How I Started Travel Blogging

Notice something a little different around here this year on the blog? 2017 is the year where I dove in and started to ramp up my travel content. When I started this blog back in 2011, I fully intended it to just be a fashion blog. I started my blog as a junior in college, so honestly, I didn’t have the funds or means to travel at that time — all I had was a part-time retail job and a ton of homework to catch up on!

Now that I’m in my late twenties (and most of my audience is between the ages of 25-34), it just seemed pretty natural to add a travel vertical to my blog. Here are a few things I did to launch this new vertical, and how you can start landing more travel partnerships!
 

Start Producing Travel Content On Your Own

I have a lot of people ask me how I got in to travel blogging and say they want to do it, but they don’t have any travel content on their blogs. If you don’t have any examples of travel pieces to share with hotels and tourism boards, you’re not going to land the partnerships you want. Specifically fashion bloggers: good travel content isn’t just heading to a destination and sharing your outfits. You need to dig in, share the places you loved, and provide valuable travel tips to make your content useful and informative.

Staycations Are Key

When I first started to break into the travel blogging world, I started by partnering with local hotels for staycations. It’s great practice for beginners and folks who are just starting hotel partnerships. Hotel collaborations can be a little tricky to master at first. You have to make sure to set aside enough time to shoot the property, have in-person meetings with the marketing/PR person who set up your stay, cover your stay in real-time on social media, and carve out time to, you know, enjoy the area you’re staying in. Hotel partnerships are a lot of work, and I’m happy I was able to do a few staycations first so I could learn how to balance my time during sponsored trips.

Pitch, Pitch, Pitch

While some travel partnerships come to me, I also have to pitch like crazy to land collaborations. I’m trying to do at least two travel partnerships per month so that I have enough content to keep this vertical going. I have a whole article on how to pitch and how to dig up contacts here, and I also love this article from The Explorista!

Know Your Audience and Angle

A lot of travel brands will ask what sort of content you’re looking to produce while on site. You have to know your audience and your brand to pitch your angle. For example, I’m still an unmarried female in her late twenties. Most of my audience is composed of females aged 25-34, and 35% of my audience is based in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. 

I like to focus on extended weekend trips that people in the Mid-Atlantic can easily drive or take public transit to (see my Virginia Wine Country or Visit Baltimore posts). 

Have Any More Questions?

I offer blog consulting programs to help take up your blog a notch — shoot me an email for more information and rates. I’d love to help you take your blog to the next level!