We remember the day we decided to start a travel blog. Searching online on how to start a travel blog in the easiest way. It had us a little perplexed

Learning about hosting, HTML, SEO, content management, domains, analytics, and keywords felt like learning a whole new language.

We felt a little overwhelmed, it was all so very new to us. But…we stuck it out!

We worked hard at building Very Hungry Nomads to what it is today and starting our travel blog was one of the best decisions we ever made.

Let’s do this together!

To be honest, starting a travel blog is really quite easy to do and it’s cheap! Simply follow this easy step-by-step guideline below on how to start a travel blog.

So, get comfortable, make yourself a coffee (or wine) and we’re going to show you how to start a travel blog in less than an hour.

It’s important that you have a credit or debit card ready to go, a good internet connection, and access to a desktop computer or laptop.

Here are our easy steps on How to Start a Travel Blog:

Step 1 – Choose your name and domain

The most important thing you’re going to have to choose when starting a travel blog is your name. This will be your online identity, your brand – so make sure you choose a name that you’re happy with.

What is your niche?

When setting up any blog, deciding on a niche is important. If you decide early on what you want to focus on and blog about, you’re doing yourself a huge favour. You’re essentially coming up with keywords that you want your blog to be about.

For us, we were interested in food and travel and wanted to find a way to incorporate that into our name.

So what is your niche? Solo traveller? Adventure Travel? Food? Photography? What do you want to write about? What is your passion? Who are you? Write everything down and start playing with different combinations of words to come up with your name.

Keep it simple, but catchy

The name you choose should be memorable, easy to spell (avoid hyphens & numbers), easy to remember, and catchy!  

Remember to try and keep things original and simple.

Step 2 – Purchase your domain name

You’ve spent hours deciding on the perfect name. For this example, let’s say it is a “Street Food traveller”. The next step is to make sure it’s available, this is easy to do. This is a key step in how to start a travel blog so make sure you get this right. 

• Type in “streetfoodtraveller” into your internet browser. If it comes up, it’s likely taken. You’ll need to change it and come up with a different name. If nothing comes up, congratulations – you might be in luck.
• Go to GoDaddy and type in “streetfoodtraveller” into the box. Hit search and see what it says. If it’s available, then the name is yours for the taking! You’re ready for the next step.
• Go ahead and buy that domain on GoDaddy (use this link to receive 30% off new domains). This means you’ll own this URL for as many years as you choose to buy it for.

We purchased our domain from GoDaddy for $6.95, so it doesn’t cost a lot. We have told you, to start a travel blog can be affordable. 

Once you have purchased a domain you can move on to the next step.

Step 3 – Set up hosting for your blog

Most websites need to “rent” space on the internet. A host is a company you pay to store all your blog’s data, photos, and files safely on the internet.

We use and recommend SiteGround. This company is great for established websites and they’re perfect for new blogs too.

There are a few reasons why we choose Siteground over other companies. They have fantastic customer support, super-fast servers, and a really easy control panel to navigate.

SiteGround is competitive in price compared to other hosts and the setup process with them is very simple.

CLICK HERE to sign up with Siteground from USD $2.95/mo. A great option on how to start a travel blog hosting for less than $3/month.

Step 4 – Choose a Hosting Plan

SiteGround has three plans (prices in AUD below):

StartUp – If you’re a beginner to the blogging world (just starting a travel blog), then the StartUp plan is perfect. It’s cheap, it’s simple and ideal for newbies. This plan allows you to host one domain and up to 10GB of files on the SiteGround database.

GrowBig – The GrowBig plan is for blogs that are more established, receive more traffic, etc – therefore you pay a little more. This plan offers the opportunity to host multiple domains and up to 20GB of files on their database. It comes with free website transfer, free backup restores, and it comes with a SuperCacher that greatly improves website speed. This is really important for blogs that receive a high level of traffic and daily visitors.

GoGeek – The GoGeek plan is the best SiteGround plan available. This plan is perfect for people with e-commerce and larger sites, or more nerdy development needs. It offers all of the above, plus up to 30GB of files on its database. If you’re just learning how to start a travel blog, you probably won’t need this plan….just yet.

Step 5 – Add your domain name 

You can choose to buy your domain directly through SiteGround, or register with an existing domain like GoDaddy as we mentioned earlier.

Step 6 – Review and complete

Check all of the details are correct and confirm your order. Easy, wasn’t it. You now have a domain name and the best host available.

So you are halfway through our easy How to start a travel blog post.

Step 7 – Install WordPress software

Now that you have a website address and Siteground to host your files, you’ll be keen to start building your blog.

Well for that there’s no better blog building software than WordPress.

Just so you’re aware, there are actually two kinds of WordPress. WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

WordPress.com is for free blogs, and WordPress.org is for those who want to own their own blogs. You should choose WordPress.org.

Installing WordPress onto your host is very easy to do, and with SiteGround it’s automatically done for you – a very simple process.

• Login to SiteGround. Click “Get your new site up and running – Set up in 2 min”
• You’ll see a popup with the SiteGround Account Setup Wizard. Select “Start a new website at (URL)” and press proceed.
• You will be prompted to choose what type of website you need. Select “Personal/Blog” and then scroll down. The software you are going to use is WordPress, select this and move on.
• Here you need to enter your WordPress login details. As with any password, we recommend that you choose something that others cannot guess easily. You will need these login details to access the back-end of your blog.
• Now you’ll be given an opportunity to choose your web design template, otherwise known as a theme.

Step 8 – Personalise your blog with a free theme

Ok, so everything else is set up – now you just need to choose a theme. So, what’s a theme? It’s essentially what your website looks like when someone types it into their browser.

This is the part where you choose the interior decorating of your website. Your chance to give it some character, your own personal flair. Often the question we get asked is how to start a travel blog that looks a certain way.

The theme will do this for you.

• Go into your WordPress dashboard.
• Look for “appearance” on the left panel and click on themes.
• Activate the free WordPress Twenty Seventeen theme. Presto, your website is officially functional and ready to go!

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How to start a travel blog – Free vs Premium Themes

There are thousands of themes out there to choose from. Many themes are free, but if you’d like more functionality and professional-looking designs, you’ll need to pay for one.

If you’re just starting out you will probably be happy with a free theme while you get used to this new blogging thing. In time, you can purchase a premium theme.

Nowadays, it really is important to ensure your blog displays beautifully to all types of devices. When searching around for a premium theme, you might want to consider a responsive theme – this means your blog will look amazing on a desktop, iPad, or smartphone too.

My preferred resource for finding a premium theme is Envato.com.

Step 9 – Download some useful plugins

Plugins are like Apps but for blogs. We like to think of them as add-ons for your website to make it perform better, keep safe and look professional.

There are thousands of plugins to choose from, to help you do all kinds of tasks, but here are a few core plugins you’ll definitely need. It is a great idea to research the best plugins to use when learning how to set up a travel blog, but we listed a few must-haves below.

To install a plugin go into your WordPress dashboard. On the lefthand panel, click “Plugins” then click “Add New” on the page that opens up. Search for the ones listed below, click download, and activate. WordPress will do the rest.

Akismet – This plugin protects your blog from spammers leaving comments on your posts. It picks up on spam comments and lets you choose whether to publish them or not. Install this plugin and let this plugin do all the filtering.

Yoast SEO – Very important plugin for optimising your articles for Google search, plus integrating Google Sitemaps and Analytics. Yoast is a plugin that pops up at the bottom of the section when you are writing a blog post.

W3 Total Cache – Another plugin that is hard to explain to new bloggers, but this plugin will make your website load faster for people who visit. This is important because nobody likes to wait for slow, unresponsive websites to load.

Easy Social Share Buttons – The best-looking social media sharing buttons for your articles.

Step 10 – Setting up your blog

Now that you have cracked how to set up a travel blog, it’s time to start putting the fishing touches on it. Let’s start with the essentials.

Customise the design

Go to the ‘Appearance’ tab, then ‘Theme’ and ‘Customise’, and begin designing your blog. Choose some colours, add some menus and change your font.

Invest a little time in creating the most important menus for your new blog. This is essentially showing your readers how to navigate around your website and it keeps your blog posts organised.

Most travel blogs will have an About Us page, a Destinations section, and a Contact Us page.

We suggest that you study other travel blogs to get ideas of how you could layout menus and headings in order to make your articles easy and enjoyable to read.

Design a logo

A good logo will help people recognise your blog and brand. You don’t need to spend a heap of money on this – there are many affordable options out there. 

We found a freelance graphic designer on Fiverr who created the logo for www.veryhungrynomads.com. We initially designed our logo and sent him the picture. He created the logo in different digital formats that we used to upload to our website and our marketing material. So easy and very affordable.

Start building your audience and get social

This part is SUPER important! You can be the best travel writer in the world with the most incredible content, but if nobody knows about you or where to read your stuff – well that’s a shame, isn’t it?

Get active on all social networks and publish your blogs wherever you can. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest can all drive much-needed traffic to your blog if you use them wisely!

Sign up for all of the above websites using your new website name and start connecting with the world.

Don’t forget! There is so much to learn here, so we highly recommend watching a few free tutorials on YouTube. Try to learn from videos that are easy to follow and understand. Search for WordPress tutorials.

Start Blogging!

Now that you know how to start a travel blog, it’s time to write!

The most important thing is to just start. Write about whatever it is you want to share and ensure the layout of your blog is easy to access.

Focus on SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the process of optimising your website to get organic traffic from the search engine results page. In plain English, there is a way to write your blog so Google can find your website when someone searches for something you wrote about.

There are a few basic steps to follow and an SEO plugin is a must. We use the Yoast SEO plugin. They also offer great tutorials about SEO on YouTube explaining how to use it.

That’s it! We wish you the best of luck with your new blogging journey!

If you have any questions about how to start a travel blog or something else that we may be able to answer for you, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us!

More Travel Tips

We have so many tips to help you travel more!

These 21 cheapest countries to visit will help you stretch your hard-earned dollars further.

Read our top 6 travel hacks to save money and the 20 best travel apps to make travel easier! 

For food lovers, don’t miss our top 10 best countries for foodies. And, if history is your thing, these 30 amazing historical places worldwide will fascinate you!

We have many tips to save money for travel and consider these 20 jobs that PAY YOU to travel the world to help you travel longer.

If you become a trusted housesitter, you can also get FREE accommodation worldwide. Read more about how this works.

Check out our ultimate packing list for travellers, and remember to pack travel insurance! We recommend these two travel insurance companies for excellent coverage.

Our 12 essential tips for safe travel in any country are worth a read. 

You’ll need to stay connected while travelling the world. We recommend eSIM. It’s easy, reliable and affordable. View eSIMs for individual countries, or consider a Global eSIM if you travel to multiple countries or regions. This eSIM connects you in 124 countries, offering data-only eSIM and data/call/text eSIM.

The Global eSIM has been a game-changer; we couldn’t imagine travelling without it now.

If you want to travel with like-minded travellers, consider joining a group tour.

Check our Group Tours first for any upcoming trips you may be interested to join, or view these deals on worldwide group tours with Tourradar.

Check out our best-ever travel tips compiled from more than twenty years of experience.