this case. Own it! Write first-person blog posts. Make it personal.

AI can never do that!

But AI can be a great way to digitally proofread your blog. I strive for perfection, and this means consistency across the blog, and Gemini is a great tool for finding these ‘errors’.

8. Point everyone and everything to your blog

Whether you are selling products on or through your blog, like a book – ebook or a proper book, or you are a traffic junkie like me, the idea is to get people onto your blog.

That’s why using platforms like Linktree is a bad idea. Many put their Linktree handle in their social media profile, where you list your blog and all your other social media accounts.

One link to your blog plus links to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Bluesky.

Chances are that people will click through to your social media accounts.

You were halfway there. They went to your profile to check you out, but they then got lost and ended up on another social media page.

Put the link to your blog in your profile!! You need to drive people to your blog, not to another social media platform that you don’t own or have any control over.

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Add internal links to other relevant blog posts on your blog. Keep people on your blog. If you add external links, have the new page open up in a new window, so people won’t forget about you.

9. Don’t try and scam the system

Nothing worth it comes easy.

Travelling places and then writing about them with a heavy focus on the logistical side of things is my passion. I get off on people finding my blog posts helpful. Some even take the time to leave a comment or even email me.

Google and people love helpful content. That’s the whole idea about blogging, isn’t it, to help people? Or unless it’s just to boast about the number of countries you have visited?

Travel is not a race. Yet social media, particularly Instagram, made that a thing in itself.

I never tried to game the system, but I think it’s worth adding this point.

Google is a lot smarter than it used to be. It likes up-to-date content.

But using automated tools, as found on Yoast, to have the blog post title updated, for example, Top Hotels in Rome in 2025, which suddenly becomes Top Hotels in Rome in 2026 as soon as the clock ticks over into a new year, is trying to game the system.

It’s easy to see through this. Many top-end travel bloggers do this. They get the title changed, yet don’t update any details. Transparency is the name of the game. Writing about an archaeological site and still having the entrance fees from 2018 on a blog post entitled Visiting Teotihuacán in 2026. What is the point?

You can easily add a link pointing the reader to the official site where they can see for themselves the up-to-date price. If not, leave the post as it is.

That’s the thing about evergreen content. It doesn’t become obsolete as fast. I say ‘as fast’, because even evergreen content needs updating.

People seem to love clickbait titles. I hate them. For me, they are the biggest turn-off in the world of blogging.

I recall, just last year, some see you next tuesday, posting on Instagram about how he was “Travelling in one of the most dangerous countries in the world”. The said country was Mauritania. It might be one of the poorest countries in the world, receiving a minimal number of visitors, but Mauritania is as safe as fuck.

It also makes me sad that people seem to love this shit. Many people saw through his words. Many bashed him for it, including me.

I didn’t receive a reply because his head was so far up his arse.

Getting the blog posts titled changed is trying to scam the system. Google is a bit slow to stop this.

Writing clickbait titles on Instagram and blog posts is just a way to attract people’s attention to get hits, based on the fabrication of the truth.

Why can’t bloggers just go somewhere and report back? Obviously, your story won’t be the same as mine. We all experience something different; we are all at different levels, but please, take it easy on the bullshit!

10. Write detailed, long-form content

I have just bashed out a 1,700-word blog post: How to Travel on a Tight Budget. It wasn’t that hard. Writing about something I know a great deal about and am passionate about comes easily.

Even this post suddenly became 2,000 words. It was easy because it was a post I felt that needed to be written. It ended up being 2,500 words in the end.

Long-form content, if well-written, keeps the reader on your blog, helping to reduce the bounce rate.

Long-form content will contain more keywords than short-form content.

Long-form content is definitely a win-win.

Before I transferred everything to WordPress, I had a lot of posts, fewer than 500 words in length. I still have some, but since I culled 400+ posts, my blog is gaining traction. Short-form blog posts can be classed as thin content.

If you can’t write 1,200 words, then follow the advice of Ryan Biddulph, who talks about practising writing 500 words daily to gain confidence as a writer and blogger.