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How Travel Bloggers can Leverage their Expertise

   Published Date: January 7, 2020  13 Comments on How Travel Bloggers can Leverage their Expertise
How Travel Bloggers can Leverage their Expertise

Do you want to take your travel blog to the next level and earn some passive income for your efforts? Well first you’ll need to build brand awareness and grow your subject-matter expertise in your travel niche. 

With so many travel bloggers on the internet, astute ones expand their content offerings over and above simple blog articles and social media posts. But with multiple ways to present your travel knowledge, how do you decide the best option to take? Let’s look at some examples of how other travel bloggers diversified their content to reach a wider audience:

VIA AN AUDIO PODCAST

Chris Christensen hosts a podcast destination guide that focuses on must-see and must-do travel experiences. He has a radio voice, which makes his podcast easy to listen to and he peppers his podcast with historical facts, cultural observations, and interactions with locals.

Amy Scott, Nomadtopia, publishes a website that is a hub of information, inspiration, and support. Her brand includes Nomadtopia Radio, a regular podcast featuring interviews with global nomads. Amy also offers a Destination: Nomadtopia ebook, and a Work From Anywhere Toolkit.

  • Nomadtopia

Lindsey Tramuta is a food and travel writer based in Paris (by way of Philadelphia), and her Lost In Cheeseland blog focuses on the food, life and travel opportunities in Paris. She hosts The New Paris podcast that takes a closer look at the people, places and ideas that are changing the fabric of Paris.

Last year I launched my How Travel Writers Self-Publish podcast to share travel writing tips and advice and my first-hand knowledge of self-publishing ebooks and paperbacks. I publish 2 new episodes a month and my listenership continues to grow steadily. This podcast has been a useful vehicle for connecting with other travel bloggers, and growing my confidence as a presenter.

If you’re interested in starting your own podcast, check out the article featured on How to Blog a Book website that shares my suggestions about How to Launch a Free Podcast to Share Book and Blog Content.

VIA A VLOGGER BROADCAST

Nike, White Spot Pirates – Untie the Lines, is hosted by a German girl who bought a sailing boat in Panama and sails around the world sharing her adventures with the intent of encouraging others to put their travel dreams into reality.

Mark Wiens, Migrationology, hosts a food-based vlog. Based in Thailand, Mark shares his Asian culinary experiences.

Blogger, Bo on the Road, hosts the Authentic World Food blog. Her show is partly recipes and partly documentary about local people’s lifestyles. She’s a solo traveling surfer girl, who focuses on capturing and sharing authentic cooking experiences.

I’ve tried my hand at vlogging, but it takes so much time to create short videos that I only created 7 for my Bodrum Peninsula Travel Guide website before giving up. I should have stuck with it—follow this link to YouTube, and you’ll see one of my 3 minute videos has 20k views, and it was just a collection of photos, text overlay and a music track.

VIA AN ONLINE E-COURSE OR COACHING

Whether you host e-courses on your blog or via one of the established course platforms, this approach is an obvious way to share your knowledge and establish your expertise. Each e-course platform operates a little differently when it comes to what content they accept and how they split the course royalties.

Dave Fox, Globejotting, is a travel writer specializing in humor and personal memoir at his online “home for global storytelling.” As well as writing Globejotting: How to Write Extraordinary Travel Journals (and still have time to enjoy your trip!), he hosts various travel writing and humor writing courses on his website and on Udemy. He also offers online coaching for aspiring writers.

David Lee, Travel Blog Success (TBS), is the owner of the Go Backpacking blog, which offers budget-oriented travel advice for planning your adventures. David founded TBS in 2010 to run online courses via his website, designed to help travelers learn how to make money doing what they love.

I like taking online courses to learn new skills. I usually purchase courses on Udemy and I’d like to create my own courses in the near future, but I know it’s going to be a huge time-commitment to write the material and record the video sessions.

If creating an online course appeals to you, here’s an article I wrote for How to Blog a Book website about How to Decide where to Host your Online Course.

VIA AN ONLINE MAGAZINE

Vanessa Anderson and Ian Usher, Diverging Roads, launched House Sitting Magazine, which is available via email or through the App Store. They also host a house sitting course on Udemy, and Ian’s website features inspiration, information, and tips about house sitting.

I take my hat off to anyone who wants to start and run an online magazine—especially a monthly one. The coordination required to do this is immense, so if you find one in your niche why not help them out by contributing a high quality article to increase your audience reach.

VIA A TRAVEL APP

David Lee, Medellín Living (and the previously mentioned Travel Blog Success and Go Backpacking), chronicles his experiences living in Medellín and traveling around Antioquia and Colombia. He published an ebook, Medellín Travel Guide: Insider Advice from an American Expat in Colombia, and partnered to create a custom-built Medellín Guide iPhone app.

Simon Fairbairn and Erin McNeaney, Never Ending Voyage, used Simon’s design and development skills and their years of experience on the road to create Trail Wallet. It’s a travel app that helps you track your travel expenses quickly and efficiently, and is just one of the many apps available on their Voyage Travel Apps website. Erin is also the author of The Carry-On Traveller: The Ultimate Guide to Packing Light.

I’m not technical enough to create my own travel app, but if you have the skills (or know somebody who has) you could really differentiate yourself within your niche by creating a travel app. While we’re on the topic, Simon’s Trail Wallet is a fabulous app for tracking travel expenses and managing multiple currencies. So highly recommend.

These content offerings make it easier to establish your expertise. But, unless you have the right technical skills, you could have a steep learning curve to compete in the marketplace. 

But there is one no-brainer option … and I’ll share my thoughts on this in a future blog post. It takes your existing skills and leverages them doing what you do best.

Have you diversified your travel writing onto a different platform that your blog? Let me know about it in the comments section below.

Author: Roving Jay

Jay is a project manager who swapped corporate life for a nomadic existence as a travel writer. She works with authors and entrepreneurs to help them achieve their self-publishing goals and reach their target audience through content marketing. Jay has published a series of travel guides, a travel memoir, and nonfiction books about travel writing. She housesits and volunteers around the globe with her husband, a Hollywood set painter, and she’s never more that 10 paces away from a wi-fi connection.

13 thoughts on “How Travel Bloggers can Leverage their Expertise”

  5. I love this article, shows there are many opportunities out there to leverage on. I have started doing vlogs and I agree with you that it’s time-consuming. I would also love to give podcasts a try in the near future.

    Reply

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