Five years of travel blogging: How to remain serious about it

I started this travel blog five years ago, and this has been my most enjoyable journey as a writer. For half a decade, the “Letters to Barbara” has been my creative outlet, portfolio, motivation to travel -and a good part of my monthly income. Through these five years of travel blogging, I learned new things about writing and discovered aspects of myself. That said, working on this travel blog is a reason to wake up in the morning and stay awake at night.

There’s always a danger in these annual recaps: repeating myself and the blogging lessons I learned. Although I try to avoid that, I can assure you it’s not intentional. It’s more that I face and appreciate these things daily, and I want to share them with people willing to start blogging.

So today, apart from the motivation, I want to share how you can remain serious about blogging in the long term. Moreover, I want to tell you why blogging matters today more than ever. It doesn’t matter if you run a travel or a lifestyle blog. Or, honestly, any kind of blog. At its core, blogging is a standalone thing, and the niche doesn’t matter as long as you continue working.

Let’s start.

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Five years of travel blogging: How to remain serious about it

After five years of travel blogging, it’s not uncommon to feel tired from it or approaching a dead end. Instead of letting such thoughts drag you down, here are 5 things to have in mind to keep yourself moving forward in the blogosphere. And if you want to know more, make sure to check out my blogging ebooks bundle that’s currently on sale.

Be consistent in your blogging routine

If you publish five or ten blog posts, you are already a blogger. However, if you publish 300 posts, you slowly turn into a small media outlet. Publishing hundreds of posts means dedication and a solid blogging routine. You can’t reach such numbers without being serious about it. And here’s how to do it.

Being consistent in your blogging routine might seem scary. However, you need to prioritize the things you do during the day. And if you want to remain serious about blogging, writing should be your first goal. I always try to write every day, even short texts or articles that I will later abandon, to keep my hands warm. You probably suspect that, but I’d say out loud: there’s no such thing as writing only when inspiration knocks on your door. One should write daily, period.

To keep this consistency, it’s always good to have (some sort of) a calendar. Make a schedule of the things you want to write and the upcoming posts you’d like to publish. Be ahead of the content and keep it flowing consistently. What’s important here is to understand your rhythms. For example, I always post once per week on Saturdays. I wish I could publish more, but that’s the best I can do based on available time and my work with clients.

Don’t compare yourself to other bloggers

Comparing yourself to other bloggers, it’s the beginning of a toxic relationship with yourself. This will only add stress to your daily life, and sooner or later, you’ll start obsessing with metrics. Inevitably, you’ll start questioning your blogging existence with thoughts like:

Why does my blog doesn’t get enough traffic?

Will I ever make money from blogging?

Why does everybody else make something out of blogging, but I can’t?

Although such thoughts sound normal, if you let them grow, they will be why you’ll quit blogging. I think everything starts with accepting that there will also be more productive fellow bloggers, more capable, or people who started blogging much earlier and thus have an advantage.

This, of course, doesn’t mean to have zero ambitions. On the contrary, it means to be ambitious and work to achieve them. But honestly, comparing to others will drive you nowhere in the long term.

When it’s needed, invest

I knew I had to invest from day one, but after five years of travel blogging, I learned when investing makes sense. Blogging for half a decade is a long time, and this already means that you take it seriously. However, there will be times when you’ll need to invest in your blog.

Buying a new camera or software that will further optimize your workflow are things that will appear as needs sooner rather than later. Once again, the word to keep in mind is “prioritize.” Think why and if you need the X product or the Z software. If the answer is affirmative and not driven by vanity, I always advise you to go for it.

I never underestimate the importance of tools. You might rightly wonder: When are tools useful? Well, in my opinion, there’s only one reply: when they let me focus exclusively on the work I have to do. If a tool becomes a distraction, I don’t need it. Also, when a tool doesn’t justify its cost, I won’t consider it.

But here’s the thing: Investing is a must when you want to be serious about blogging. This is your business, and you should treat it like one.

Your blog is your portfolio (and your CV)

This travel blog helped me find new jobs and work on projects I never thought I would. Although most people use Social Media to reach an audience, a blog reflects your personality more than any other channel. I wrote extensively about Social Media vs. Websites last year and took a clear pro-website stance.

Sharing thoughts and long-term projects will help you reach relevant audiences. In addition, showing how much work you put into running a blog will show a potential client that you know how to grow a business. Yes, there will be times that traffic might go down; however, the work you put in is there and remains visible.

Through this travel blog, I receive daily job proposals. Not all of them will fit your audience. In fact, I usually turn down 95% of them. But the remaining 5% at some point will be enough to give you enough income and make you financially independent. And this thought brings us to the next lesson.

Learn to say “No”

I’ve written this in the past, but as years go by, it becomes more and more relevant. You won’t be less serious about blogging if you reject job offers that don’t meet your needs. In fact, you will remain true to yourself and your profession.

Let’s face it. At some point, you might accept uninteresting job offers just because you don’t want to reject proposals anymore. As your blog grows, more companies would like to take advantage of your blogging success. They will come with dubious offers, non-deserving affiliate schemes, and proposals that request too much without offering compensation.

However, if you treat your blog as a business, you shouldn’t sell your work without compensation. It’s better to say “no continuously” instead of betraying your blog, your hard work, and -most importantly- the audience you created all these years.

As I already wrote, I turn down job proposals daily. In fact, generic e-mails that don’t even know my name won’t even get a reply. I work hard on this travel blog, and I find it disrespectful to myself to even reply to such e-mails.

Five years of travel blogging: What’s next?

The fifth anniversary of Letters to Barbara is one more milestone in this wonderful journey. As always, I’m writing these lines in Anafi, the place I daydream about in the winter and where I make plans for the year ahead.

To every reader out here, I want to promise that I’ll keep writing and publishing blog posts every Saturday. Most of the time, these posts will be about helping people travel better and showing places you might consider for your upcoming vacation. Other times, I’ll share my thoughts or smaller projects that give me the energy to continue. Travel blogging is a lot of work, and the feedback I get from the readers is the best compensation.

So, here’s to five years of travel blogging and five years of Letters to Barbara! Thank you for being part of this fabulous adventure in the blogosphere.

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Last Updated on September 23, 2023 by George Pavlopoulos