Travel blogger

>>1294393
>pander to their followers
How do you think anybody survives as a professional social media personality. It's all about getting some segment of your audience to pay you by saying things they like to hear

>>1294393
You may have it backwards -- they may go to the kind of places they like, and folks interested in that follow their blog?

Also, you have no real idea where or how they travel, only what they choose to share on their blog -- which, as you surmise, may be tailored to their audience.

me, I'd go look at whatever my followers wanted if that financed my ability to also, while I am there, go see the shit that interests me, even if I didn't share that on the Intertubes for money.

>>1294393
young adventuress is a shill but I still love thicc barbie

>>1294402
I see them go to Thailand and write like 10 articles how amazing their cultural experinece in Phuket, Koh Tao some other touristy place is. I swear none of them travel to any interesting places.

>>1294393
There are so many want-to-be bloggers the market is totally saturated

The only way they can make money is by spending two days in each of the most popular destinations, doing a basic asf writeup and pinching the ideas from other people.

I'm not saying they don't have good things to say, they the volume they have to output makes it inevitable

>>1294503
because the general populace is actually interested in places like Thailand and is likely to do some research before traveling there and might even click on an affiliate link or something.

This does not apply to some small Moldovan town nobody has ever heard of. Sure it might be more interesting than travel entry from Phuket #1392 but it's not gonna generate traffic or $$$

heartmybackpack.com

Real Traveler ™ who went to Afghanistan and a bunch of places. I'm jealous and the blog annoys me but I don't know exactly why.

>>1294393
few if any of them make sigbificant dough, and i guarantee you absolutely none of them are bright enough to write anytbing substantial

even native fluency cia spies completely misanalyze foreign culture 80 percent of the time

these bloggers are idiots

>>1294542
God the things she writes are horrible. "10 things I hate about Warsaw" and that's all she wrote about the city.

>>1294584
I know only a small few of them make money but some do and they make it through writing absolute crap. In fact, the supposed #1 travel blogger out there has written quite a few articles which indicate he's a terrible traveler and hates getting out of his comfort zone. I'm not asking these people to write about their amazing cultural experience meeting Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan here, but when someone says Vietnam is too much for them I seriously cannot respect them as a writer.

They aren't just shitty travelers, many of them are phonies who write articles about places they've never even been. It's a total con.

TheBlondeAbroad embodies the successful travel blogger.

>hot
>relatively poor writer
>only visit places she can wear a bikini

So how does one become a successful blogger? If they're all writing shitty articles, how do people start reading their "top-10 things to do in Europe" article which has been written 5000 times already by others?

>>1294819

Step 1: be hot
Step 2: have instagram with scantily clad pictures
Step3: ???
Step 4: profit

>>1294584
>few if any of them make sigbificant dough, and i guarantee you absolutely none of them are bright enough to write anytbing substantial

I laugbed at this more tban I should habe.

>>1294663
>but when someone says Vietnam is too much for them I seriously cannot respect them as a writer.

I could respect them as a writer, if it is true and they write about it well.

Not so much as a traveler, perhaps.

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57KB, 538x457px

>>1294824
1: Omit "Step"
2: Two more question marks
3: PROFIT in all caps with an exclamation point.
4: ?????
5: PROFIT!

>>1294827
I have never agreed more with the posts that I've seen on travel.
There are good travelers and good wtiters, but so far I've yet to see blogs where the rider has both of these qualities. usually it's either a cool guy that does cool stuff but can't write for shit, for a talented articulate expressive and creative individual whose two arrogant or too depressed to bother going anywhere interesting or interacting with others.

>>1294827
Yes, I agree. I meant to write traveler, as per my whole point in OP but wrote writer instead. My apologies.

>>1294843
This kind of got me thinking. Do people even go to travel blogs to read "articulate, expressive and creative" writing? I have a feeling most people these days are more likely to look for a "top-10 best beaches in the world" article where the writer has been to only one of those beaches than an article about being invited to a bush hunt with an African tribe and goes into details about the emotions of killing for survival.

We live in an era of buzzfeed article bullshit where people have the worst attention span ever.

>>1294843
It takes a lot of effort, really.
I know I could do both, but it seems like too much of a hassle, too. Eg. one type of travel requires you to blend in, other to keep your usual work style.
Like it would take twice as long, or even four or five times longer to visit somewhere that I have to write about.
I used to be paid to post on facebook and twitter, and I know how to gain hundreds of thousands of followers, but like it requires two very different sides of my personality to get to know that guy who invited me over for some fresh dog stew in Nanning, get some travel tips out of him -- and then to sit down in front of a full keyboard, take a step back, and write about it in a way that John Doe reads it and thinks to himself "this sounds like some annoying hipster ass shit, but I cannot stop reading it, and I need to share it with my friends, too".

Sorry, this is just a long rant to myself. I need to man up, and start to travel slower.

>>1294859
Do you have a lot of followers? Is it all about SEO?

>>1294393
>Is anyone else of the opinion that every successful travel blogger is actually a really shitty traveler?
Every? No.
>It seems like all they do is write articles that pander to their followers.
If they are blogging for vanity/bragging or for some kind of hopeful successful future in the travel infamy biz or for ads/sponsorship, yea, it might be biased. Bias does not automatically equal "shitty traveler" by definition though.
>They go to the same exact spots,
So? This isn't 1900 where there were places in the world humans never traveled. At this point, if it is _worth_ going to, you go there.
>not even remotely straying off the proven backpacker trails.
Who the hell thinks backpacking is the right way to travel? Trails? What the hell? It''s not every vacation I will be packing hiking shoes and doing trails. Does it make me a shitty traveler or blogger if I hit the highlights of a city's restaurants, shows, museums, concerts, and enjoy each neighborhood? Am I a shit traveler if I have money that allows me not to wear a backpack and check into hotels and then get back to my work and life?
>I'm hoping to be proven wrong here though. Do you have an example of a travel blogger who's actually a good traveler?
People don't need to prove things to an opinionated shit by offering the proverbial "proof by example"
Here's the top 50 by traffic/popularity. Maybe try to find backpackers over in /out
http://www.theexpeditioner.com/the-top-50-travel-blogs/

The best travel blog I found was a 60 plus year old man who travelled around the world on a mini bicycle better than all this faggot instagram Bali, Thailand shit who the fuck wants to read that if u do kill urself

>>1294871
Yea it does make u a shitty writer if u talk about the same places every other cunt has been then what is the point in your writing?

>>1294393
tl;dr is it possible to produce good content for a travel blog and be paid for it?

Yes but it isn't worth the effort.

>>1294663
Fuck warsaw tho, it's a slavic shithole

>>1294663
>I’m Silvia. I’m from Worcester, MA USA, but I like to tell people I’m from Norway.

kek

Slight off topic, but how hard is it to make a bare amount of revenue as a travel blogger?

I've been to about 40 countries over the course of the past five years. Hitchhiked Iraq, lived in South Asia, and am going to motorbike across the United States, Mexico, and Central America over the coming summer. Done some Africa and hoping to do more.

I make a couple thousand dollars per month from freelance writing and have been published in a couple places, but I feel like it'd be almost impossible to stand out with a blog.

Everyone has done some variation of the same things as I have, oftentimes with more money, better looks, and a nicer camera.

Is making a few hundred dollars per month of a blog fairly attainable?

I'm going to university, too, and don't want to make a permanent living off being a /trv/fag - that shit'd get too depressing. But it'd be nice to get some extra income blogposting on an actual blog.

What does /trv/ make of Nomadic Matt or Drew Binksy. Seem like legit bloggers who don't need to rely on Instagram Bikini shots.

>>1295058
To make it short: NO.
There's more money to be made from selling delusional people like you absolute shit tier guides
>how to make money from traveling
>how to get rich using your blag
then actually running a successful travel blog.

>>1295058
why the fuck would you want to make a few hundred bucks from blogging when you make thousands from travel writing? Sure you can blog but treat it as a hobby not as a source of income

>>1295060
Boring uninspiring fags

>>1295060
Nomadic Matt is what this thread really is about, isn't it? The guy is writes the worst drivel but his articles pop up first when looking on google so he makes a lot of money. I think he's the worst example of this, he is an absolutely horrible traveler.

>>1295103
>>1295148
Yep. I that sounds about right.

File: fisheye-the-tramp.png (514KB, 845x479px) Image search: [Google]

514KB, 845x479px

Behold, Fisheye the Tramp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cew9gsJqXUM&t=29s

This channel is translations of his channel. He's Belarusian. Someone posted him on this board one day and I've binged quite a few of them. His videos have this incredible feeling on spontaneity, freedom, and fleeting human interaction. I can't sell you guys enough on this guy.

>>1295339
And here's his main channel. Turn on subtitles with English, many of them have quality translations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VusJAvnQKXU&t=2017s

I see so many travel blogs by young, attractive, american women who seemingly dont get much traffic but claim the revenue is how they're able to travel constantly. Oftentimes they'll preach about budget travel but dont seem to do it themselves.

It wouldnt bother me so much but you know theres a ton of naive people following their generic 'just quit your job and travel the world :^)' advice.

>>1295339
Thanks anon, really like this guy