Why It’s Never Too Late To Start A Travel Blog

I have been a travel blogger since Summer 2007. It has been a long journey since then and I simply could not have imagined where my life has ended up. Back in July 2007 when in Toronto in Canada, I met two travel bloggers – Lee Price and Mike Burkimsher. I loved their blogs, started following them and the next day started my own blog. That blog is on the now defunct Blogspot Domain as it got too big and I transferred all my stories over to the current Don’t Stop Living in October 2012 (just after celebrating 5 full years as a travel blogger.

In those early days, the main reason I started my travel blog was because I was already an offline travel writer anyway. Each night in my diary, from my beds around the world I’d write what I did that day – where I went, how much it cost, bars I visited, transport I used, museums I entered, food I ate etc. I started documenting all my offline stuff into an online format as we are now living in the digital age. At the times I was aware of sites such as Wixx, Travel Agency Website Builder, WordPress and Blogger, but I really didn’t know how to start a website using them. I was a novice. I spent about 5-6 hours in front of my laptop working it all out. Once I had my first blog post live, I was ecstatic. It was 27th August 2007 when I finally wrote it, and for the next 30 days I wrote a post a day on that old blog. It was all so exciting and new!

Within a week, I had about 3 readers – Mum, Dad and Millwall Neil.

Within a month, I had about 10+ readers – mostly friends.

Within a year, I had about 100+ readers – friends, family, travel buddies, old school friends.

Within 5 years, the blog was being viewed by anyone and everyone I didn’t know.

Within 10 years, I didn’t even need to update the blog anymore, it ran itself on sponsored posts and adverts (besides I was in deep depression by now and hadn’t the energy to update).

Within 12 years, I started to love the blog again and turned my focus back to Don’t Stop Living.

By the end of 2012, I was now earning money on Don’t Stop Living. That was never ever the plan or the aim, it just happened. Advertisers began to get in touch so I took the money. Around the same time, I also spent a lot of money on the site. I self-hosted, I installed a new theme, paid a company to design a logo (though I designed it myself – they just made it professional) and by August 2013, I was location independent. I was a digital nomad, working for myself. All from starting a travel blog. If you start one today, you never know where it will take you. Check these posts for tips:

– Why to become a professional travel blogger

– Why not to become a professional travel blogger

By early 2014, I had other websites bought and was now running around 15 travel, lifestyle and sports sites (3 of them in China, 1 in Bournemouth) whilst still working as an English teacher in Hong Kong in between my travels. I cracked 85 countries with East Timor in April 2014.

By June 2014, I had quit teaching completely and was free and able to travel around the world using my blog as my income. Whatever I lay my hat, was my home.

By March 2015, I had visited every continent with Tunisia marking country 100 just days before my 35th birthday. Life was continuing and was very very exciting for me. After that, things calmed down for the blog, for the travels and in the last 4 years I have certainly not travelled as much as I did in the early days. But we have time.

So – get your travel blog started TODAY. Don’t delay. Here’s how the blog looked down the years, crazy to see these changes now…