Travel Blogging 3 Months In: How’s it Going?
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It is a little over three months into our travels around Asia and running our travel blog has been fulfilling, exciting, time consuming and at times confusing.
We wrote an article at Travel Writers Exchange about How to Manage Your Blog While Traveling to give you an idea of how we do it.
But we thought that we would share the things that we have had difficulties with, things that we want to change in the blog and directions that we want to take.
Blog Content.
This has been the easiest part of running our travel blog. With new adventures and destinations happening daily, we have no problem posting information and travel stories.
Difficulties: We have come to the conclusion that we may be posting too often. We are not sure if we are turning off regular readers by putting up blog posts 7 days a week. We have so much to share however, that if we don’t post daily, we would still be writing about India while we are in Sri Lanka!
Solution: We decided to change things up in the blog by giving readers a break two days a week. Sundays will be featuring our favorite snapshot of the week from Dave’s repertoire of photos. Each week we have a highlight of a fabulous moment and instead of having to read an entire article, you will have a short synopsis of our favorite moment.
On Fridays we have decided to feature Dave’s photography by posting a photo story. Dave was originally going to post these photo stories on his phot0graphy blog picturetheplanet but we haven’t given that blog the time it deserves and decided that his photos would receive much higher traffic at theplanetd.
Blog Niche:
Our Blog Niche is about Adventure and Couples Travel. We wanted to focus mainly on adventure travel and destinations and how we enjoy them as a couple.
Difficulties: While India is an adventure unto itself, we feel that we have been lacking in the adventure aspect of our Blog. India is such a big country and there is so much to see. While we love adventure sports and travels, we still wanted to see the temples, palaces and experience the spirituality of the country.
Solution: We are expecting to start our adventures in the North with more hiking, treks and white water rafting. While we tried to fit as many adventures as possible from camel safari’s, bouldering and even intensive yoga classes, we feel that we really thrive when we are in jungles and climbing mountains.
Travel Itinerary:
Traveling for long periods of time lets a person have a loose itinerary. We can change our minds on a whim and are free to travel in any direction.
Difficulties: While the freedom is great, we have found that we are a little too loose in our itinerary. We stay in places for just a little too long, we don’t really have a focus on where we are going to go next and we don’t do the proper research on what activities there are to do at each destination. Once we leave a place or talk to someone else, we realize that we missed out on a few great things.
Solution: We are going to do more research before each destination. Not just through our guide books, but on the internet. We are also going to visit tourist offices. When we were well into our travels in Sri Lanka and were running out of time, we came across a government tourist office. We discovered that there was rock climbing, rapelling and mountain biking in the North. It wasn’t mentioned in the Lonely Planet, (which we never solely rely on anyway) but we also didn’t see anything about it on the Internet or from other travelers. A visit to a government tourist office is at the top of our list from now on.
So after 3 months of travel, we feel that we could improve on both our travel skills and our blogging skills. But that is exactly what life is all about, striving to be better at whatever you choose to do.
Running a Travel blog has been one of the most fulfilling things that we have done in our lives. It is always good to stop and take a look at how things are going because we want to keep blogging for years to come.
14 Responses to Travel Blogging 3 Months In: How’s it Going?
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I admire you that you can write up blog posts everyday while traveling. I have enjoyed following your adventures.
As far as not adventure enough in India, are you kidding me?
Just traveling in India itself is already adventure enough for half of the population in this country!
Also every Friday, a group of travel bloggers participate at deliciousbaby.com Photo Friday. So you might want to check it out and link up your post there since you plan to do Photo Friday anyway. It will help reach out new group of travelers as well.
Keep up a good work! Really enjoy your blog. It’s a great inspiration to me.
.-= Amy @ The Q Family´s last blog ..Flying With Kids – Things to Know Before You Board That Flight =-.
Hi guys!
I agree I think it’s great to break it up with photos. That’s what I have been doing too and I think it’s nice to be able to feature photographs that way too.
I have to say I agree that a post every day is too much and this is why. In the past when I got really hooked on a blog I loved getting a post, maybe 2 or 3 times a week from them. When those blogs then decided to write every day I lost some interest. I think it was simply because when I only heard from them occasionally I wondered what they were up to and clicked on the post to read it. It was a little more of a mystery. I also tend to lose interest when someone writes a series of posts that go on for weeks and weeks.
Don’t fear though – I haven’t lost interest in yours!
I didn’t want you to think that I just wanted to give you my perspective. However with that being said a lot of people like to get daily posts. I subscribe to a lot of blogs and if read everything everyday I wouldn’t have time to get anything else done. So I typically read the ones that I don’t get an email from every day (with the exception of yours of course!) because I’m wondering what is up with that person’s adventure.
Just my two cents. I would definitely love to hear what other people are saying on this subject because I have considered doing the 1 post a day thing to see if it would bring in more traffice but have kept away from it because of my own feelings.
.-= Bethany´s last blog ..Published – Yah! =-.
Bethany, thanks for the advice. I think that adding a couple of photo days will help a lot. Now we only have 5 days of writing and are able to feature Dave’s photography. We appreciate that you haven’t lost interest yet:-)
I was doing the one post a day while I traveled Turkey and Greece for the most part and it burnt me out, especially Greece. I guess that is what house-sitting is for.
When I did post everyday I did get more hits, but I am more interested in readers than fly by hits. I know when some bloggers post to much I lose interest in reading just because it is difficult to keep up.
But you two are posting good content, I read most all of the posts. However, what would help is allowing the RSS to show the full post. I guess it’s a personal decision.
I guess it’s a toss up on what to write about, everyone has different interests. I very much like following active travelers, but some can lose the interest of the reader. My writings might be like that, but I am not trying to generate a big crowd or generate any money.
Even though I have open time and travels, I always had a small game plan and tentative route, it just keeps me focused on traveling slowly, instead of not knowing where to go next. I ran into many travelers that were just overwhelmed about the issue.
Everyone is different, keeps life interesting.
.-= Shawn´s last blog ..The Snow is Melted and a New Forum. =-.
Hi Shawn, yep I can see how it can burn you out. We normally sit in a cafe for a few hours at once and post several days in advance. That way we can relax and enjoy our traveling and not worry about hitting the internet each day.
Nice to hear that other people keep their travels loose. And thank you for the advice on the RSS feed. We will look into it. We tried doing it just before leaving, but for some reason our site went down. There must be some code error. We were going to look into that when we get home for sure.
I have to admit that I have been amazed by how frequently you’ve been able to post! It’s been great!
We started out writing about almost every place we visited and then began to do roundups for countries and spend the longer pieces on specific issues. It helps mix things up for us as writers/photographers.
The longer we travel, the more loose our itinerary seems to become and we tend to take more days in fewer places. We’ve left countries with a list of things we missed, but figure it’s a good excuse to return
.-= Audrey´s last blog ..Antarctica: A Decision =-.
Thanks Audrey, you two inspire us greatly and it is always great to hear how you do it. We have already started to settle into taking things a bit slower. I think that taking it easy and spending more time in each place is the key to travel and blogging. Your blog is awesome and it definitely works for you!
I can’t believe you’ve only been posting three months! It seems like I’ve seen you around forever! ha ha Like Audrey, I’m surprised at how often you post, as well. It’s *most* impressive!
.-= Cherrye at My Bella Vita´s last blog ..Asked and Answered: Top Five Italian Curse Words and Flirty Terms of the Week =-.
Hi Cherrye, we have been around for longer, it is only three months since we started traveling again. We had kept a blog while we cycled Africa in 2008, but it was only for friends and family. When we got back we started to really focus on making it into a way to travel full time. We starting taking it to a new level last May and haven’t stopped since. So you are definitely right, we have been around for a while, we just hadn’t been on the road while running the blog. It is a whole new ballgame.
Great advice!
Regarinding posting TOO often, I don’t think that’s true at all. Just keep doing what you’re doing and I’ll come back. Actually, today when I visited, I had my first worry of visiting before you could produce content.
Alas, an unfounded worry! Glad to hear the trip is going well three months in.
Thanks Garrett. It is great to know that people aren’t tiring of the posts and very glad that we had a new post up for you! Thanks for your support.
Like everyone else, I’ve been amazed and impressed at the regularity of your posts – a challenge even for writers who aren’t also actively traveling and trying to see and do as much as you are.
As for how often you should post, let you own comfort level be your guide – don’t force something that isn’t forthcoming, but don’t cut back because you think others might lose interest, as that’s not true. Anyone who is interested in reading about your trip will keep coming back, they may just have to do it like I do, which is to get caught up by reading a few all at once, if they can’t get to it daily.
What I admire most is your ability to recognize and address challenges – a lot of bloggers never sit back and assess, they keep on the blinders and just continue plowing forward….it may work for some, but for others it causes plateaus and sometimes blog abandonment. Being able to shift mid-stream is a valuable skill. Good luck!
.-= Trisha Miller´s last blog ..Why are you Blogging? =-.
Thanks for the advice Trisha. We always value your opinion. Our comfort level is to post daily. We have so much to say! I hope that people will like the addition of photos, it is awesome to feature Dave’s great work. Blogging can be challenging and we are learning more everyday. We are worried about plateauing ourselves and are looking forward to taking a couple of months in the summer to regroup and address that challenges that we have been facing. For now, we are just loving the writing and photography and chatting with fellow travelers and bloggers. I am happy to hear that shifting mid-stream is acceptable. We will be keeping it up 7 days a week, but just changing things a little.
This is a wonderful opinion. The things mentioned are great and
needs to be appreciated by everyone.Best Travel
.-= Best Travel´s last blog ..Isla Mujeres, Mexico The Island of Women =-.