My A-Z Travel Blogging Tips

I’ve seen a few of these around, one of my favorites being from All Things Beautiful, which inspired me to create my own relating mostly to travel blogging.

Affiliate yourself with organizations related to travel blogging, such as the Travel Blog Traffic Exchange.

Business cards are great tools for advertising your blog in person. I talk about my blog a lot so it’s easier to just hand out a business card instead of the other person trying to write it down.

My card from vistaprint.com

Comment on other travel blogs – it’ll help get your name out there!

Don’t stop blogging just because you’re not traveling. There are so many topics you could write about even if you’re working full time and stuck in one spot.

Excel can be your best friend. Use it to organize your posts and ideas. I also use it for keeping my interview list straight!

Fix up an email address to associate with your blog. It looks silly if your email is xbunnyx@gmail.com if your blog is called “Travels with Theresa”.

Get inspired by putting travel quotations or maps in your work area.

Have an ongoing weekly series. For example, I do Travel Tip Tuesdays, Would You Eat It? Wednesdays, and Featured Blogger Thursdays.

Improve your writing and photography techniques. There are many resources online specifically for travel journalism, such as MatadorU.

Journalism beyond your blog might be an area of interest. Once you have a better writing technique, you might want to check out some freelancing.

Keep a clean work space.

Leave citations and links for all pictures and quotations you supply in your posts that aren’t yours.

Maximize the experience you’re supplying in your post by engaging all five senses – the smell of the fresh bread with your lunch in Rome, feeling the hard crust, seeing the colors of the bruschetta on top, tasting it, and hearing the crunch.

Note down anything and everything you need to write a full blog post – such as restaurant names and menu items, streets, shops, hostels, experiences and environments.

Organize your thoughts before you write, even if you have to type it out first in paragraph order. You’ll keep yourself sane and it’ll be easier to come back to later for proofreading.

Pay a hosting website, such as BlueHost, in order to have your own domain instead of XXX.wordpress.com. It looks better and is easier for people to remember. Some organizations won’t let you join without that.

Question your own posts before publishing them. Is this city worth writing about? What are people interested in getting out of travel blogs?

Research a city/etc. before you blog about it and call things by their proper names. It’s much better to say “il duomo” instead of “the cathedral in Florence”.

Schedule your posts and tweets in advance. I like to take my weekend mornings (I hate waking up late) to work on several weeks of upcoming posts. No stress during the work week!

Travel shows are your friends and a great source of inspiration.

Utilize social media such as Twitter. Favorite and retweet posts you really do find interesting! Follow the big travel celebrities, such as Andrew Zimmern, Rick Steves, and Samantha Brown. Interact with their tweets and drop their names in yours – they’ll be sure to notice at some point!

Visit your favorite travel blogs and websites regularly. It’s great to observe what your blogging idols are posting about and why they are so popular.

Work with other travel bloggers, whether it’s through interviews or guest posts.

eXamine (cheated a bit there) your post after it’s done and imagine yourself as a reader. Would you want to visit that site after reading your post?

You are what makes your blog interesting. Don’t write a sarcastic piece about what makes French people rude (they aren’t) if you aren’t a sarcastic person – it’ll show in your words. Be yourself in your posts!

Zero in on your goal for your travel blog. What’s it about? Is it a worthy goal?

Let me know what you think! I’d love to get some more advice.

What Does a Travel Blogger Write About When Not Traveling?

When I was studying abroad in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, I was pounding away on the keyboard weekly after every weekend trip. It was so easy to write about all my experiences in Santiago as well as my mini-trips to Zurich, Rome, Paris, London, etc. There was more than enough to go around and I was eager to share it.

Now, I’m back in Wisconsin, work 40 hours per week, and am so sick of the computer by the end of the day that my blog has fallen far behind of what it used to be. Worse is now I’m actually serious about it, want to improve my writing, and am interested in freelancing. Good thing I’m stuck, huh?

While I got a little break from reality in the form of a trip to Australia this past summer, it’s been hard coming up with material when I haven’t been traveling full-time. What could I possibly still have to offer in terms of travel writing?

I had to get creative. I did an interview for bgpolish.com, which inspired me to start my Featured Blogger series where I specifically interview other travel bloggers on Thursdays. Coming up with questions was difficult but fun. They were questions  I genuinely wanted answers for in order to see what makes me different, or stand out, from other travel bloggers. I flew over to Twitter and bombarded my following and followers with messages, asking fellow travel bloggers if they’d like to participate. Slowly but surely responses came, and even more slowly interviews were returned to me. I had my first feature in no time!

Although I had my first weekly series set, I knew if I didn’t create other series my blog would soon turn into an interview-only zone. With my love of alliteration, I created Travel Tip Tuesdays, and Would You Eat It? Wednesdays. These were easy, one-paragraph posts that I could come up with in 10 minutes on a weekend morning and schedule weeks at a time. Of course, these seemed so easy that they ended up being difficult and I sometimes struggle with ideas for these posts, which means I haven’t gotten myself into a blogging routine. They’re certainly a start, though!

But it was on: I had new weekly series on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays every week even though I was stuck in Wisconsin. Wanting to add two more to make a full work-week’s-worth of posts, I’m currently adding City Guides on Mondays, where I discuss some basic to-dos and food-choices in cities I’ve visited, and Top 5 Fridays, where I talk about my top-five any travel-related topic (Galician foods, Wisconsin cheeses, London spots, etc).

Having five series really keeps my blog busy. I love that I’m able to cozy up with a cup of cocoa and write for hours in one day, scheduling a month’s worth of original posts. It allows me time to come up with posts like this!

What do you write about when you’re not traveling? I’d love to hear your ideas!

My Favorite Blogging Advice

I’m very new to the blogging world. Although my blog is two years old now – and I realize that’s not really considered “new” anymore, I’m only just now really starting to pay attention and improve my blogging and writing techniques – plus I really want to get into freelancing.