What's the most challenging aspect of being a travel blogger?

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Permalink Reply by Jaime Horwitz on February 16, 2009 at 8:29pm

So we have much in common. Time is an issue. Finding time to post to the blog every day. Revenue. Most blogs don't generate enough money for the blogger to make a living. So in a nutshell, it's finding time and subject matter (which is also related to revenue). I like to experience a destination (restaurant, attraction, airline, etc) before I write about it so it just compounds the challenge. Nevertheless, I do think blogging in my case is a good complement to my other web properties. Cheers,

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Permalink Reply by Nerd's Eye View on February 23, 2009 at 8:55pm

I have to make a living. And keeping a good blog going takes a lot of time. My blog suffers when I'm focused on work that earns me money, my wallet suffers when I'm focused on blogging. I do okay, I earn a few hundred dollars a month from my blogging efforts, so it's a decent paying "hobby" - but it's more than a hobby to me, in spite of the fact that I've yet to play it into making a full time income... yet.

I'm ever hopeful, but that's the biggest struggle.Solving the income vs. time invested equation.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen on February 25, 2009 at 9:33am

It's the same for me as well, balancing my time between work supports my travel, writing about travel, and traveling. I wish I was like Gary and could travel the world and post about it in internet cafes and hookah bars in Cairo. (I made up the bit about the Hookah bars... maybe...)

I fear lately I have been working more than writing about traveling, and the blog has suffered a little. But now that I'm nominated by Lonely Planet... I'm gonna have to kick it up a notch! It would be awesome if this Blog Sherpa thing worked out to make some money, because then I could make my travel blog my work!

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Permalink Reply by Sharon Drechsler on February 26, 2009 at 1:31pm

Keeping up with emerging trends in technology has my knickers in a twist. It's like running down the railroad tracks while the train picks up speed. Add to that, I live onboard a sailboat in the Pacific Northwest. My 'house' rule is: when the sun is out, the office is closed. So while the winter doldrums are keeping me tip-tip-tapping away on the keyboard, look out when summer arrives!

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Permalink Reply by Travelbeen on March 2, 2009 at 7:45pm

Getting away from the screen and preventing your eyes from going square. You want to be out there but you become a slave to the PC. I have an iphone, but you cannot write and research well on the small screen.

With Travelbeen we are continuously looking at travel websites (that's what it's all about :-) so even if I could blog away from the desk, still need the pc / laptop and a good connection.

On a positive note, I live in NZ by the beach and the sun is shining!

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Permalink Reply by Gray Cargill on March 4, 2009 at 12:31pm

It's so reassuring to me to see that all of you struggle with the time issue as well. That's been my biggest frustration. Working full-time, trying to post 2-3 blog articles/week, networking online, trying to keep up with what other bloggers are writing, marketing my blog, trying to have a "real life"....something's always going to suffer. Plus I don't travel as often as I'd like, which means there are periods of time when I don't have a lot of new fodder for blog posts.

Also very challenging for me is the marketing aspect; getting my blog noticed and building readership.

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Permalink Reply by Aly & John on March 8, 2009 at 9:07pm

I would like to start by introducing ourselves: We are Aly & John from hopandjaunt.com. I (Aly) just signed us up on TBE about ten min. ago... nice to meet all of you!

We are just starting our blog, in fact we are VERY NEW at this, but having just spent three weeks crash-coursing myself on wordpress, html, css, php, etc, I think the most challenging part is just getting everything thrown together on a tight timeline! We are leaving in three weeks for an open-ended "jaunt" and knowing internet is a little hard to access (ala dingy ride across bay and iffy connections) we are scrambling trying to get all of the "back-end" stuff ready on our site! Any tips on the best photo-gallery for wordpress? Or the best way to syndicate rss? I have been traveling all of my life but this is my first blog so I guess I will be having a longer list of challenges before long!

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Permalink Reply by James Martin on March 9, 2009 at 3:31pm

For me, mainly time. 3-10 hours of thought goes into a long blog post, and you can't monetize that today, especially if you want to get deeper than those "10 best..." lists everybody wants. I'm grateful for the platform to speak my mind, but damn the time it takes me to form the jumble of words and thoughts into a compelling piece. I should have paid attention in English class...

james

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