Travel blogging is a tricky industry. I’m realizing there’s no cut-and-dry way to travel blog, except for the fact that it’s important you get pretty pictures and information out there for readers to wanderlust at. There are solo travelers, couple travelers, and family travelers. There are those that do it for fun and some that do it as a living. But one of my favorite things to figure out while discovering new travel bloggers, is learning what their travel blogging lifestyle is. This can be tricky, especially since the internet allows us to paint pictures of ourselves in basically whatever way we want.
Here are the 5 types of travel bloggers I have discovered in my ventures with blogging. In no way, shape, or form are these true definitions, they’re just my descriptions and observations of bloggers out there. Which one are you? I’ll be explaining which one we are at the end of this post.
‘Let’s go on a holiday’ travel blogger. These bloggers do vacations well. They know how to budget their money in a way that they can maximize their vacation time to it’s fullest. They’re the ones you see going on grand ventures to Europe, South America, and Asia. Their trips are always short a few weeks at the max. They have frequent flier miles and world venture credit cards down pat. They know when the best and cheapest times to travel are, and literally use every single vacation day allotted to them within the year traveling. They’re also super good at taking a million pictures and drawing out their 2-3 week travel adventures into posts that span a 4+ month period.
‘I literally don’t have a home’ travel blogger. The real professional travel bloggers, the people we’d all like to be when we grow up, the ones that make a career out of travel blogging. They’re on the go 24-7, traveling to an ungodly amount of countries per year. They’ve filled at least one passport book (or two) every year with stamps, and have traveled 30,000 feet in the air more often than they have driving on the highway. They’re expert packers, and know a thing or two about traveling well. They rarely settle down in one place for more than a few weeks, which can make it difficult to find a good blogging schedule, sleep schedule, and all around living schedule. They’re excellent at time management though, and once they do happen to find a bit of WIFI on the go, they can pound out at least 10 posts within a couple hours.
‘This is a phase’ travel blogger. Whether it’s teaching English in Asia or being an Au Pair in France, these temporary travel bloggers are in it for 1-3 years, and are enjoying their young lives before they have to settle down and ‘get a real job.’ They love life, love experiences, and love sharing everything about their journey. Although they usually don’t start out as serious travel bloggers (mainly blogging for friends and family back home), some can easily find blogging a wonderful hobby and way to connect with the rest of the world. They make those living at home seriously consider moving abroad for a year or two, and serve as an inspiration for travel hopefuls.
‘Let’s take it slow’ travel blogger. The chronic traveler, the long-time traveler, the ones that want to live abroad for an extended period of time (I’m talking 5-10+ years). Although they do get around the world, they tend to travel it at a slower pace than others; a year here, two there and so on and so forth. They make traveling their life, but not necessarily their job. They go out to find work outside of travel and build a professional working resume. They love actually living life abroad and adapting to different countries’ ways of living. These travel bloggers are generally long term bloggers due to the nature of their travels. They’re the ones with all the dirty info on a country: visas, customs, best travel spots, and detailed travel guides.
‘YOLO’ travel blogger. The fast and furious traveler. They take 3 months to a year off (usually some sort of gap year) and travel as much as they humanly can. Although this isn’t the best way to travel financially, they figure, you only live once, so better do as much as they can with the short opportunity they have to do it in. Their travels are usually carefully planned to a tee, as these bloggers are extremely organized. After all that traveling is done the ‘yolo’ travel blogger take their thousands of pictures and hundreds of stories, begin a blog, and spend the next year or two recounting all the crazy things they did within that short time they were out exploring the world. Consider it a memoir to their travels. Sometimes these ‘yolo’ travel bloggers turn into ‘let’s go on a holiday’ travel bloggers because they were bitten by the wanderlust bug hard, and they love blogging.
Derik and I are phasing out of one category and into another, as does happen sometimes with travelers. We started out in the ‘this is a phase’ category when we began our lives of travel in Korea, and are beginning to move into the ‘let’s take it slow’ category. I fully intend on blogging for years to come as it’s one of my favorite hobbies (which sometimes pays). We continue to dream of living abroad for the next few years after already spending almost three good years away from ‘home’, and do not intend on moving back to the US anytime soon. We dream of living for a while in NZ, and then maybe we’ll jet off to Australia or Europe. You just never know! Derik has a great professional job here, and if opportunities are given to us to extend our visas, we would be more than happy to.
So what kind of travel blogger (or even just traveler in general) are you?
