Is there a special trip planned? Are you going to South Africa to spot the Big Five? Backpacking through Asia or Australia? Or are you going to do volunteer work in one or several countries in South America? You may be taking a lot of photos and thanks to a travel blog, you won't have to wait until you get home to show them to friends or relatives.
Tip 01: Public or private
Before you get started and choose a platform, you need to decide who you want to keep up to date with your travel stories. Are you going on a once-in-a-lifetime long journey and mainly want to keep your friends and family informed? Then it is better to choose a program for which people have to register. It's a matter of keeping your photos and exciting stories somewhat private. WaarBenJijnu.nl, reismee.nl orgaatverweg.nl are good examples of this. Are you an avid traveler and want to maintain a professional, publicly accessible blog that can also inspire other travel enthusiasts? Then go for a professional tool such as wordpress.com or reislogger.nl.
Tip 02: Functionalities
When choosing your platform, also take the different functionalities into account. For example, with one travel blog you can only publish 200 photos, with another service you have unlimited storage space in exchange for a one-time contribution. And how important do you think appearance is? Does it really have to be fancy or can it be purely informative, without many bells and whistles? Do you want to upload photos via an app? Do you attach great importance to your own domain name, for example SamgaatnaarVietnam.nl? If you're taking a tour, you might also like to track your route. Do you want to immortalize all memories on paper afterwards? There are blogs that offer the possibility to make a photo book of all your texts, images and routes afterwards. A little deliberation in advance will in any case prevent disappointments.
When choosing your platform, also take into account the different functionalities Tip 03: WhereAreYou.nu
Are you looking for a user-friendly platform? WaarBenJij.nu already has more than 280,000 users, which together account for almost 3 million travel reports and 7.5 million photos. The biggest advantage is the user-friendliness. In less than five minutes you have created a profile and a journey. You can then import e-mail addresses of friends, colleagues or family members from your address book or enter them manually. This way they are automatically informed when you publish a travel report. Moreover, making such a travel report is child's play. You log in, type your story, upload one or more photos and you're done. The location, date and time are automatically filled in. If desired, you can add tags or share your message via social networks. Do you want to separate your travel reports from the outside world? Through Settings / Privacy & Passwords set a visitor password. The only downside of this service is that the design of the blogs cannot really be adjusted. You have a choice between a number of different color palettes, but that's about it.
Tip 04: Reismee.nl
A similar platform is ReisMee.nl. Here too you can share your travel experiences with friends, colleagues, relatives or strangers. There is a great sense of community here. You notice this, for example, in the tips. Via ReisMee.nl it is very easy to share information, make contacts and maintain them. An account costs you nothing. After the registration procedure you will receive a blog in the form of yourname.reismee.nl. There are seven different themes; from very colorful to very minimalistic. You can create a mailing list and protect your blog with a password. Creating a travel story is easy. You can experiment to your heart's content with the formatting and insert links, bullets, emojis, photos, and video clips. The only downside is that by default you only get space for 200 images. Do you want to be able to store an extra 200 photos? Then you pay 11 euros for that. A package of 500 extra photos costs 19 euros. If you actually need more photo space, and would like the home front to contribute to your trip, then that is possible, because ReisMee makes it possible to give photo space as a gift.
An asset of Reislogger is that you can share unlimited travel stories, photos and video fragments Tip 05: Reislogger.nl
One of our favorite platforms to create a travel blog is Travel Logger. Once you have created an account, you can get started. The dashboard is very clear and the options to adjust the design are extensive. One of the greatest assets of this completely free service is that you can share your travel stories, photos and video fragments without limits. Another plus is that you can automatically keep the home front informed by creating a mailing list. Family, friends and acquaintances will automatically receive an email when you publish something. Of course they can also leave comments. You have access to extensive visitor statistics to see whether the effort you put into your blog is worth working for. Not unimportant: Travel Logger can also be found on Google Play. And when you return home after your trip, you can have your photos and stories printed in a beautiful book.
Tip 06: Go far
Most free travel blogs work through an advertising revenue model. Do you hate that or do you not want to bother your visitors with all kinds of advertising messages? Then you can consider Going Verweg.nl. Another advantage is that the themes look slightly more modern and fresh than those of the average travel blog. The cms is based on WordPress and therefore very versatile. gaatverweg.nl offers four different formulas. The basic version is free and completely ad-free, but only offers 50MB of space for your photos. Is that not enough for you? A Plus account (3.50 euros per month) gives you 75 MB of storage space and with this account you can also blog on mobile (write offline and only upload if you have WiFi). With the Plus Foto formula (7.50 euros per month) you get 250 MB and Ultimate Photo (12.50 euros per month) contains 500 MB of photo space. The url to your own blog is in all cases yourname.gaatverweg.nl.
Tip 07: TravelPod
Unlike the previously described services, TravelPod is not available in Dutch. Still, this travel blog is worth it. For example, it is possible to plan your trip in advance and it is very easy to add content afterwards. Mobile blogging is also no problem with this service, it is even possible without the intervention of an app. All you have to do is email a report or photo to your personalized email address. Are you short on cash? Then there is even a feature that allows you to ask for travel donations via PayPal. A downside is that you have to make do with the standard design of TravelPod. You can also create mailing lists, request statistics and design a photo album.
WordPress is one of the most complete blogging platforms you can imagine Tip 08: WordPress
Are you familiar with WordPress? Then we can highly recommend this platform for your travel blog. It is one of the most complete blogging platforms you can imagine. There are many great templates for travel blogs out there, just check out colorlib.com, designbombs.com and dcrazed.com. You can still completely customize the template that you have chosen. Another advantage is that you have all the freedom to adjust the looks and content. Think of adding social media buttons, contact forms, full-page photos or a newsletter. Mind you, to build a WordPress site, you need hosting space. Count on about 5 euros per month for this.
