I get asked this question all the time and as the end of each year rolls in, and people are considering their New Year’s resolutions, the frequency of the inquiry increases.
Is it worth starting a travel blog in 2024?
I have spoken at events about blogging and entrepreneurship, I run my own blogging courses, and I have started dozens of blogs over the years (we currently run 4), so you’re probably thinking that I’m going to say that everyone should start a blog no matter what.
Right?
After all… if I say that, I’ll make more money from hosting affiliates and from selling my courses right?
But that’s not the point of this article or this blog. In this post, I’m going to talk to you like I’m talking to my past self.
The one who was working at a job I hated, hustling my ass off for a big corporation, making a decent wage, driving the 1-hour commute to and from work every day, and surviving on just 10 days holiday per year.
If I were to talk to myself in that situation, but it was this day and age, heading into 2024… what would I say?
▶︎ Watch The Video
Is it Worth Starting a Blog in 2024?
To answer this question, you really have to ask yourself a few main questions first. These are the same questions that I would ask myself if I was on the fence about starting a blog in 2024.
Is This Blog Just For Friends and Family?
Are you looking to start a blog for the fun of it? To share photos and blog posts with your friends and family? Do you have absolutely no intention of building it to the point that strangers are reading it, or that it might earn money? Then absolutely start a blog. Would I say you have to pay to host the blog?
If you don’t mind not having a clean domain like NicksTravelBlog.com and instead it’ll have a .blogspot or .wordpress at the end of it like NicksTravelBlog.WordPress.com, then you don’t need to pay for the blog and you can just start one for free.
You won’t be able to design it exactly how you want, and it can’t really earn money, but if you’re just showing it to your friends and family, maybe you don’t need that anyways.
If I’m being honest, I’d tell myself to pay for the blog either way. As a creative person, I’d prefer to have the freedom to design it how I want and these days you can start a blog for $50 and it’s a priceless skill.
Even if you’re just writing for friends and family, there’s a chance that even those types of posts could get traffic and earn money… so why not?
Next, I’d ask myself…
Do you dream of quitting your job and blogging full-time?
If this is the case, then I’d want to tell you to start a blog and follow your dreams… but not if you’re not going to give the blog enough time.
If you want a new blog to succeed, you’ll need to put some time into it. I don’t mean you have to work 40 hours per week on your blog. Absolutely not. It’s possible to build a blog while you’re working a full-time job, maybe just taking a couple of hours out of your day to work on it.
We built ours while we were teaching English in China, so it’s definitely possible.
If you want to turn a blog into a business, you have to be willing to be consistent, publishing 2-3 posts per week, adding photos, learning the basics of blogging, and communicating with your audience as it grows.
There was once a time in the blogging universe when you could start a blog and write a personal travel journal once per month and still grow an audience and earn money.
I know… because we lived through that time.
These days, you have to be more consistent and write about things that people (other than your friends and family) will actually want to read.
So if I’m talking to myself about starting a blog as a business in 2024, I’d say absolutely do it, but be willing to spend a couple of hours per day on it, a few days a week (at least) to see it grow.
If you want to earn money from a blog, but you can’t commit to consistently spending time on it, I’d say don’t bother. Starting a blog is like planting a tree. You need to nurture it over a long period of time.
But it’s still possible to grow blogs and earn money. I’ve done it multiple times. The last blog I started is about fishing and I grew it to a full-time income in just 7 months.
I still run that blog today and it keeps earning an income passively. So yes… it is possible to start a blog and earn money in 2024.
Next, I’d ask myself…
How Tech Savvy Are You?
If I’m talking to myself from 12 years ago before we started our first blog (the one you’re reading), I’d be talking to someone who is NOT TECH SAVVY AT ALL.
When we started our blog. I barely knew how to open emails. I sucked at Facebook. Our photos were atrocious. I liked writing but wasn’t very good at it.
If anyone was doomed to be a shitty blogger, it was me.
But we spent years Googling, YouTubing, and teaching ourselves. It took way too long… but it worked.
If you’re looking to start a blog today and you’re not tech savvy, or even if you are… we have a step-by-step video training course that walks you through every step to start, design, and grow a successful blog in any niche.
FAQs About Starting a Blog in 2024
Now that I’ve covered a few questions I’d ask myself if I was starting a blog, I’m going to cover a few frequently asked questions that I get from our blogging students when they’re reluctant to start blogging.
Yes, there are more travel blogs online than ever before… but there’s also more opportunity than ever. I get asked this every year as more and more travel blogs are starting every single day and my answer is always the same.
When we started blogging over a decade ago, there were a lot fewer blogs, but there were also a lot fewer companies willing to pay bloggers for content. These days, there are more sponsors than ever.
Also, the only ad network we had at our disposal was Google Adsense. Compared to modern ad platforms like MediaVine, Raptive, and Ezoic, Google was paying pennies on the dollar.
These days, if you get enough traffic to your blog to surpass the threshold of these ad companies, you can flick a switch, turn ads on across your site instantly and start earning money from every visitor? How much money?
Travel blog ad revenue ranges from $500 per month to $100,000 per month depending on how much traffic the blog has. It’s possible to grow a blog to the point that it earns the lower end of this spectrum within a year.
AI will affect blogging enormously, but it won’t kill it. Artificial Intelligence has taken the internet by storm and there’s no doubt that it will change blogging, and pretty much any profession online, forever.
A lot of people are worried that AI will kill blogging and I think to an extent, this is true.. But probably not for the reasons you think.
AI is a risk to blogging because too many bloggers out there see it as a golden key, a shortcut to have machines write their blog posts instead of humans. This means that some of the blogs you love are now bots instead of bloggers. But you don’t have to follow that path. I know we aren’t.
Remember how we talked about the blog market being saturated? Well lucky for you, so many bloggers are writing posts with AI that you can do what we do and keep yourself human to stand out. Write from a personal perspective. Help your audience. Chat with them. Be more than a robot and you’ll stand out.
Google does this funny thing every once in a while where they rearrange their search results. This is called a Google Algorithm Update and sometimes it can make blogs lose upwards of half their traffic overnight.
While these updates do happen more frequently now than before, there are also more people searching on Google than before, so there’s more potential there as well.
If you learn solid SEO, your blog will benefit from Google, not get ruined by it.
Google accounts for upwards of 90% of all traffic to blogs. So write great SEO posts from a human perspective with your readers in mind, and your site will grow.
One other worry that bloggers have is that when Google puts AI in their search results, known as Google SGE, it will destroy blog traffic.
As someone who’s lived through many Google changes like rich snippets and FAQs, I think that based on the real estate that this new feature will take up in snippets, we’re looking at a maximum of 35% loss in Google traffic.
You can make that up by working on other traffic sources like email lists and Pinterest.
A YouTube Channel is the perfect supplement to any type of blog, so you should start a YouTube Channel, and a Blog at the same time. To explain this, I have two points:
One… Your personality matters. I would say that there are 0.0001% of people on this planet who have the personality, or the good looks, to easily make it big on YouTube. I have neither and my YouTube stats are a testament to that.
If you were at the top of your drama class, or you’re the type of person that causes traffic accidents when you walk down the sidewalk, then you’re probably amongst that 0.0001%.
If you’re neither of those things, you can still be successful on YouTube for sure, it’s just going to take A LOT longer. Like many many years.
On the other hand, a blog can earn money after just a few months. You can monetize it immediately, whereas YouTube requires 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours before you can even turn on ads.
It’s very possible to earn a full-time income from blogging within a year. I’ve done it with multiple blogs starting from scratch in different niches. But in my experience, YouTube takes many years to even earn a little bit of money from.
Again… it could be because I’m not sexy enough or charismatic enough, but either way. I’d say YouTube takes many times longer to actually earn money from on average.
Either way, I think if you love making videos, then you should start a blog and pair it with a YouTube Channel. Then you can feed your video creativity with the YouTube Channel, and the blog can sustain you financially while the YouTube channel grows.
Keep in mind, this approach is A LOT of work as both a blog and a YouTube channel will take 15-20 hours per week to grow.
Yes. It is still possible to make a good living from blogging through advertising, selling products, affiliate sales, and sponsorships.
I think that if you give your blog the attention it needs, you remain consistent, and you learn from blogging courses like the ones on GoatsOnTheRoad.com, then you could earn a living from blogging within a year.
The Verdict
I would say that if you have always wanted to start a blog, then you should just do it. Even if you want to start a blog to share your stories with your friends and family, it’s worth starting one just to see if you enjoy it. Who knows, maybe it will take off and turn into a business.
If you want to start a blog with the intention of earning money, then I only think you should do it if you’re willing to put the time into it.
Don’t start a blog and expect it to earn money if you’re only going to spend an hour per month on it. Also, don’t start a blog if you hate writing, taking photos, and sharing stories and knowledge with people. It won’t work.
If you’re passionate about something, then there’s no better creative outlet in my opinion than blogging. I’ve started blogs around many of my passions, from music to travel, and it’s always worked out for me.
On top of that, we’ve had dozens of our blogging students grow their blogs in a variety of niches to the point that they can quit their jobs and earn more money from blogging than they ever did in their offices or factories.
Blogging is not going anywhere. If you’re willing to spend time on your blog, it’s absolutely worth starting one in 2024.
Also, if you are truly passionate about it like we are, then no time spent on your blog feels like work. I would work on our businesses even if we were retired. I just enjoy it.
If you blog about your passion, it’ll likely be the same for you.
I hope you enjoyed