How To Start A Travel Blog Without Traveling

Starting a travel blog may seem impossible if you've never traveled before. Especially trying to write a travel blog on a country or continent you've never set foot in!

But, guess what. It's still possible, even though it almost sounds a little crazy.

So how do you do it? Here are 7 ways.

7 Ways to Start a Travel Blog Without Traveling

• Collect Info From Prior Travel Experiences
• Start a Travel Blog About The City You Live In
• Have Other Travel Bloggers Create A Guest Post For You
• Get Inspiration From Other Bloggers
• Write About a Country or Place You Are Passionate About
• Conduct Interviews From Other Travel Bloggers
• Virtual Travel

1. Collect Info From Prior Travel Experiences

I know this article is about starting a blog without doing any traveling, but let's talk about the past tense. Have you ever visited a place in the past that you could blog about? Did you take any pictures or buy any souvenirs?

You don't need to start a travel blog based on NEW experiences. It can be from past experiences. 

So recall all the places you have been. What did you do? How did it feel to be there? Even if it was a short trip or getaway on the weekend, this could still be valuable travel content.

Many successful travel bloggers use this strategy. They don't just start a travel blog and book their flights or fuel up their car. A lot is based on prior experiences. If you enjoyed the destination, then it should be quite easy for you to write about. Heck, even if it was terrible - you should still remember it!

2. Start a Travel Blog About The City You Live In

If you live in a major city, or at least close to one, this is easy. You could dedicate a travel blog based on the city you live in. Of course, you'll need to do some research first to see if people are searching for information on your city.

For example, you could see if people are searching for "your city" hotels, "your city" rental cars, "your city" tours, etc.

You can use free or paid keyword research tools. A great free one is the Free Keyword Generator from Ahrefs.

You can also check out some very reasonably priced keyword tools like Keysearch and Keywords Everywhere.

Once you have determined that there is sufficient enough search volume in Google for your city, you can then get your blog started. Starting a travel blog is no different than other blogs so my free guide can help.

If you're in a relatively big city, you can write about local attractions, museums, restaurants, tours, hotels, etc. If you're willing to do a day trip by car, bus, or train, you could also visit neighboring cities. Just be sure to check that there is sufficient search traffic.

3. Have Other Travel Bloggers Create A Guest Post For You

Did you know that you could outsource almost all your content? If you're not familiar with guest posting, it's a strategy where other writers will write content for you but expect you to link back to their website. It's kind of a win-win situation where you get free content and they get an SEO boost from getting a backlink. 

I won't get too much into SEO in this article but you can check out my article on SEO for bloggers to get more info.

To do this, you could reach out to other travel bloggers and ask them if they would be interested in providing a well-written, SEO-optimized article to post on your website that includes a backlink to them.

Normally bloggers will get inundated with people begging to write articles for them (in exchange for a link) so when you approach them with the opportunity of providing THEM a link, chances are they will jump at it.

You could theoretically start a blog based on any country or city in the world using this strategy and never have to go there! 

The only issue is that since your blog is new, your blog will have zero authority. This means you don't have any backlinks. You can get around this by telling the blogger that you will be building high-quality backlinks to your site and eventually your domain authority will go up which will give them a boost.

This is an approach that I don't think anyone is doing. But I think it's something that could really work and help you get content written for free (possibly including photos) and your readers will love your content!

4. Get Inspiration From Other Bloggers

As you probably know already, most of the content you see online is quite often duplicated by others. I don't mean a direct copy, but I'm referring to similar content. For example, I am sure there are many blog posts on "Thailand Travel Planning" or something like that. 

What you could do here is look for blogs on the country or city you want to write on. Check out the content and get inspiration from it to come up with your own. 

You won't be able to draw a personal experience from it because you've never been there, but at least you will be able to come up with your own content based on other experiences.

It might not be as good as if you were actually there, but at least this is one strategy you could use without actually visiting the destination.

It's my least favorite strategy on this list, but it's totally doable. If you're going to do this, do research from both blogs and YouTube videos. YouTube videos are great for this as there should be plenty to draw inspiration from. 

If the video is really good, it might even give you the experience of actually being there. You should be transparent though, and let your readers know that you haven't actually been there but have researched the destination fully.

5. Write About a Country or Place You Are Passionate About

It's much easier to talk and write about things that we are passionate about. For example, if you've always been fascinated by a certain destination, I am sure that you have done some research on it and know it quite well even though you have never been there.

Writing about a place that you are passionate about makes it a lot easier. 

This will make your research fun because you'll be learning things about this destination you've never set foot in. For example, as a kid, I've always wanted to go to Thailand. When I quit my job back in 2013, I was able to finally go. Before going I already knew a lot about Thailand and probably could have started a travel blog about it already.

So if you've got a place in mind that you know quite a bit about but have never been to, this could be an opportunity to start a blog on it. 

6. Conduct Interviews From Other Travel Bloggers

Another way to create engaging content for your blog which other successful travel blogs do is to conduct interviews with people who have traveled to the destinations you want to write about.

There are a variety of ways to do this and here are some of them:

Talk to People You Know

If you have friends or family members who have traveled to the destinations you want to write about, reach out to them and ask if you can interview them.

You can ask them about what their trip was like, what the highs and lows were, and if they have any tips for others planning to visit.

They might even have photos that you could use with their permission. 

Use Haro

Haro stands for "Help a Reporter Out" and in this case, you are the reporter, so to speak. Normally Haro is used for link building (you should use it for this too) but in this case, you are going to post a query asking for travelers who have visited specific destinations to share their experiences.

This will give you some unique perspectives and experiences that you can use on your blog. You will likely have to cite the source, so keep that in mind.

Reach Out To Other Travel Bloggers

I touched on this earlier, but in this case, you could have an interview-style blog post written based on an interview with another travel blogger.

Reach out to other travel bloggers who visited the destination you want to write about. Ask them if they could be interviewed for an upcoming article on your site. In return, you will link back to them.

You can either do this by a video call or text. The easiest way would be to write a bunch of questions in an email for them to answer.

Networking with other bloggers is a great strategy as it builds relationships that could lead to future collaborations on other projects.

7. Virtual Travel

The final strategy in this list is virtual travel. You could use things like virtual reality, videos, and photos to experience a destination you have never been to.

This would give you the least amount of info to write about, but at least you'll be able to visualize the landscape of these places and get a feel for them.

This visual approach will be a great addition to the content that you will be writing about from other sources. It will give you some visuals that can help to enhance your written content because it will give you the sense of actually being there.

Conclusion

So there you go. You now have 7 ways to start a travel blog without traveling. So as you can see, travel blogging is possible even if you have never set foot in the destination you want to write about. 

Sure, it's a bit harder to write about things we don't experience ourselves, but you could experience those things vicariously through other people that have actually been there.

A successful blog provides good and accurate information, answers questions, and entertains. You could provide all of this without having to spend money on flights, hotels, tours, and so on.

I would be transparent about it though. Just let your readers know that your info is based on the experience of many others, not yourself.

In a way, it's less biased because you are collecting experiences from various sources. One person's experience in a destination could be very different from another. When your readers understand this, your source of information could be a very trusted resource and hopefully will come back for more! 

Need help starting a travel blog? Check out my Scale Your Travel Blog review.