Top 5 Reasons Not to Start a Travel Blog
Posted: August 25, 2024
2 years ago, I wrote, 7 Reasons to Start a Travel Blog. Now is the time to tell some home truths about travel blogging. Maybe this new post as well as the other one could be seen as a bit of fun but they are damn real for sure.
1. Time Suck
Travel blogging is an enormous time suck. Beyond the travels and collecting the info, photos, and stories, getting all of that online takes time, a lot of time.
The writing, editing, running the spell checker, doing the layout of the page, the image selection, resizing, and changing the image URL to something Google will understand will consume your time like you never thought it possible.
Nomadic Backpacker in Northern Pakistan in 2011. I hadn't even seen an internet cafe for 8 weeks:
The writing, editing, running the spell checker, doing the layout of the page, the image selection, resizing, and changing the image URL to something Google will understand will consume your time like you never thought it possible.
Nomadic Backpacker in Northern Pakistan in 2011. I hadn't even seen an internet cafe for 8 weeks:
2. Distraction from the Actual Travels
You are forever chasing stories like a wanna-be journalist. Blogging for your small-time blog like you are a journalist chasing the latest lead for CNN or the BBC. The story consumes you.
3. Unsociable
As noted above, blogging takes time. Time when you could be out there having fun, exploring new places and talking to people in the street, in the pub or the hostel. and if you're travelling with your partner who doesn't blog, they are gonna be pissed with you, big time because the story comes first and you tell them that are doing it for them, to get an income from the road and the next story will be the one.
Time spent sitting like this having the morning coffee without a smartphone (Good-Bye Lenin Hostel Zakopane 2010) rarely exists now but it's one of my plans once back in Mexico is to do this much more often:
Time spent sitting like this having the morning coffee without a smartphone (Good-Bye Lenin Hostel Zakopane 2010) rarely exists now but it's one of my plans once back in Mexico is to do this much more often:
4. The Modus Operandi of the Travel Changes
You end up going to places to get a story and focus on that BIG time instead of going to a place to enjoy it for what it is. And here is the big thing, although I like running my blog, I do prefer the time before all this website stuff and social media but I guess unless you lived and travelled in that period, pre-2007 (when blogging really started) you ain't gonna understand this.
Enjoying the ride in Poland without associated with FOMO:
Enjoying the ride in Poland without associated with FOMO:
5. Disheartening
You put in the hours and then some. You hit publish, share on social media and no one gives a fuck. Your post goes completely unseen. Google decided a Trip Advisor forum post from 2015 is more helpful than your superbly created, fact-filled, up-to-date latest piece.
You write to hostels, asking, begging for a free night in exchange for a full blog post review with promotion on social media but they ignore you because you are a nobody and you are the 69th blogger they have heard from that week asking for a free stay.
You write to companies selling backpacks, wallets and anything else that you think could be useful but like with trying to get a free bed, you are a nobody. There are too many bloggers doing the same thing, and your email just gets TRASHED.
Welcome to the world of blogging.
You write to hostels, asking, begging for a free night in exchange for a full blog post review with promotion on social media but they ignore you because you are a nobody and you are the 69th blogger they have heard from that week asking for a free stay.
You write to companies selling backpacks, wallets and anything else that you think could be useful but like with trying to get a free bed, you are a nobody. There are too many bloggers doing the same thing, and your email just gets TRASHED.
Welcome to the world of blogging.
