A Blog About Blogging: Life as a Travel Blogger
I’m Megan, and I’m an addict.
We’ve been in Florida for 5 weeks now, and I can pretty safely say that we’re finally settled in. Mike found work pretty quickly at the Lighthouse Restaurant, and I have been focusing my full time efforts on my travel blog – thanks for reading! (I can’t get one of those “paying jobs” for the next 3 months until my US permanent residency processes.)
Having made the transition from a private to public blog only two months ago, I’ve been quite surprised with the reality of being a full time blogger, and just how much work goes into maintaining and working towards establishing a successful blog.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m having an absolute blast discovering the different facets of being a blogger, however it really is a full time task – even more than – and some have said I have become addicted to blogging.
It’s not overly horrible blogging from Florida! I posted this photo in response to friends saying I needed to spend time off the computer.
They saying goes that when you’re traveling you’re not blogging, and when you’re blogging you’re not traveling (anyone who says otherwise is generally lying to you!!) For the last three weeks I’ve spent roughly 12 hours per day, 5 days a week in front of the computer. (I need to give myself 2 days to explore Florida!) I’ve spent hours teaching myself about social media strategy, coding, fixing coding, fine tuning my writing skills, brain storming topics, editing photos and video blogs, reading other travel blogs, and networking within the industry. And then there’s the creating content part!!
I didn’t know how to use twitter until a month ago, however there have been days where I’ve sat on twitter for 8 hours straight, building an audience, making sure people know my name, networking, and trying to establish a strong following. In two weeks I’ve managed to convince 400+ people to follow me which I’m really excited about!!
A month ago I was only on Facebook. Now you can also find me on Twitter,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr and Google +. I know a few people are raising their eyebrows and shaking their heads at my long term goal to make this a career, but I guarantee I will prove you wrong (you heard it here first!). What I’ve found amusing is that I’m hearing so much about how much of a pity it is that I can’t use my law degree in America. Which it is, but I also have a Journalism degree. And honestly, it’s not really a pity – if you had the opportunity to be a lawyer or a travel journalist which would you choose? (The correct answer by the way is the latter!)
That being said I have been overwhelmed by the amount of support from a lot of friends and family, and am so incredibly appreciative to those who have been giving me so much valuable advice.
Blogging on my wedding day! (Video blog here)
It’s not an easy task establishing a successful blog, but I’m loving every second of it. I’m completely dedicated to making this a long term travel blog which hopefully 3 years down the road can support itself. I may dream big, but you have to dream big to be big!
Obviously it’s a lot of work at the moment – as with any project – because I’m just getting started, but I’m getting a great sense of accomplishment out of the work that I’m putting in. It’s hugely exciting that two months ago I was writing pretty much for mum and dad, and now I have people from all over the world leaving comments.
I also feel like I’ve made some pretty amazing friends. You would think I would be lonely, stuck in the house each day in a completely new country where I know no one (and where everyone in my gated community is 85 years or older!), but I’ve been getting to know some amazing travel bloggers who are at the same stage in life as me, and trying to achieve the same things. Even though we’re “online friends” I still feel like I’m now part of a very close knit community of people.
So, wanting to know if I was alone in my recent addiction to the blog, I posed the question to other travel bloggers, some just starting out like me, and others more established with quite a large following.
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“How much of your time do you spend traveling as opposed to working on your blog?”
Nicole and Michael from Suitcase Stories
“I was completely aware that once I started a blog it was going to take over my life! However, I am a traveler first and a blogger second and I will always put the travel first. How can I be a good blogger if I don’t have any good stories to tell because all I did was sit in front of a computer screen?
So I have two schedules for blogging. I have one schedule for when I am house-sitting (which means I am not out every day sightseeing) and the other schedule is for when we are between sits and we utilize that time to fit in a lot of sightseeing. My house sitting schedule is 12 – 16 hours per day working on the blog. I take one day a week ‘off’ to go out somewhere. My ‘on the road’ schedule is 4 – 5 hours a day, usually at night after we have finished exploring wherever we are. I was a business owner before I became a digital nomad so I’m used to long hours!”
Find Nicole and Michael on Facebook and Twitter
Erin from “The World Wanderer”
“At the moment, I’ve been spending more time working on my blog, and less time traveling, as I’m saving up for the next few trips. Then, while I am traveling, I tend to spend less time on the blog, as I am busy enjoying the destination. I guess in the end, it all balances out!”
Find Erin on Facebook and Twitter
Hannah & Adam from “Getting Stamped”
“Well we leave for our Round The World trip in 63 days so we haven’t started traveling yet. We are, however, working 50+ hour work weeks AND doing website work of probably 20-30 hours each every week! We hope to only spend 15 hours each on the website once we are on the road.”
Find Getting Stamped on Facebook and Twitter
Shaun and Erica from “Over Yonderlust Travel Blog”
“We try and only spend a couple of hours a day on it – usually in the morning. That leaves our afternoons free for traveling and some pretty awesome adventures!”
Find Shaun and Erica on Facebook and Twitter
Amy from Everything-Everywhere
(Amy is the General and Community Manager for Everything Everywhere and blogger at Everything-Everywhere Family Travel)
“The majority of my time, I’m at home. My husband is a pilot so he travels a lot, so I am homeschooling and taking care of my two children (4 and 6) and working on the business side of Everything-Everywhere. It is a large blog, so it takes quite a bit of time monthly to run smoothly.
I usually write in spurts. I will spend a few hours in a block writing and take care of two weeks or a month of content at a time. Having it queued up helps me to have flexibility to do the other things that need to be done without worry. It also allows me to add additional things that pop up in my mind a couple of days after I’ve written the post.
Most of the time I have a trip a month. They varies in length from 3 days to a week. In that week, we travel as a family. But because I’m traveling with my kids I can only do minimal work. I can pretty much only carry the business side of things and keep up with email. If I travel too much, I get behind and it makes catching up unpleasant. Also, because we don’t have a “nomadic lifestyle” I catch a lot of flak from my husband and children if I spend too long on the laptop trying to catch up on email during business hours. Having a mifi device has helped, so I can catch up on things in the car – but sometimes that is problematic.
Even getting in minimal travel can be hard at sometimes of the year. Right now, it is spring! I want to get out and explore! But it is also baseball season, so I am spending time at home while my kids play sports and working to organize the summer business side of the blog. Averaged out, I definitely spend more time working on the blog and blog activities than I do traveling.”
Jack & Jill from “Jack and Jill Travel the World”
“Traveling will always be our first priority. I usually write on our off days (off days = rest days, errand days, non activity days), do social media while waiting for buses/food to come, etc. So I guess an hour or two during travel days and up to 4 on off days!”
Find Jack and Jill on Facebook and Twitter
Charli from “Wanderlusters”
“Our website Wanderlusters went live a few days before NYE 2012 and the past four months have pasted by in a bit of a blur. We had no idea just how much time you can spend ‘blogging’. It’s very easy to get lost in what you’re doing whether it be coding, editing photographs or writing articles, and don’t get me started on social media! I had no idea how to tweet before mid January this year! Blogging is a serious undertaking and to make it a success you need to dedicate countless hours to sitting in front of your laptop, writing, networking, reading other blogs and sharing your content.
We’ve only just scratched the surface in the last four months and have a lot of hard graft to come.”
Ashley from “Traveling Ashley”
“Even though I leave for a month long trip in two weeks, I have found that the blog is a lot of work. Planning for trips is also part of my blog so I have to make sure that I keep a written account of all the sites I used and how I formulated my travel plans so I can write about it. Also, when I’m traveling I try to make sure that I keep track of all the places I ate, things I did and tips I find out in each country so I can write about it when I get home. I definitely spend more time working on the blog than I do traveling because the blog encompasses so much more than the actual trip.”
Karisa from “My Hot Pink Passport”
“Because I live in Thailand I spend at least one day per week “traveling” in Thailand, visiting temples, museums and neighborhoods in Bangkok. During Thai public holidays or long weekends I’m able to get out of Bangkok and visit islands and other cities. About every 3 months I’m able to leave Thailand and travel to another country in Southeast Asia. I’m actually on my way to Laos right now! (And I’m VERY excited!)
During a regular work week I work on my blog for at least 1 hour after work and keep up with social media during my break hours. I have a 40 hour a week teaching job, currently, but my location (Thailand) makes every day feel like an adventure.”
Agness and Cez from “eTramping”
“We blog from time to time when we feel like blogging, maybe 2-3 hours a day, but it’s hard to say really. We work full-time in China, so we can blog only part-time. There is no pressure with time, we blog whenever we feel like doing so. Right now, we travel a lot, every weekend (short trips) and every two weeks (longer journeys). When we are on the road, we don’t spend that much time blogging as we want to enjoy sightseeing and interacting with people.”
Find Agness and Cez on Facebook and Twitter
Meagan from “Life Outside of Texas”
“This year, on top of living in Korea, I have at least 1 international trip planned each month! I spend so much of my time on adventures that I haven’t been able to blog about it all! I try to dedicate time during the week to my blog, but sometimes it’s hard to balance “work” and play!”
Find Meagan on Facebook and Twitter.
Jess from “A Passion and a Passport”
“As a very rough estimate, I spend about 1-2 hours daily (at the very very least) working on my blog (writing posts, editing photos, engaging in social media, making layout changes, etc). Unfortunately, I only travel a few weeks out of the year. Of course I wish I could travel more, but at this point in my career, it is just not possible EXTREME WANDERLUST though! As a new blogger, I am currently writing content about past trips and experiences. Hope to get up to date soon! Writing about the Greek Islands next!”
Find Jess on Facebook and Twitter
And lastly…
Justin from True Nomads
“In my case it has been hard to balance the two, because I am always traveling. I always stop to work when and wherever I run out of money, and this gives me a chance to catch up and scheduled post ahead for the next trip, so I don’t have to worry.”
Find Justin on Facebook and Twitter
Are you a travel blogger? How much time do you spend blogging as opposed to traveling?
27 Comments
Love that you’ve included a blogging section on the site.
It might nog be that interesting for people merely looking for travel advice, but for people interested in travel who also happen to blog… it’s good stuff:)
There is some helpful content in there! I am also trying to figure Twitter out. I may hit 100 followers TODAY woo! It is really a learning curve to keep up with all the various forms of social networking, while maintaining a blog. I also am not (yet) a full time traveler and I do not have the internet at home. I need to fix that because being limited to when I can sit and stare at Twitter for eight straight hours, trying to get my name out there, is really hurting me.
Oh thank you so much! I am going to read the Twitter for Travelers page and I am going to email you right noooooooow!!
Great post and well done for reaching out to all the contributing bloggers. Its great to see how other people do it all. When I am abroad I try to write and edit once every 2 days, edit photos and social media ect so about 2-4 hours per day on the road. When I am working a 40 hour work week at home I spend another 20-30hours blogging trying to keep up with all the other amazing bloggers that are killing it at the moment.
I can relate to nearly everything you mention up there. Although I’ve been lucky to have traveled quite a bit on holidays (worked mostly in northern Europe, so holidays are an actual reality, and not a weeklong joke like in the US), it was only a few months ago (30th May, to be exact) that my lady and I decided to skedaddle into the great unknown and give long-term travel a try. Since I wanted to pretend I wasn’t just taking an extended holiday so I could sit my ass on a beach all day, I set up our silly travel blog and started ranting about past trips, current trips and whatever else tickled my fancy. It was only very recently that I started to take it a bit more seriously, and suddenly realized I was putting in more hours than when I was a teacher 10 years ago… We have now extended our stay in San Cristóbal, Mexico, not only because the place is lovely but also due to my need of a pit stop so I can try and figure out how this blogging business works – including social media, which has a steep learning curve for a newbie. I also had no idea how Twitter worked until a month ago, and now I find myself spending hours on Twitter chats, scrambling for morsels (don’t get me started on Google+…). There’s a lot of work to be done, and although a part of me still reels from the sheer neediness of it all, I must admit it has been a fascinating ride. Anyway, enough rambling. Kudos on being ambitious and going after your goals! Your site is lovely and you seem to be making great strides towards success in the travel blogging world. Good luck and safe travels!
Lovely piece! I’m new to blogging and I’m finding it all a bit overwhelming eg struggling doing it while working, keeping up momentum and social media well I really haven’t got a clue! Your blog is so reassuring and encourages me to stick with it! Your travels look fab too!
Hi Megan!
I’ve been really pleased to read your blogger’s story!
You remind me to my personal experience who I’ve got through in the last two years and a half. The perspective is different because I’m talking about to manage my business online, but the way is similar to yours. First of all, I’ve been working hard to try to understand how “things”worked out across the web. I’ve spent lots of time, especially in the first eight months because I needed to be part of the mechanism particularly, what I have to do to try to improve my acitivity through social networks and other things of course! At some point, I felt exhausted but my curiousity and people like you who inspired me a lot, have given me extra energy and enthusiasm, which can make a big difference in a positive meaning espcially when you start your “adventure online”!!
Since the beginning, I chose to do everything in English language and to be honest at first, it seemed to me really tough but anyway, now I feel a little bit more confortable even though, I’m aware that there’s still a lot to do. As you know my English is still a work in progress, but this incredible language has given me the opportunity of having a life “online” as well as staying in touch with people from all over the world!!
All the best!
Have a great weekend,
Alessandro from Tuscany.
Thanks for sharing this. Makes me realize I am not alone in the challenges of being a blogger, like spending a lot of time online, and realizing how much work it takes!
I write about family travel as a journalist and blogger. I spend all of my free time blogging, but I don’t have much free time as I’m at home looking after my kids! It’s really interesting to read everyone’s stories and about how you’re getting on with your blog. I wish you lots of luck with it.
Congrats. Quite an Inspiring story for me at least. I too have an ambition of making travel blogging as a career, but it is still not there. Trying hard to make time now with a small kid at home. :(
Metgan,
Oh my gosh; my life just passed before my eyes as I read your post, followed by the other bloggers comments! I too just entered the blogging/travel writing profession just recently. Like you, I only first tweeted a month ago. In addition to the huge learning curve for social media marketing; I am also in the process of writing and self publishing my first book; also a huge learning curve. On top of that I have to run my household and attend to my kids, my husband and our incredibly needy dog. I’m not sure which one, my dog or my husband is complaining more about all the time I spend working! I’m working about 50 – 55 hours a week. I’d be working more but I’m also working on my balancing act – family and work. By the way, great post; now go out and get some sun! Kerry (one of your new blogging friends, I hope!
you were blogging on your wedding day! Too cool (if a little addicted!) :D I know what you mean about hard work though – I blog as a hobby and travel in my spare time in between a full time job – I’m loving my new blogging experience but it is definitely a lot more work than I’d ever fully appreciated in the past!
This is really motivational and cool. And man I would love to have a Florida pool as my office haha!
good post! I have had a blog in some form or another since 2008 but only in the last two years have I thought I should do something with it. I only write once a week because of my work schedule but I hope to build my audience!
Hi Megan
Thank you for sharing an honest and valuable post. i wish you every success :) As a newish blogger I struggle al the time between creating content and marketing it. I come from a writing and photography background and I had this idealistic view that all I had to do was create interesting, beautiful, well written content. Then I realised that if no one read it what was the point? Now, some days I get disheartened as successful blogging seems to be all about stats – ho many twitter followers you have, how many facebook fans, how many subscribers you have, how much SEO you know etc and the quality and craft seems to be lost.
I would love to know your tips so will read any info on your site and send you an email – particurly re twitter. I don’t want to get caught up in following people merely in the hope they will follow me back. I marvel and question how people following thousands of people actually read the tweets? Or do they?
Thank you for sharing once again.
Warm wishes
Sam
Fascinating! Nice article. Like many others, I can relate to this article, as a fellow newbie, who’s cramming in hours and hours of writing, whilst trying to learn as much as possible about Social Media and web development. A great read!
Hi, what an inspiring story. I hope to build up my FB page (first 1000 likes in one month) and will follow your advice and introduce other social media like pinterest, twitter, intsagram, etc. Thanks again for the inspiration.
Awesome article! I’m just starting out as a travel blogger. All the little things that try to garb your attention can be pretty overwhelming. Especially when you’re new it’s hard to figure out which are worth dealing with. It’s good to here the stories of people who faced the same challenge and found their way through. It gives me some hope there’s light at the end of the tunnel. :)
Also: I really like the design of your website! It’s clear & beautiful.
Travel blogging is definitely hard work especially if you are working a regular job at the same time. After I started my teaching job I barely have any time to blog! I try to keep an organized list of the things I still need to write about and write about it when I have the time, which is usually on the weekends we aren’t traveling. I could spend countless amounts of hours writing, editing pictures, and working on the design of my blog. Right now I am trying to enjoy the travel aspect and write more later! It is very hard work though! Props to you!
We are nearly a year old and what I have learnt in this time has been overwhelming and I am proud of that. Boy have I made mistakes though. What I have still to learn is equally overwhelming so I was happy to read from you to learn to do something properly before tackling the next new thing. I learn a lot from your down to earth advice not to mention your generosity. Now if you can just explain those back link things and all of those other funny words, we’ll be all good. Enjoy Florida :)
I just started blogging and I thought it was going to be easy. I was wrong. I’m a full-time student and now a travel blogger (well… I try). I don’t have time to sleep and If I do, I dream about my next post :) It’s even harder because English isn’t my first language.
Your website is the best Megan, I love it.
Good luck.
Hi! I enjoyed reading this article. You sound a lot like me in my current state. I was wondering, how did you learn all the stuff that you listed? Do you have any resources? How do you get your name out there and gain followers? I’m self-teaching, too, and boy is it overwhelming. I appreciate any insight :) Thank you!
It is very inspiring to hear about other people that have struck out on their own to make travel blogging work for them. I’m about 1.5 months in so ask me again in a year how sane I am but I’m loving it so far. Thanks for giving me motivation to keep going!
Thanks for posting this, great read – can’t believe you were blogging on your wedding day – top effort :D
Hi Megan,
Love your writing! It is so incredibly easy to spend all those hours on the blog, the time just flies. I have messed with different websites and making them for people – then, at the beginning of this year I sat down and thought ‘What really makes me happy?’ and so my wicked walkabout family blog evolved into the current site (family blog is still motoring along separately )
I just love thinking travel, so the other sites went off into cyber space and I no longer work on too many other sites for people.
Twitter is the hardest media for me to come to grips with, I think I need a few days to simply focus on it and get a grip on the beastie!
Keep enjoying yourself! Hooroo x
Hi Megan – what a great resource! So many awesome travel bloggers out there and I’m glad you put this list together with pictures and everything to put a face to the blog. Keep up the good work!
It’s always refreshing to hear from some of the top bloggers around, learning and hearing what they have to say. It all can be overwhelming at times, but reading how others face the same challenges is reassuring! Great post, thanks for sharing!