How I am using AI as a tool to awesome-ise my blog posts

AI doesn’t travel. AI doesn’t even write. It copies, scrapes whatever is out there and puts out yet another soulless blog post crammed full of every keyword imaginable.

AI-written blog posts lack any kind of human, first-person experience. You can spot them a mile away. How are they even popular?

I am a traveller who writes (runs a travel blog) rather than a writer who travels.

I am not a talented writer. I use AI to proofread my travel blog. It is very good at catching typos, grammatical errors and other inconsistencies, site-wide.

I don’t need AI to write my blog posts. I have enough raw material to keep me going until next Christmas. I have travelled, backpacked my way through 130+ countries since I started travelling, more than 30 years ago.

I just need a little help with spelling and shit.

I am totally against using AI to:

• Create content
• Bash out 500 blog posts a day
• Create clickbait blog post titles
• Create fake photos of me somewhere where I haven’t been.

I have 389 blog posts on here, Nomadic Backpacker.

Imagine if I had started blogging back in 1992. Yeah, I know the internet didn’t exist then, but let’s say it did; I would have one of the biggest travel blogs out there.

I might not have heaps of stories on this blog, but I have 33 years of experience as a backpacker that I can draw on. I don’t need to fake it.

My Nomadic Backpacker blog posts are full of travel hacks that I have learnt from all my years on the road. My blog posts are unique. They are mine and are written from the heart.

Using AI to write blog posts that sound like all the other posts out there is not where I want to go.

Gemini is AI, and I am using it as a tool to Digitally Proofread my Blog.

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Taking a break right now from fine-tuning my blog to write this blog post.

I am using Gemini to highlight the following:

• Typing errors
• Punctuation errors
• Spelling
• American vs British English
• Inconsistencies

Typing errors: I am not a proficient typist. Period! The issue is that my brain works ten times as fast as my ability to type.

Punctuation: Mostly these are missing commas, in particular the Oxford Comma, and multiple full stops. Despite using Grammarly, checking as I go, quite a few still get through.

Spelling: This is a big one. It’s not always easy to know if certain words are one word, two words or hyphenated.

Hitchhiking is one word, back pocket is two, second-hand is hyphenated.

Technology has changed things BIG TIME. The word ‘program’, for example, is universally accepted for a computer program, BUT in English we officially use the French word, ‘programme’.

Everyone uses the word ‘expresso’, for a small coffee, when it is actually espresso.

Spelling mistakes are made because sometimes I don’t know the correct spelling. These differ from errors I have made by typing badly.

American spellings: I tend to use ‘pants’, ‘sidewalk’ and ‘sweater’ a lot on my blog. These are the American words for trousers, pavement and jumper. I do so to avoid confusing those across the pond, although this is essentially my side now since I live in Mexico.

But for the most part, I use the British spellings. Travelling, traveller, categorised, organised, colour, neighbourhood.

Did you know that there are around 2,000 different words between British English and American English?

Inconsistencies: This is a big one, too. Words like Wi-Fi, eBook, eVisa, and accents on Spanish words need to be the same across the blog.

Things like 10 km, 5 euro, €5, 10.30 am, 13:00, typing out in full numbers less than 10 matter to me!

It can be difficult sometimes to know what is the best way to approach writing about places in countries where English is not the official language.

Should I write, for example, Tazumal Archaeological Park, which is the English name, or should I use Parque Arqueológico Tazumal, which is the Spanish name?

Gemini highlighted the fact that I was using a mixture of both.

Gemini is a fantastic free blogging tool, and I am using it to digitally proofread my blog posts.

My blog has the potential to be massive. It deserves to be, considering the amount of work I have put in and that I write from the experience of having been travelling for 33+ years as a budget traveller, a backpacker, someone who travels with a backpack, through 130 countries and territories.

All I do is go to the webpage: https://gemini.google.com/app and type in Check for typos on https://www.nomadicbackpacker.com/bletchley-park-enigma-code-world-war-two.html for example.

Gemini finds it all. It really is quite shocking.

Proving my blog is not written using AI

There is some difference of opinion on having a blog post without typos or grammatical errors. Some say that a non-perfect blog post proves that it wasn’t written using AI.

But I ask you, what is wrong with trying to have the perfect blog post?

Why should I have to have typos in my blog posts to prove that they are NOT AI-generated?

My mum used to work for a top lawyer in London. Everything had to be perfect in the letters she typed. She used her grammar school education.

I use Grammarly ‘au lieu de’ a dictionary. Is that cheating? I use Gemini to check for errors en masse.

I prove my blog is real by writing from a first-person perspective, adding personal anecdotes, stories and emotions into my blog posts.

AI can’t reproduce the post about when I got attacked at knifepoint in Cape Town, or the emotions I went through to go back to the location of the attack.

I add selfies to most of my blog posts. Many of my photos are crap, but better a crap photo than a nice fake photo.

I have selfies of me in Tegucigalpa, at the Source of the Nile in Burundi, and in places most of you have never heard of, Likoma Island, Cobué, Ceuta, Figuig and Kong and also in London, Milan and San José.

I don’t need typos to make my blog posts look real.

Here are some examples that Gemini gave me of how I add the personal touch to my posts:

“Miss CDMX”: You mention she is now your wife—congratulations! It’s a nice personal touch that makes the blog “AI-proof”, as you suggested in your other post (the one where I listed the mistakes I made as a travel blogger).

Correction: For a more “British” travel writer feel, you might swap this for “rather” or “somewhat”, though “kinda” fits your informal, honest style.

“naïve“: You used the correct diaeresis (the two dots) over the ‘i’. This looks professional and accurate.

“Nothing like telling everyone…”: (Section 6) This is a sarcastic sentence fragment. It works well for your blog’s voice.

“I am a traveller sharing firsthand information…”: This is a strong, trust-building sentence.

“tucking into a bowl of porridge”: Very British phrasing.

“NO. Just go to the bus station and ask…“: The use of all-caps “NO” fits your blunt, direct persona perfectly.

“DEET is bad for your skin… but malaria and dengue are far worse“: This is a very strong, common-sense argument that fits your “No BS” tagline.

“pissed“: You use this to mean drunk.

Note: This is perfect UK slang for your brand, but be aware that US readers might think it means “angry.” (Given your “no BS” style, I’d keep it!).

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I don’t have a program where all the suggestions are automatically corrected or replaced. I am manually editing and checking every one of them.

Gemini highlights badly written paragraphs. I then go into the blog post and rewrite sections without using hints from AI. It forces me to see the mistake that I have previously missed. It teaches me to think about how I could improve the text.

This is also an exercise in becoming a better writer. Practice makes perfect.

An error report by Gemini is like a report from your high school teacher, Could do better!

Having Gemini digitally proofread my blog posts is like having an editor to edit a book.

Gemini is AI and can (and does) make mistakes, though compared to the errors I make, they are minimal.

There were a few false flags and a few things that I found that Gemini failed to mention.

But it’s an awesome tool for those who clearly should have paid more attention in school.