It’s possible to start a travel blog even without traveling. I’ll tell you how to create it, make money with such a blog, and everything you’ll need to make this your dream happen.
I started my travel blog in 2020 and learned many lessons that brought my blog to where it is today. I failed several times until I found the right courses and strategies and started earning money while traveling. So I’ll make it easier for you to have a clear path.
First of all, I’ll give you the reasons and ways how it’s possible to start a travel blog without traveling. Then, I’ll give you a complete guide on setting up your website and writing your first blog post. Ultimately, you’ll find out how to earn money with your travel blog.
Are you ready? Let’s start a travel blog together!
What To Do To Start A Travel Blog Without Travelling
If you want to be a travel blogger, you need some content for your blog, which needs to be related to travel. But maybe you can’t travel because you’re broke due to a pandemic or family issues.
Whatever your reason, there are still ways to start a travel blog (if travel is your passion and you have traveled before).
Below, I’m giving you 5 great tips and ideas for starting a travel blog, even if you can’t travel now.
- Put together past travel experience
- Make day trips whenever you have time
- Make little road trips on your days off
- Get inspiration from others
- Report travel experience of your friends and family
1. Put Together Your Past Travel Experience
Why would it matter that you can’t travel right now? If you want to start a travel blog, you are probably passionate about traveling. That means you must have traveled somewhere at least a few times. Well, that’s great news because you have some content for your travel blog.
If you can’t travel right now, remember all your past travel experiences, where you’ve been, what you did, and how it was. Then you can write an article about the place.
2. Make Day Trips Whenever You Have Time
Another tip for starting your travel blog if you can’t travel, especially due to lack of time, is to make some day trips. Take small steps initially and explore some places around your home when possible. Instead of watching TV on the weekend or wasting your time, go and see something.
After, you can write an article about it for your travel blog. The goal is to produce as much content as possible and get travel inspiration.
3. Make Little Road Trips On Your Days Off
In case you’re broke, get a side job and try to save as much money as possible. For instance, I always worked many hours, even after my University classes, to earn extra cash. Then, I saved it and waited for the opportunity to go and make road trips around my area.
Save the money instead of going to the party and spending cash on drinks. Or, instead of buying an extra piece of clothes you don’t need, keep the cash.
The world constantly makes us want to consume something. The sad thing is that we don’t need that stuff. So be strong and save cash for more important things, like travel.
You don’t have to go far away. Just focus on the things you can explore and write about around your country. And remember your niche, which we’ll discuss later in this article.
4. Get Inspiration From Others
If you don’t know where to go or what to write about, get inspiration from others. Check out travel channels on YouTube and see what kind of content they produce. But please, never copy anyone’s work.
I mean to get inspiration for places you can visit or things you can do even in your own country. Google it or watch some YouTube videos. Then, go there yourself and create your content.
👉 READ ALSO: Travel Itineraries
5. Report Travel Experience Of Your Friends & Family
As with the case above, ask your family and friends where they’ve been on holiday if you need extra inspiration. Ask your grandpa where he’s been and what he’s experienced. For example, you can interview your friend or a family member about his travel experience and then report it on your website as an article.
The possibilities are endless. You only have to open up to receive them.
Full Guide On How To Start A Travel Blog Without Travelling
Now that you know you can start a travel blog even without traveling let’s learn how actually to start one.
I’ll be honest with you: blogging isn’t a walk through a rose valley. It’s hard work and requires a lot of time. But if you commit to it, you’ll earn passive income, and all the work will pay off.
It doesn’t have to be perfect right away. Mute the perfectionist inside you. At first, the most important thing is to start writing.
So now, let’s get into the step-by-step guide for starting your travel blog. You’ll learn how to get web hosting, design your website, write perfect blog posts to grow your site, and eventually earn money with your site.
Steps To Start A Travel Blog Without Travelling
- Choose your travel niche
- Create a name for your website & domain
- Buy a web hosting & set up your domain
- Choose a theme
- Download some plug-ins
- Design your website & create first pages
- Learn SEO skills
- Write your first blog post
- Create categories
- Keep producing content
- Get backlinks to your content
- Start with email marketing
- Become an affiliate
- Earn the first dollars with your travel blog
1. Step: Choose Your Travel Niche
Your niche is the foundation of your travel blog and a road to success. If you have a good niche, you’ll have visitors to your site because you’ll attract a specific type of audience.
A good niche will also ensure you earn money with your blog later. A good niche is everything.
Find a topic within the travel industry and write about it. So you have to decide what kind of travel blogger you’ll be.
You can focus on family travel, adventure travel, and cultural travel. Then, you can only choose one continent or an area. So, you can write about adventure travel in the USA. After, you can narrow it down even more and decide to whom you want to talk: students, families, people on a budget, or luxury travelers.
When choosing your niche, I recommend you choose the one you’re passionate about. It’ll motivate you when the hard times come.
2. Step: Create A Name For Your Website & Domain
Now you have your niche, one of the most challenging parts of starting your blog, so congratulations. Next, it’s time to create your domain. A domain is your website’s address so visitors can locate it online. It’s the URL of your website (the code of your website in the search/URL bar).
You can have any domain name, but it should contain your blog name. So before creating your domain, name your blog/website/blogging business. The name of your blog should reflect your niche.
So, if somebody is writing about the best food in the USA, your blog can have a name: The US Foodie. My blog is called ‘Voices of Travel’ because I write about travel itineraries and languages for travel.
So now, try to think of your blog name. Once you have it, incorporate it into your domain. In my case, the domain name is voicesoftravel.com. In the example above, a domain name would be theusfoodie.com.
There are some disputes about the domain name extension (.com, .eu, .org). I recommend ‘.com’. It’s great for international use for all topics. It also shows that your website is secure, giving it a good reputation.
Get 15 Name Ideas for Your Travel Blog For Free
I’ve brainstormed different name ideas for your travel blog to make it easier for you.
Get my list of 15 name ideas for your new blog and avoid the pain of finding the perfect name. Choose a name right away, and start working on your blog. Don’t get stuck even for a second.
It also includes exact steps for how to register your domain name correctly.
Get my 15 name ideas for your travel blog FOR FREE by clicking the image or button below:
3. Step: Buy A Web Hosting
Web Hosting is a house where your website will live on the internet. It is the storage space for your website. You need web hosting to start your website.
There are several businesses offering web hosting. Bluehost, HostGator, GoDaddy, Dreamhost, and A2 Hosting are the most famous. Of course, you could find many more, but these are the most common among businesses.
Which Web Hosting To Choose
Now it’s time to choose your Web Hosting. I use A2 Hosting.
I used to have Bluehost but had some issues. A good hosting needs to be fast, so your website is also fast (one of the most significant ranking factors on Google). And A2 has speeded up my website after I migrated.
A2 Hosting offers everything a good website must have. That includes an SSL Certificate (to have a secure site and protect your website), CDN (a content delivery network that spreads your website’s data across several servers worldwide), domain, and domain protection.
A2 is also one of the cheapest web host providers. You can now start hosting your blog for 3$ a month. It’s the price for a cup of coffee, so you don’t have more excuses.
Also, if you already have an existing domain name, A2 will migrate your site completely for free. I migrated my site to A2; they were helpful and managed the entire process well.
➡ Register your travel blog on A2 Hosting and learn more here.
Buy & Set Up Your Web Hosting & Register Domain
So now the next step is to buy your Web Hosting. Usually, you would need to buy a domain name, but it’s included in your A2 package, so you don’t have to think about it. Just buy your package and start creating your website.
Once you buy your web hosting service, you must register your domain name. The process is quite intuitive. Once you buy the web hosting, it’ll automatically guide you through registering your domain name and downloading WordPress.
One thing you should also be aware of is that your domain name might be available later. That means somebody has already taken this name and used it online. In this case, you’ll have to think of a different domain name.
If that’s the case, go back to step n. 2 and create a different domain name that will still reflect your blog name.
4. Step: Choose A Theme
You’ve now set the foundation of your website and done the most essential parts. You have your perfect niche, a website name, and a house (web hosting) for your website with a great domain name reflecting your travel blog name. It’s time to get around to your actual website creation.
Go to your WordPress. The first thing you should do is download a theme for your website. It’s like the interior design for your blog. It has set features and a structure for your website.
A good theme must be fast and give you some freedom to change things regarding design.
The best themes I recommend installing are:
👉 Ocean WP
👉 Astra
👉 Kadence
All of the themes are fast on desktop and mobile and have good design features. I use Ocean WP on my travel blog.
5. Step: Download Some Plug-Ins
The next step is to download the essential plug-ins. A Plug-in is a unit that adds specific features to your website. In other words, it helps your website perform better.
As a beginner blogger, you’ll need the following plug-ins for your site:
✅ WP Rocket – for a good performance & cache (speeds up your website)
✅ UpdraftPlus – Backup/Restore – to automatically backup your site in case of issues and lost of content
✅ Monsterinsights – to connect your Google Analytics with your WordPress (track traffic)
✅ Yoast SEO – to guide you to write SEO optimized articles
✅ ShortPixel Image Optimizer – to optimaze images on your site and make them smaller (speeds up your site)
These are the most essential plug-ins I recommend.
Only have a few plug-ins on your site because too many plug-ins significantly slow your site down. Remember: website speed is one of the most important factors for your blog to rank on Google. Keep it in mind.
6. Step: Design Your Website & Create First Pages
Let’s start with designing your website. First, picture how you want your blog to look.
Afterward, consider the travel topics you’ll write about on the blog.
Let’s say you’re a US Foodie Traveler. In this case, you can break your blog topics/categories down into each US state and talk about the food locals eat in each US state.
Another category could be US food recipes.
In my case, I have a blog about travel and languages. I write about each country (the country is my topic), so I’ve created a page for each country. After that, I write articles for the specific country page.
Then, I talk about languages for travel, so I created a separate page for languages and wrote articles for this page.
So, create the number of pages depending on how many topics/categories you’ll write about on your travel blog.
Create The First Pages
Start creating your homepage at first. Then go to an about page and contact page. After, you can add other pages based on the topic of your travel blog.
In my case, I chose to name each page with one country. You can get some inspiration on my website, Voices of Travel.
Duplicate Page Plug-In
Another great plug-in I highly recommend is Duplicate Page when designing. You can duplicate any page you’ve already created with it. Then, just rename the duplicated page, and you’ll have the same design and settings. You don’t have to create the page again from scratch. It’ll save you a lot of time.
7. Step: Learn SEO Skills
Besides creating your website on WordPress, you must learn SEO skills to succeed. SEO is a king.
Without SEO, nobody will read your travel blog because no one has the time or is interested in reading your articles unless you answer people’s questions or help them solve a problem.
And this is when SEO comes into play.
I’ve designed a full guide for you to learn the most important things about SEO. Before you start writing your articles, you need to learn about SEO. As I want you to implement the right strategies at the beginning, get my full guide about SEO for a small fee.
This full guide on SEO will teach you:
- What is SEO & Why it’s important
- Best tools for SEO
- What makes a great keyword
- How to install Ubersuggest
- How to use Ubersuggest & other tools to find great keywords
- Mistakes to avoid as a travel blogger
- Course that will help you move forward
It’ll teach you how to properly write articles on your travel blog using SEO.
Once you learn SEO, people will find your articles on Google. This way, you’ll get visitors to your website. So, make sure to learn SEO before writing your first article.
👉 PRO TIP: The better your SEO skills, the more visitors you’ll have on your site, and the more money you’ll earn from your travel blog.
Get my guide on SEO by clicking on the button or image below:
8. Step: Write Your First Blog Post
Congratulations, you’ve now created your travel website. Take a deep breath and have a look at your work. Don’t spend too much time on your website design. You can always come back and change it later. The most important is to get to content writing.
Remember that you create your website for people to come and learn something. So, your content is the most essential part of all.
What will help your site to grow are your blog posts. So now it’s time to create the first one. Again, go to the left sidebar in your WordPress and click on ‘Posts.’ Then, add new ones and start writing.
Gutenberg Or Classic Editor?
Back in 2018, WordPress released a new editor called Gutenberg. It’s now a default editor on WordPress, so once you click to create a new post, you’ll have Gutenberg to write into. However, some bloggers dislike it and would rather change to the former editor, the Classic one.
I used the Classic editor, and changing to Gutenberg was difficult. But after, I realized how many more things I could do with Gutenberg. Now, Classic editor seems old-fashioned and doesn’t give me as many options as Gutenberg.
So I highly recommend starting with Gutenberg editor. It’s a default editor, so you don’t have to do anything; it’s automatically there when you open a new blog post.
9. Step: Create Categories
Once you have a few blog posts, you can organize them into categories. It helps your site and content be more organized and gives your readers suggestions about what to read next once they finish reading an article.
When you click on posts below in the left sidebar, you’ll have ‘Categories.’ Create a few and organize your posts into these categories.
A Parent Category is the main category under which other categories will fall. For instance, the main category can be ‘Destinations,’ other sub-categories could be ‘Albania Travel,’ ‘Croatia Travel,’ etc.
10. Step: Keep Producing Content
As I mentioned above, your content is the core of your website. So, keep producing as many blog posts as you can. Opt for 80 to 100 articles on your site, and you’ll see your first bigger results.
Remember, it’s different for each blogger, so there is no specific time when your travel blog will be successful. But it’ll certainly attract visitors if you have great content written according to the best SEO practices.
11. Get Backlinks To Your Content
As your website grows, you’ll get some visitors, and other website owners might link to your articles on their website because they like your content. It means that you get a backlink from someone else.
Backlinks are as important as your SEO skills and website speed. They help you grow your domain/website authority.
Domain authority (DA) is a metric that search engines use to rank websites. The higher your DA, the better your blog posts will rank in the search engines. And the more backlinks you gain, the faster your DA grows. So, it’s important to get these backlinks.
You can do so by writing guest posts for other bloggers. Email them and ask if you could write a blog post for them. Think about a topic and link your articles to the guest post.
11. Step: Start With Email Marketing
One crucial thing you have to do after you have a few articles on your site is to start with email marketing. It’s the gate for getting in touch with your readers and audience, establishing trust with them, and, later on, making money from your site.
There are many email marketing services, so choose one from the following:
- Mailchimp
- HubSpot
- Convertkit
- Drip
- Constant Contact
I use Convertkit as my email marketing service. It is one of the best providers out there for professional bloggers. They offer everything you need to start with email marketing, and I am very satisfied with them so far.
12. Step: Become An Affiliate
So you’ve been blogging for a while now, have produced many articles on your site, and the first visitors started to arrive. You can see readers clicking through your pages, and you’re wondering how you can all monetize them.
The first option would be affiliate marketing. When you become an affiliate for a company or another business, you’ll essentially write about their products, services, or software.
When your reader clicks on the link on your site and purchases something from them, you’ll get a commission from the business. Affiliate marketing is one of the income streams you can establish as a travel blogger.
But please, don’t write about something you don’t like. Only recommend products or services you use or know are great and beneficial to your readers.
Your visitors are smart, and they know whether you advertise someone’s product because of the high commission rate or you like it and use it. So, only link to the resources, websites, and products you like or use.
Best Affiliate Programs For Travel Bloggers
As a travel blogger, I use these affiliate programs: Get Your Guide, Safety Wings (travel insurance), and TravelPayouts.
Get Your Guide is amazing for affiliate links to tours and activities worldwide.
Safety Wings is a great travel insurance for nomads and travelers I promote.
TravelPayouts is one of the best affiliate programs for travel bloggers, and it has various companies. So you’ll have everything under one account and can work with different car rental companies, hotels, activities, buses, train companies, and more.
You can sign up for TravelPayouts here, create your account for free, and start earning your affiliate income.
➡ Create a free acount on TravelPayouts here.
13. Step: Earn The First Dollars With Your Travel Blog
I recommend you start with one income stream at the beginning. It can be affiliate marketing.
Once you get better at it, see some results, and grow your traffic, you can earn money from your travel blog in other ways. These could be the following:
✅ Ads on your site
✅ Create your own products
✅ Sponsorships & partners
What About Social Media?
You can also market your site and make it visible to your readers. But don’t start an Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter at once.
I wouldn’t start any social media accounts. SEO is your king, and the power will bring visitors to your website. I used Pinterest and Instagram, and none of these platforms brought me even 1% of the visitors that SEO gives me.
So, I only recommend focusing on SEO and writing good-quality articles. If you want, you can start an Instagram account to share your travel photos. Still, I wouldn’t take it too seriously as a marketing strategy. Because again, SEO is your biggest marketing strategy.
How To Profit From Your Travel Blog Faster
If I were to teach you all blogging strategies in this one blog post, it would be at least a million words long. That’s how extensive it is. While the 3 most important things to be successful are SEO, good quality content, and website speed, there are still so many details to learn regarding each step.
I made the biggest mistake at the beginning of my blogging journey and didn’t invest in a course. I tried figuring everything out myself, which took a lot of time.
If I invested in a course right at the beginning, I would be further away, earning more money than I am now with my travel blog. Instead, I had to go back to all of my articles and change them so they’re SEO optimized and all other details.
So please don’t make the same mistake as me and invest in a travel blogging course.
I’ve taken two courses and I’ll tell you more about them below:
Blogging Fast Lane Course
As my first course, I took the Blogging Fast Lane. It was a perfect introduction to blogging and everything you need to know.
Anna and Tom teach you everything from starting a website to perfecting SEO strategy, putting you into the right mindset, and motivating you.
You’ll also learn how to write the perfect blog post, how to make money with affiliate marketing, and what a value gift is with which you can gain more subscribers.
What I loved the most about this course was the email list and marketing portion. They taught me what a freebie is and how to collect emails from my visitors to grow my email list.
Everyone says, ‘The money is on the list.’ that is, the best way you can earn money from your blog is with your newsletter. And they’ll teach you how to do it the right way.
NOTE: Anna & Tom have paused selling the Blogging Fast Lane course as of 2024, so you can’t currently sign up. I’ll inform you in the future if they run a sale again.
Scale Your Travel Blog
While the Blogging Fast Lane course gave me all the foundations and basics to learn to start my travel blog, I was still missing something after a year. My travel blog was still stagnating, and I was at the point of giving up.
Until I discovered Scale Your Travel Blog, a course for travel bloggers created by Laura Abalos.
At first, I was hesitant because it’s a lot of money. But I told myself, now or never. I was blogging for over 2 years without seeing results. So, I gave it a try and bought the Scale Your Travel Blog Course.
After a year of learning all the strategies from Laura, I finally started making money from my travel blog. She taught me everything that I was missing. She goes into every detail of how to create a perfect blog post.
She also gives you a list of keywords that will help you rank on Google. After that, she also creates blog post outlines and even reviews your posts, so you know exactly what you’re doing and whether you’re doing it right.
I have no other words – it’s the best travel blogging course. I’m so grateful to Laura for everything she has taught me.
➡ Sign up for Scale Your Travel Blog here.
1-On-1 Coaching Included
The best part is the coaching – she gives you a complete site audit and works with you one-on-one, which no other course has.
Recently, she has also added the email marketing portion to the course. So, it teaches you everything you need to be a real travel blogger and make money. And it works – I can prove it.
I think Scale Your Travel Blog is the ultimate blogging course that will take your blog to a business, earning you a 6- or 7-figure income.
If you would like to learn more about Scale Your Travel Blog, sign up for this free workshop, in which you’ll learn about the most important blogging strategies and what the course offers:
➡ Sign up for Scale Your Travel Blog here.
FAQs
I’ve also answered some of the frequently asked questions about blogging. Check my answers below:
How Do I Start A Travel Blog For Beginners?
You need to create a blog name, register a domain, buy web hosting and install WordPress, create pages, download essential plugins, start writing blog posts, create good quality content, get backlinks to your blog posts, and grow your domain authority to rank better on Google.
Can I Make A Travel Blog Without Traveling?
Yes, you can create a travel blog even without traveling. Write about your past travel experiences and places you have visited and loved. Then, whenever you’re off and have some spare time, explore the area around your home and write about the places in your blog.
Do Travel Bloggers Make Money?
Yes, travel bloggers make a lot of money. Some can make even 20K per month with various income streams. At first, you must put in a lot of work, but once you make it and write good travel articles, you can earn a passive income of around 1K per month. And it grows more after each month and year.
What Is The Best Travel Blogging Course?
Scale Your Travel Blog, created by Mike & Laura Travel, is the best. I took the course, and it helped me to finally make money from my blog within half a year. Laura is an amazing coach, and the course also includes a one-on-one site audit with her, which helps you take your blog to the next level.
WRAP-UP: How To Start A Travel Blog
This is the best way to start a travel blog without traveling and a full guide. You should chase your dream and start your travel blog even if you can’t travel right now. It’s even a good thing because you can fully concentrate on content production and the growth of your site.
Be patient and work hard. It’ll all pay off. Remember that the most important things are your content and SEO. And invest in a course; it’ll help you succeed much faster than figuring out everything on your own.
I wish you all the best on your travel blogging journey.
Have Fun!
Get Some Inspiration For Travel Pages
Looking for more ideas of how a travel blog looks like?
Check out these pages and blog posts:
Best Of Spain Itinerary: 14 Days In Spain
About the author: Nicoletta is a travel enthusiast and passionate language learner. While traveling, she loves to connect with locals using her language skills to learn about new cultures. Look for her skiing, hiking in the mountains, or exploring new destinations as she designs travel itineraries for her clients.
TRAVEL ITINERARIES: Interested in more travel itineraries?
Check out my Travel Itineraries Page.
