17 Lessons Learned From 17 Years Of Travel🌎🤳🏻Blogging💻📝👩‍💻

“I’m just a notch in your bedpost, but you’re just a line in a song” – Fall Out Boy.

It’s the 3rd of November 2024. This travel blog started in on the 27th of August 2007 – well over 17 years – Wow! Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like it has been 17 years of blogging. SEVENTEEN. Nuts. Time really just catches up and passes us by, I often cannot fathom it. 17 years? That is mental. This travel blog is almost old enough to legally buy a pint of beer in Northern Ireland!! Remember the old quote I always used? Well haul on…I can still use it…

“You’ll turn around and life has passed you by” – Doves.

“And if there’s lessons to be learned, I’d rather get my jamming words in first” – Gabriella Cilmi.

And officially Don’t Stop Living has now been live in 18 calendar years, to become 19 calendar years when the 1st January 2025 chimes into view. So what have I learned? What’s the progression? Why am I even still travel blogging? Isn’t that a young man’s game? Not a chance. Travel blogs mature and change as they age, like everything else in life. Well if you ever wondered where the idea and brainchild of Don’t Stop Living emanated from, here I wrote that. It all started in Toronto in Canada in 2007, right now I live by a lake in Olstyn, Poland. The madness continues.

“No place to be ending but somewhere to start” – Sade.

“She’s a smooth operator” – Sade.

So without further ado, here are the top 17 things I have learned by travel blogging for the last 17 years.

1.Don’t Stop

This is the key thing for me – don’t stop (as opposed to “don’t stop living”). If you’ve started a travel blog, don’t stop it. Don’t quit. Keep it going. I have over 5,000 posts and pages on here now. I have about 5,000 MORE that I want to write but don’t have the time, and never will find the time, so I can’t stop, won’t stop and don’t stop. On other blogs and sites, my total of posts tops 10,000. That was easy because I am relentless, I kept going, I didn’t stop and I don’t stop.

“I can’t sleep cos the world won’t wait” – Noel Gallagher.

It’s no boast here on my 10 grand quantity of articles – just the fact of course. I don’t want to know how many hours in front of the computer that has meant, but I’m pretty proud of my back catalogue and the fact I started before most travel bloggers and am still going after most travel bloggers have disappeared. Goodnight Irene. Since Don’t Stop Living began in 2007, a total of 47,532 travel bloggers started and ENDED their blogs, never to return. They fell by the wayside – not good enough – no balls – fakes.

“I’ve seen all the disciples and all the wannabes, no-one wants to be themselves these days” – Jon Bon Jovi.

So what I’ve learned is to not stop. To keep going. To keep blogging. Blow every other travel blog into oblivion. Be the best. Plus I banged 229 countries into my backpack somehow during all that. Be relentless.

2.People STILL Read Travel Blogs!

Do they? Wait – it’s 2024! Yes folks – People ARE still reading travel blogs, even in November 2024. I used to doubt it in the early days. Quite a lot. I’d spend about 3 hours writing a post like Top 99 Sights in Pyongyang or how to whackpack Penis Rock in China, or more recently how to backpack Seborga, expecting it to go global, expecting people to read it. I click “Publish”, I share on Facebook, Twitter, Instgram and hey presto – zero likes, zero views, zero comments. Nobody cares.

Incorrect. I was wrong. There’s something known as the long tail, longevity…patience is needed.

So believe that once you write it and publish that blog post, it’s online forever…anyone can read it, anytime, and believe me they will 😉It takes patience and time. Even those who faked that they don’t read travel blogs – I caught them out many times, they do read them. You think I write a book called “Starogard Girl” thinking she hadn’t spent her life stalking me pretending not to know I backpacked 16 provinces in China? She knew, oh she knew.

You can buy My New Book: 💚STARO🌟GARD🏰GIRL🩷👱‍♀️Here.

While your post may not have attracted comments, shares, views and likes – people read it and then they used what they read to help their journey – they just didn’t have the time, or the need, or the honesty or the balls to tell you. People need information, so provide them with useful real life information and resources from your whackpacking journey. You’re helping the world travel and they will never ever care or thank you. They don’t have time. They won’t remember your name or your blog’s name, but you helped them. Stay humble.

“In the meantime we try to forget that nothing lasts forever” – Jarvis Cocker.

Recently I wrote an article on a ferry crossing which got zero comments, shares and likes. Then an anonymous reader messaged me and told me the ferry terminal details on it were incorrect. They were reading it. Proof that people do read them. That people do read travel blogs, but they don’t often comment or share them unless they stand out as controversial. I’m happy to shy away from the limelight once more. I’d rather write posts on crossing into Romkerhall, feeding hyenas in Ethiopia, backpacking in Iraq, Nagorno Karabakh and Changsha in China. Once your stuff is on the internet, someone somewhere will read it. Be aware of that, but don’t expect a fucking present – you’re just another travel blogger.

“The world is fool of fools” – Ian Brodie.

3.You Shouldn’t Give A Shit About Other “Travel Bloggers”💩

I used to give a shit about other bloggers, but now I just don’t. I don’t care. Because they don’t care about me, and they also don’t care about you. It’s a dog eat dog selfish world. Hard Facts here…Down the years, I have found most other “travel bloggers” to be either –
(a) Assholes.
(b) Fakes.
I have blocked more “travel bloggers” from my blogs than readers and stalkers. I went to the Professional Travel Bloggers Conference once only – London (2014) and found that other travel bloggers were too arrogant or thought they were proper long term whackpackers. Come back to me when you’ve been blogging for 17 years and have worked hard to whackpack through 229 countries.

“The drugs don’t work, they just make you worse but I know I’ll see your face again” – Richard Ashcroft.

Most other travel blogs will be sh*t anyway, but only because you are genuine and real, and those gimps only ever started a blog to make money. I started my travel blog to tell my story and show what it is like to go whackpacking and to help others travel. That’s the real quiz. I’ve shat on so many fake travel bloggers, I needed to order a plumber for my toilet. He is still in there fixing it🤣

If I see another travel blog on “We quit our jobs in New York to backpack 71 countries and never returned home” or “I sold all my stuff and moved to Thailand forever”, I might just be sick😂. However, I do respect the travel bloggers that are real, as I know it takes time and effort and travel is what they love. And that part is important.

“If you can wing it, make your money with a power ply” – Michael Stipe.

Also many other travel bloggers are extremely patronising and difficult to like – I have received very rude, arrogant and aggressive messages, comments and emails from “top bloggers” (allegedly – they’re not). My peers in the industry don’t like me writing about this, but the fact remains – there are some big twats out there and I’ll never read their sites (sorry – shites) again. Here’s a toilet article for you all.

“Solitary brother is there still a part of me that wants to live?” – Seal.

4.Understand Your Readers

In August 2007, when I published my first post, I had one reader. Me! That day, I read my own blog to check it posted correctly and had no spelling mistakes.😂

Then over the next few days and weeks, I told my family and friends about my blog. Maybe my Mum and Dad read it after that in late 2007. Then maybe Lock In Lee and The Famous Millwall Neil. And Darch. But they are my family and friends. By 2008, a few more people were reading – workmates, flatmates, university mates. In 2009 though, backpacking Taiwan was the real game changer for my blog. Other people who I didn’t even know had started to read my stories – game changer, opener and money earner.

Since Taiwan in 2009, I started to receive messages from followers, from backpackers who were asking about my journeys – how I got visas, how I organised my trips etc. I was shocked that people were reading, but then I realised why –

• My travel blog at that time was the ONLY travel blog in the world at the time with standalone articles written in English about Xinying, Kwan Tu Ling, Hualien, Chiayi City…
• My bake came up FIRST on Google when I googled “backpacking in Xinying”.

Looking back 15 years later, I cringe at my blog posts from 2007 – 2010 – they are all really shit now. But they made me. They brought me here. They put me on Google. They put advertisers in touch. This blog turned professional in 2012 and I haven’t looked back since. Since 2012, I haven’t needed to pay for accommodation or tours and have been earning a steady income from travel blogging. I see it as 5 years of hobby blogging (2007 – 2012) and since then 12 years of professional travel blogging (2012 – 2024). It could all end tomorrow…

“If it all amounts to nothing, it doesn’t matter, these are still our glory days” – Jarvis Cocker.

When people started to read and follow, I started to tailor my writing to them. The blog became a better resource. I improved. We do that in every job we do. I’m a better barman today than I was in 2001. The readers also bring such joy to my life, they keep me enthusiastic – like customers in a shop/bar. Some of the best stories have come through people reading my stuff. Walking through a busy parade in Tokyo and a guy shouts over and tugs my shirt – Hey you are Jonny from Don’t Stop Living! I toured the city of Quetzaltenango in Guatemala with Giovanni who followed my stuff.  I meet a cool Canadian guy called Nick in Hanoi and he introduces my blog to one of his mates, Ray. Ray turns into one of my readers and we message each other all the time, plus just missed out on a beer together in Brazil and Katar. Next time Ray. I have met up face to face with lots of my readers – Martin Anthony in England, Selin in Turkey, Sapna in India etc.

So yeah – thanks for reading to all my readers and followers down the years. I care about you, my readers and I do have time for you. Message me on my journeys and we can meet for a beer and a chat.

5.Travel Blogging Is A Career

Travel blogging becomes your “job”, here’s how I earn money as a travel blogger. That might sound wild to newbies, but remember it’s 2024. You can (and should) work in other jobs alongside travel blogging, but if you don’t make it a focus or your career, you’re finished already. Remember – you can do anything if you want it enough. If you work hard and really travel you can of course make travel blogging into a career, and your main income stream, especially these days post-COVID were “working remotely/demuting” has become the new norm.

While I don’t like to use the term “career” a professional travel blogger is just another job, albeit with some negative aspects. Jobwise, it’s just like being a butcher or a banker. We work hard in our niche, we earn money on being good at travel blogging. We try to be good at what we work on. I’ve tried. I’ve been earning money from my travel blogging since 2012. It’s my lifestyle and my career now. I don’t need to “work” anywhere else if I spend enough hours on travel blogging, but I sometimes like to do bar work, teaching English and copywriting as they add spice to my life and extra income.

6.Your Travel Blog Doesn’t Have to be Good to Make Money

Unfortunately, this point is true – so even those shit blogs I hate are making money. Just like a beer doesn’t have to be good to sell. Remember – marketing, PR and outreach are just as important. If someone has put effort in and their blog isn’t great but their commitment is top class, they also deserve to make money. And they will. There are some truly SHIT travel blogs out there making way more money than me, and way more money than you. But their business model is their business – it’s up to them. Once you crack $1,000 US  month, aim for $2,000, then $3,000 then the big bucks of $10,000.

“Shake it up baby now, twist and shout” – The Beatles.

7.You Should Always Be Yourself.

This is probably the best one. Be yourself. Be YOU. Be honest and real. Go where you want to go. Be where you want to be. See what you want to see. Write what you want to write. Ignore others! It’s your blog – make it your pride and passion and enjoy it. I have no time for fakes and wannabes and believe me – there are a fair few out there! I am myself and I really love travelling the world to where I want to go, on my terms. If you want to backpack Curacao just to drink Blue Curacao, then go do it. The world is your oyster.

“Because we want to, because we want to” – Billie Piper.

“I need to be myself, I can’t be no-one else” – Noel Gallagher.

8.The Clue is in the title “Travel Blog!!”: You Have to Really TRAVEL

Get out there and be REAL please – actually travel. One of my biggest bug bears in life is travel bloggers who are fake and don’t even travel. It grills me. The worst offenders are the types who head to Thailand for 2 weeks, start a “blog” then move back in with their family in the USA/England/Canada etc. and sit on their laptops pretending they’re some kind of backpacking guru that knows how to travel the world! Their sole travel experiences were sitting on a beach in Thailand and seeing Angkor Wat in Cambodia. They don’t even know how to change money abroad, how to get visas, how to whackpack Africa, or how to visit a country they’ve never heard of and they only went there to get drunk, get their photo with an elephant and sit on a beach. You won’t bump into them while you are groundhopping in Haiti. Fakes!!

“Strawberry fields, nothing is real” – John Lennon.

“Pretenders to the throne” – The Beautiful South.

The worst part of these fake travel blogs are the Facebook pages they create, day after day they share photos they haven’t taken themsleves and lots with “inspiring travel quotes” on them!! As if they are trying to inspire other people to travel without having been to that place themselves. What you see is what you get on Don’t Stop Living. My Facebook page photos are real from my travels, my stories are real and I put as many photos of MYSELF in there as I can – this is my blog. I hate generics – blogs with no photos of the writer. Fake.

“Generic generic and that’s the way you like it, you like it” – Dan Darch at Dean Court. 

I’m not sitting typing up stuff pretending I’m in Ethiopia or putting quotes like “Wow! Paris is cool, have you been?” Well, yes I have been, but is the person that posted that there now?? Are they backpacking down to Marseille? In most cases not – they’re dreamers and wannabes and the people who are actually out travelling are the only ones you should trust. These “travel bloggers” are also the ones that slag travellers like me off, just because I’m actually backpacking across borders, writing about real stuff that happens and being myself. Oasis actually went to the beach in Weston-super-Mare to do the photoshoot for Roll With It.

“I know the roads on which your life will drive” – Noel Gallagher. 

9.Don’t Work For Free

Once you start making money on your travel blog, you have to make sure you up the ante – increase your prices for adverts, sponsored posts and services.

Do not work for free. Be the King or the Queen. It’s your trAvel blog, it’s your website. King It. Queen It.

I’m constantly firing beggars out of my cannon. They pay me now, and they have since 2012. Trevor Warman from Nomadic Backpacker and I call them “the $30 Dollar Brigade”, which is the begging low budget advertisers we say no to. I charge $250 US for a sponsored post. Like it or leave it, or compromise with us…

“Shouting at the world you’ll never change, but it’s what’s inside you’ve got to rearrange” – Andy Cairns.

10.Have Patience

See in my point number two – about people reading your travel blog – it takes time – it’s a long-term project. This travel blog started in 2007, even by early 2009 not many people were reading it. I blocked Google adsense in 2009 for not paying me the money they owed me, I never looked back. Officially, I didn’t make any money on travel blogging until 2012!!

“all we need is just a little patience” – Guns ‘n’ Roses.

“Expecting To Fly” – The Bluetones.

11.Join Every Social Media Under The Sun

Even if you don’t like all social media platforms – join them all anyway. Every single slice of promotion is an extra viewer, an extra reader, extra exposure and ultimtely more money. Over expose yourself. Over promote yourself. Get your profile out for the girls.

Jonny Blair –
Tourist, Travel Writer, Itinerary Planner, Author, Long-term Backpacker
Ulster Cherry, Globetrotting Glenman, Travelling Northern Irishman, Northern Irishman in Poland
Like DSL on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/donotstopliving
Follow DSL on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jonnyblair
Follow DSL on Instagram: https://instagram.com/jonnydontstopliving
Follow DSL on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ulsterczyk
Follow DSL on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/jonnyscottblair
Don’t Stop Living – A lifestyle of travel. I’m a travelling Northern Irishman.

I won’t keep the receipts for the friends that I bought…

I’ve noticed ridiculously some bloggers refusing to join certain social media platforms – “oh I don’t do Twitter, Facebook is excrement” etc. –  idiocy – clearly you have no clue and don’t want the money – as Chris “Taggart” Tarrant would say…

“You’ve just lost £16,000” – Who Wants To Be a Millionaire.

In 2024, my “second” blog now, Northern Irishman In Poland, has 8,000 followers and it’s nothing compared with how big Don’t Stop Living once was (it peaked at 9,000 in 2016 before depression kicked in). You can fall from grace, but you’ll never lose it when you’re always engaging with your readers. But actually in reality, Northern Irishman in Poland is bigger now, on Facebook. It’s massive. It’s hard to fathom. Travel blogging on the outside is not so clear. I met Starogard Girl because she FOUND me as a travel blogger.

12.Diversify Your Income Streams

Don’t rely on one travel blog bringing in loads of cash – you might be epic and lucky to make thousands of dollars from ONE site, but it doesn’t always work like that. I earn money in loads of different ways now.

If a shop or cafe is closed, it doesn’t earn money.

When Don’t Stop Living turned professional, I started other sites and other projects online. Plus, I was also working as a teacher in schools and offices and in a bar. Since Don’t Stop Living started in 2007, I have worked in over 50 other jobs including teaching, farming, bar work, ferry stewarding, welcome host, PR rep and copywriting. I’ve written a fair bit about those jobs on my blogs too – but most people don’t care or don’t read them.

On top of those jobs, I have also released books.

Buy my Backpacking Centurion book series –
Volume 1 – Don’t Look Back In Bangor
Volume 2 – Lands Down Under
Volume 3 – Taints And Honours
Volume 4 – The Black Volume
Buy my This Is The Next Century Series –
Volume 1 – Aftershot
Volume 2 – Starogard Girl
Volume 3 – Fool Circle
Volume 4 – The Darker Volume

13.Mingle With The Best

I’ve been a travel blogger since 2007, that is even before Nomadic Matt started. In 2014, met Nomadic Matt and Wandering Earl and those guys are exactly as they say. They are real. It was these guys that gave me this advice. I knew after I met them both, that I had grown up in a tougher environment (Northern Ireland) than them, but I also knew that I had travelled way way more than they had. Suddenly, I could give backpacking advice to the world’s best known travel blogger…down the years I have met a lot of fellow travel bloggers, however many of them are fake backpackers and keyboard ninjas…

13.Keep Your Travel Blogs Updated. Regularly.

Again – this is an opinion and I might get slated for it but the clue should be in the title – “TRAVEL blog”. If I see a travel blog without a post for 2 or 3 weeks without an explanation, I’ll start to think the person wasn’t really travelling (health and family issues aside – I’m talking about on a regular occurrance). It’s a lot easier than you think keeping a travel blog up to date. I’ve had at least 6 posts a month for the last 17 years, some months I had over 50 posts, and in that time I have still visited about 200 countries. It takes an hour a day to write a post and put up some photos. If I can do it (and I’m not great at computers) then anyone can do it. Today, I can go back through my hundreds of travel blog folders and write any article I want from them…even in the last few months, I backdated articles on New Zealand, England, Tasmania and Northern Ireland.

14.Over-promote Yourself. Everywhere you can.

Don’t say no to any chance to promote yourself. Have a look at my media page. I have been in over 20 printed newspapers, over 400 OTHER blogs, over 30 Podcasts and many many other media options. I love to outreach and expose myself – trust me – this way more people will have heard of you, more people will find you, connect with you and the money will roll in faster from advertisers.

Even last month, October 2024, I was traveller of the month on Teaspoon of adventure. I constantly promote my blogs and interact online with other media platforms. For any of you out there who are tourists, travellers, fellow bloggers, I can also feature YOU on my blog on my series – World Travellers or Backpacking Buddies. Contact me and be on my series – jonny (at) dontstopliving (dot) net.

“It turns out, you only get to do it once” – Liam Gallagher.

15.Be Boundless and Limitless

When I worked for Bite Communications (a PR agency) in London in 2006, I learned that setting boundaries and limits is a very bad idea. Be the yes man – have NO LIMITS. Don’t say no to companies – take all the money and the freebies while they are they. Once you become  professional travel blogger, you realise you shouldn’t be paying for things like hotels, tours, lunches, backpacks, dinners, business cards etc.- milk it all and go wild on your outreach…

“There’s no limits” – 2 Unlimited.

16.Write Nuts articles🥜😂

“Don’t be someone who they forget” – Melanie C.

One of the things I love the most about travel blogging is that it is limitless – I have full control and power to write about anything I want. This is why I write some nuts articles, from doing nuts things, like whackpacking The Kingdom Of Lovely at London away, feeding hyenas in Ethiopia, attending a fireball festival in Nejapa, going nude around the world, touring the bars of alderney. Be wild, nuts, creative – write about what nobody else is writing about. I’m still the only backpacking tourist to write about Podjistan and Adammia. Stand out from the crowd, go off the wheaten craic because even “the beaten track” is fake now, and overtrodden.

“Standing at the end of time, in ecstasy” – Tim Wheeler. 

17.Writing Comes First

It should go without saying really, or without writing really – but put the writing FIRST. Remember – being a travel blogger means you are WRITING about TRaVEL. That’s it – a blogger is an online writer. Instagrammers, Tik-Tokkers and YouTubers are Instagrammers, Tik-Tokkers and YouTubers – they are NOT bloggers unless their writing is first and their social media is second.

You don’t just sit in a rocking chair once you’ve built a revolution.

On a final note, I also learned how important it is to build a database of contacts – in those 17 years of travel blogging, I have built up  MaSSIVE database of pver 100,000 contacts – even my database is endless and limitless – I have contacts on there cross multiple genres and subjects ranging from football to porn to casinos to tourism to beer to cocktails to ferry companies to banks to shoes.

So amen to 17 years of travel blogging. It’s a milestone. Time for a drink and you relax and have a nice day…and don’t become one of the fakes please 😉

PS – I had to type this up without the 1, q, a, z buttons on my keyboard working, nor the exclamation mark! – this meant I copied and pasted every time I needed that letter!!!

aFC Bournemouth 2-1 Manchester City. Don’t Look Back In Boscombe, Noel…