10 great resources for aspiring travel bloggers

Me blogging in Don Det, LaosI am a fledgling travel blogger. That’s right; I’m a newbie, a rookie, a noob. Although I’ve been travelling much longer, I’ve only been blogging about my travels for four short months.

During that time I have yet to really crack the formula that makes so many of my contemporaries’ blogs so popular, but what I have discovered is a great number of handy blogging-related websites, articles and eBooks that are incredibly useful for new travel bloggers like myself.

I thought I’d share some of the best ones with you:

Helpful articles for new travel bloggers

Basic, beginner travel blogging tips and advice: This blog post over at Go See Write is an excellent introduction for aspiring travel bloggers. It covers essential topics such as going self-hosted, descriptive URLs and driving traffic through social media.

Essential resources for new travel bloggers – setting up: The Road Forks’ guide to setting up a travel blog is fairly comprehensive with tons of links to other useful guides and travel blogs. It covers all the essentials to getting set up: getting motivated, picking a niche, developing a site and designing it.

How to improve your travel blog and get on the top 100: If you’re looking to crack the top 100 travel blogs then you’re going to want to give this blog post by Nomadic Samuel a read. He’s the one who collates this list, which is based on SEOmoz and Alexa indicators, so naturally his advice is worth paying attention to.

Travel blogging tips from the experts: An entertaining and informative series of interviews with well-known travel bloggers. These posts at Finding the Universe discuss everything from social media and traffic analysis through to the greatest challenges facing bloggers and ideas to generate income.

Blogging with a beer in Hoi An, Vietnam

Useful websites for new travel bloggers

Blog Tyrant: Strategies, tactics and tips to help you dominate your blog’s niche. Don’t be put off by the overzealous guide to building a blog worth more than $50,000 (I’m a cynic), Blog Tyrant is a useful one-stop shop for guides on how to drive traffic to and monetise (or “monetize” to our American friends) your blog.

Problogger: An expert’s guide to the wonderful – yet challenging – world of blogging, Problogger is packed to the gills with useful resources for bloggers of all descriptions. From guides to the best WordPress themes to search engine optimisation and how to make money from your blog, you’ll find it here.

Think Traffic: Another think big, aim high website that promises a lot, Think Traffic is all about generating more traffic for your blog. It’s packed with helpful blogging resources and inspiration.

Travel Blog Advice: What would a formally educated anthropologist and former computer hacker know about travel blogging? A lot, as it turns out. Anil Polat has been a travel blogger for more than five years and this is where he shares his experiences, tips and advice about travel blogging.

Travel Writers Exchange: A community of travel writers, bloggers and journalists exchanging blogging tools, tips and resources. It has a great discussion forum for exchanging ideas with other travel bloggers and you can submit articles for the good of the travel blogging community.

eBooks for fledgling travel bloggers

How to Make Money With Your Travel Blog: Okay, so I’ve only read one eBook designed to help new travel bloggers – but I promise it is a good one. Starting with the basics, Nomadic Matt Kepnes (usually around #1 on the top 100 travel blogs list) takes you through creating a blog, building it and optimising it for search engines, before looking at ways to raise its profile and monetising it.

I do hope this list was useful. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll be qualified enough to offer fledgling travel bloggers some advice…

About Simon Petersen 500 Articles
Travel blogger, journalist, sports and movie fiend. Chronicling the life and times of a Kiwi at home and abroad.

59 Comments

  1. Very smart post, thanks for the links! This is my first time on your blog and enjoy it already! 🙂

    I started my blog 7 months ago and have had a great time meeting people through it… so much to do though, since I’m not a fan of my cuurent layout. Hobbies tend to turn into passions, so looking forward to improving it.

    • Thanks! The first few months can be tough but you should (hopefully) be at the stage where you’re starting to see a little bit of traffic. All the best with your website

  2. Many thanks for this list Simon. I suppose I’m in a similar position to you. I’ve been a very frequent traveller for over a decade yet only began my travel blog four months ago. I look forward to exploring all these links.

    Are any of the links your favourite for tips?

    • Cheers for the comment! When I started I was completely new to all of this – even WordPress. That’s why I found Nomadic Matt’s book particularly helpful. I realise you can probably get all the information for free somewhere else but I didn’t even know what to look for! As for the free stuff, Problogger continues to be informative and inspirational. Good luck!

  3. Just came across this at a time where I fee like I’m in as bit of a slump…the initial energy and drive after just launching my own blog has lagged a bit and I needed something like this to help get refocused again – thank you!

  4. I’m hitting your list hard! I’ve only been doing this whole blogging thing for 2 weeks, it’s really hard work!
    Now to find out how to make some money out of it. Cheers for the list Simon.

    • Welcome to the wonderful world of SEO, Google Analytics and the constant writing of more blog posts! Haha, good luck!

  5. I’m about a month in to my new travel blog, and it is, indeed, overwhelming! So much time and energy goes into the blogs, it’s easy for one to not equal the amount put into the site, especially the less tech savvy, like myself! Thanks for the info and quick links! I will be up all night reading them! 😀

    • You’re preaching to the choir, my friend – I’m not very tech savvy myself! That’s why so many of these resources are useful.

  6. Just started my own travel blog so, I am gonna bookmark this site and keep checking out all these great resources you have so helpfully collated! There is so much to learn!

  7. The eBooks are total scams – that’s all I’ll say on that subject without delving in further. Not worth it at all and really it doesn’t tell you much that you can’t find for free anyway.

    And Alexa? It’s a joke. Mine has improved in leaps and bounds – but I’ve been doing nothing different. It also only takes into account page views by those who have downloaded the toolbar. Outside of the blogging world, I don’t know a single person who’s even heard of Alexa, let alone downloaded it. Although I do approve of Sam’s other great recommendations on that article 🙂

    Now the rest of the stuff – some good resources that I’m going to have to check out!

    • I know what you mean about the ebooks but, for me, the one I purchased was very useful because I was starting from zero. I didn’t even have any idea what to Google to find out the information for free! It’s the only book I bought and I don’t think I’d ever need to buy another one.

      As for Alexa – I still have no idea what it’s all about except that mine keeps going down, too! Haha. But that’s supposed to be a good thing, right?

      Cheers buddy!

  8. Thanks for sharing this info. I’ve been doing my blog since the end of May. I love doing it but it’s very time consuming. I spend more time working on it than learning how to do it right ! I’m going to hit “pause” tomorrow and look at some of the resources you mentioned. Will you be going to the TBEX conference in Girona next month by any chance? My sister, travel crime partner, will be with me.

    • I’ve been doing mine since the end of Feb so I’m still very new myself! It’s incredibly time consuming but rewarding at the same time. I wish I was going to TBEX! Have fun!

  9. Timely article for me, being a newbie to this sometimes overwhelming blogging world! Some great advice in these links – thanks for sharing!

    • It can be very overwhelming! Thankfully most bloggers I know are really friendly and helpful – so you could always give someone a shout if you’re after advice about something specific

  10. Thanks Simon. Great tips. It is really useful for newer bloggers like myself who are trying to improve.

    Thanks for sharing!

    Tom

  11. great great tips on many websites have never heard of. I’ve been travel blogging for almost a year now and I’m sure I’ll learn a lot of new things thanks to your article–awesome! 😉

    • Glad you found it useful! They say you can’t teach and old dog new tricks – I’m not sure that’s true in the world of blogging!

  12. I wish all of these sites were around when I was starting two years ago. Once you get the knack of those I highly recommend ViperChill the guy is a prodigy. But you kind of need to understand the basics first.

    • I’ve heard of ViperChill. Will have to check it out once I’ve got the basics down pat. Cheers!

  13. Really informative post with lots of links I can’t wait to read. 😉 Travel blogging has always interested me and maybe it’s a niche I’ll crack one of these days. Thanks again!

    • Thanks for the comment and RT. I’m trying to crack travel blogging myself – it’s a lot harder than it looks!

  14. Appreciate the mention on that post. I had to go back and look at it to make sure it was still relevant after all this time and turns out it is. Shocked even me 😉

    • You are very welcome. When I stumbled upon your list of resources I couldn’t not include it with mine!

  15. I totally appreciate being featured with such other great blogs/resources. Some of these, such as Blog Tyrant, I’ve never even heard of before. I’m going to head over and check them out now 🙂

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