Year Two as a Travel Blogger: The Most Important Things I Learned
- Updated: 02/12/2023
- Janice
This regular update is part of an ongoing series —“My Blogging Journey: From 100 To 10K.”
Now a month into 2023, I have had a chance to reflect on what worked and what did not in 2022 as I round the corner on completing my second full year as a travel blogger.
Table Of Contents
I launched this blog in March of 2021—with no blogging, and little website, or writing experience.
What drove me was my lifelong passion for travel and my willingness to learn how to do everything—from building and maintaining the website to developing all creative and social media—myself.
Before the blog, I launched and ran an event and bricks-and-mortar retail business, overspending on buildouts and everything else.
So, in developing this business, I was determined to rely on free or inexpensive tools to do everything on my own.
Read on to see how it is going.
First, the Data
I am many things—a traveler, book lover, yoga practitioner— and analytic nerd. Without missing a month, I track my blog performance across various metrics, showing the ups and downs of growth.
It is a great way to remind myself how far I have come and how far I must go to achieve my goals.
View my monthly metrics below, or here. I started capturing monthly data in September 2021. Before that, I recorded it intermittently and weekly.
In 2022 my top ten most popular/high-traffic posts were:
- Fall Trip: 10 Wonderful Family Things to Do in Saugatuck, MI
- How to Save Time & Money With Google Flights Price Tracker
- Ixtapa Island: How to Enjoy a Perfect Day at Isla Ixtapa
- Complete Guide to Club Med Ixtapa Pacific: What You Need to Know Before You Book
- Need a Door County, WI Weekend Itinerary? Try Ours.
- How to Spend Five Days in the Amalfi Coast & Sorrento
- How to Spend 10 Days in Rome, the Amalfi Coast & Sorrento
- Saugatuck Dunes State Park: What You Need to Know
- 25 Excellent Books to Read Before a Hawaii Trip
- Travel Better: How to Best Use Google Flights Explore
These ten posts contributed 62% to my total blog page views in 2022.
Top 12 Things I Learned in 2022
Not only does this subject line appeal to my appreciation for alliteration, but it kicks off a chance to share the top things I learned over the year as I worked to grow my blog and audience.
Find the top 12 things I learned below.
1. Give readers what they want.
I started this blog with the misguided intention of writing a collection of how-to travel better articles with helpful tips to save time and money.
This approach was wrong.
What readers desire more is destination detail that helps them shortcut their travel planning and answer specific questions—like what to do, where to stay, and how to get around—just for starters.
The info must be direct, rich in detail, and helpful.
What readers desire more is destination detail that helps them shortcut their travel planning and answer specific questions.
For example, for a Belize trip, prospective visitors will want to know activity options, so I wrote “How to Best Spend Your Time in Belize: 36 Things to Do Near San Ignacio,” along with a companion article listing the ten top area jungle lodges.
In both, I share my points of view with the goal of helping readers figure out where to stay and what to do if they choose to visit the traveler hub town of San Ignacio.
Once I began publishing this kind of content, my blog traffic started to take off.
2. Take the time to plan.
Really. Not just a chicken-scratched to-do list. But a detailed weekly and month-to-month schedule that guides when and what to publish as a social media post and which article to write next.
For most of 2022, I decided to wing this, and it worked okay. Then, I read these two books. And I changed my approach.
Now—and after returning from each trip, I create a coordinated social media and article publishing plan that covers all topics I want to share and sets what I am working on until I have completed the list.
Then I take this plan to backfill my weekly task list where I rank each to-do in order of importance and impact.
Taking my time to prioritize my tasks keeps me more focused (i.e., spending less time scrolling on social media), getting my most important tasks done first.
If it sounds like a lot of work—it can be. Though nothing I have tried before has resulted in so much productivity.
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3. Checklists and spreadsheets are my friends.
To streamline my blog work and remember more things, I spent the last quarter of 2022 creating checklists and other spreadsheets to help me keep organized, especially for repetitive tasks.
Some of these lists include:
- Blog publishing checklist. I use this to remember all the research, set-up, testing, and post-publishing steps necessary to publish a post. Check out what I use here or view it below.
- Marketing tracker. I use this to keep track of which social media channels I have shared new or updated articles.
- Article Library. I record all new articles in this spreadsheet, noting the publish date and assigning a goal date for when to update them.
- End-of-month checklist. A short list of to-dos I need to get done at the close of each month, such as recording expenses, tracking my data, planning article updates for the coming month, etc.
It is a relief and a huge time saver to rely on these.
4. Social media is a necessary evil (though fun).
With constantly changing algorithms and uneven results for posts and reels that convert to little web traffic, Instagram especially hardly feels worth it.
The issue is that it is also fun, and it is the channel I have made the most meaningful connections with other travel creators and brands, so it is hard to quit.
Although I do not plan on leaving Instagram, other social channels drive more traffic.
With constantly changing algorithms and uneven results for posts and reels that convert to little web traffic, Instagram especially hardly feels worth it.
For example, articles I share on Facebook moms and travel groups can drive an extraordinary number of visitors to my site. Plus, the links shared here are searchable, giving them a long shelf life and the benefit of driving traffic long after the initial share date.
In addition, I find that Pinterest and YouTube, due to link sharing, drive more traffic than Instagram.
I will be focusing on these three more in 2023. And I plan to minimize my time spent on social by repurposing videos and other content I create in my posts and newsletters.
5. Travel conferences are worth it.
In April of 2022, I took a plunge and attended my first travel creator conference. I had made a few connections online before the event. However, I nervously went, essentially knowing no one.
And after three days in Memphis with a group of creators of different ages and backgrounds, I made loads of new friends and valuable industry connections while also learning practical information to run my business. Plus, I had a ton of fun.
A few of the most valuable things I learned at the conference include better writing techniques, ways to improve my site SEO, and terminology and inquiry frameworks to use approaching tourist boards and brands for collaborations.
Unfortunately, the conference I attended—TravelCon, run by The Nomadic Network—was the last one run by this group. However, I plan to sign up for others in the future.
6. How to write better.
Building on the back of “Attending conferences is worth it,” I learned to improve my writing this year.
I practiced pausing to take time and effort to be more descriptive.
Instead of slapping on common and lazy adjectives, I learned to set the tone for a place, event, or experience using all my senses to paint a picture of what I want to convey to my reader.
I learned to set the tone for a place, event, or experience using all my senses to paint a picture of what I want to convey to my reader.
Not only is this style of writing more enjoyable—it is also more readable.
I do not always use it in my posts or listicles that are info-rich and experience-light, though I remember to tap into it when there is an opportunity for extra color.
7. To journal daily while traveling.
At the end of a long and rewarding travel day, perhaps after a drink or two, I want to collapse into bed and sleep.
The last thing I want to do is to pop open my laptop and take detailed notes about my day.
So, in 2022 I gave into the exhaustion and skipped taking notes for a few trips—especially the ones with friend groups when no one else was doing work. And then, I discovered that I always and deeply regretted not recording the experiences while they were fresh.
At the time, I felt sure I would remember everything. Now, several months or even a year later, I can assure you that I do not.
So, for every trip I now go on, if I cannot get the notes done at night, I force myself to wake up early to do it. And if I am particularly short on time, I will auto-dictate the things I want to remember into a word doc.
8. Write and publish content as soon as I return from a trip.
The best time to write articles about a trip is immediately after returning home. This timing should be obvious. And, of course, it is. Though for the bulk of 2022, I did not do this.
I would get back from trips, get caught up in other responsibilities, and choose to write what I believed, at the time, were other time-sensitive articles. Holding back my newest destination information for later publish dates which never came.
Even with my journal notes, I find my memory is rusty, and the narrative I want to share does not flow as smoothly as it would if I had written about it right away.
Now when I return to my previous trips—even with my journal notes, I find my memory is rusty, and the narrative I want to share does not flow as smoothly as it would if I had written about it right away.
So now and instead, upon returning from trips, I create an immediate article plan for the destination I was just in and stick to it.
9. Do not skip pre-writing research.
Before writing a new article, I learned to take the time to research the keywords and questions readers are likely to ask. And to review the content of top-performing articles to see what else I can add to the topic.
If this sounds like a time-consuming step, it is not.
I spend perhaps 15 to 20 minutes doing these things before I draft the outline for my article and begin writing.
I do this because my main goal in running the blog is to have an audience for my content.
Of course, I love what I am doing, though I want to convert my efforts into revenue-generating ones, and building my audience is the essential way to make this happen.
So, taking time to understand the non-competitive subtopics and keywords I can rank for and incorporate into my writing, and to determine how I can improve my content by noting what is already ranking high, will help ensure audience growth more than almost anything else.
To do this, it helps to have a keyword search or SEO tool. The one I use is Ubersuggest developed by SEO expert, Neil Patel. After its free seven-day trial, I loved the tool so much that I bought the lifetime purchase vs. the monthly subscription, quickly understanding it was a tremendous deal.
My link to Ubersuggest is not an affiliate one. I love the product that much. Plus, Ubersuggest does not offer an affiliate program to its users who want to promote it. Likely because they do not need to. So, check it out, and see what you think. And then when you buy it, tell Neil I sent you, though likely he will not care. (Neil, a thank you note is a nice gesture too.)
10. Cluster publish within an article topic.
In an SEO workshop at the travel conference I attended last spring, I learned the importance of becoming a subject matter expert on topics to achieve better search engine rankings.
The way to do this is to generate a cluster of articles around one topic versus writing one-off destination articles.
For example, after my trip to Belize, I plan to publish ten articles, helping me achieve more of a subject matter expert status. And I aim to do similar for my upcoming Malta trip.
11. Update old articles.
Old blog posts with aging content fall in search engine rankings. Because of this, updating my old content—especially ones that generate organic search traffic—to check for broken links and closed businesses and to add new and relevant information, including links to my other articles, is compulsory to maintaining and growing my traffic.
Starting this year, I learned to treat each blog post as a traffic-generating asset that requires upkeep, and I set a date—either once or twice a year review and update the content. Of course, working this into my monthly and weekly work plan.
12. Make the time to continue learning.
My friend Clare is an outdoor lifestyle brand consultant in Vail, Colorado, who regularly sets aside several hours every Friday to learn new things—such as read articles she has saved or take an online class.
Since she told me she does this, I have aimed to do the same. Though, struggle as non-blog responsibilities chip away at my work time.
However, when I can carve out a few minutes or even a half hour to watch a video, read an article, or learn how to do a new task—the time I committed to learning has been tremendously valuable.
The things I want to learn in 2023 include:
- Better videography and editing
- Improved iPhone photography
- How to better use my GoPro
- How to best incorporate a VA to help support & grow my business
My Two Big 2023 Goals
Every few weeks, I meet with my business accountability partner, my friend Anne, who you will not be surprised at all to learn I met while traveling.
See a photo below of Anne in Mozambique, where Jordan and I met her when she was studying sharks in South Africa, and he and I were backpacking the world.
This serendipitous chance encounter was years before we both had kids and settled in the same small Chicago near suburb.
Anne is many things as well—part athletic store owner, Airbnb magnate (she is about to own six), former powerlifter—and thankfully, also an analytic nerd who has never met a reach goal she does not like.
So, when Anne and I met at the beginning of January to talk about 2023 goals, I told her I wanted to drive 300 people per day to my website by the end of 2023. Since I was already hovering around 100 to 150 daily visitors, I thought that would be reasonable.
Her response: “Reasonable? That’s not a good goal. You can do better.”
Reasonable? That’s not a good goal. You can do better.
So, thank you, Anne. My 2023 goal is now 500 visitors to my site a day. And I am determined to make it happen, paired with bringing in $1,000 in passive revenue a month from advertising and affiliate sales.
These goals are now in writing for the entire world wide web to see—step one of making them happen, along with continuing to implement the 12 things I learned in 2022.
Reaching 2023 Goals: Two Essential Books
There are two books I recently listened to as part of a business book club—”Eat that Frog: 21 Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time” and “Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking” that have already had an outsize impact on accomplishing my 2023 goals.
However, I did not initially want to read either book the group chose.
For Eat That Frog—I had previously read several time management books and felt that I had that topic nailed shut (it turns out I did not). Plus, Soundtracks seemed irrelevant—I did not consider myself an overthinker (whoops, guilty here too).
Eat That Frog gave me a structure and a numbering system to stay focused on tasks. And Soundtracks made me realize that defeatist thinking limited my ability to execute my biggest goals by sabotaging my confidence.
We will see if the learnings from both books stick, though, for February, I have been churning on all cylinders crafting and executing my planned tasks and keeping 2023 goals on track.
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Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links on this page may be affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I earn a commission if you make a purchase. I only recommend products and companies I use. And the income goes to keeping the site community-supported and ads minimal.
Welcome to Gather and Go Travel, a blog inspiring families, adult friends, and couples to explore US and international destinations and to get outdoors. I am Janice, an experienced traveler to over 50 countries and a travel writer, book lover, and blogger. Learn more about me, read our story, and how to work with me.
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