This post contains affiliate links for software I have used on my own sites.
Blogging & Web Management Tools
Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest (free)
My favorite SEO & keyword analysis tool is completely free. Right from the get go it will begin to feed you information that you’ll find incredibly useful, such as how many backlinks you can expect it will take to outrank your competitors on a certain keyword.
The similar leading SEO, keyword, and competitor research tools like SEMrush and Moz cost hundreds of dollars per month. It’s incredible that Ubersuggest is free for the value it delivers.
SEMrush ($)
That said, SEMrush does have a free trial that I found hugely helpful in the short time I used it. It also has free training programs, one of which I breezed through to learn some new information that I’m still using today.
SEMrush has some fantastic features like backlink outreach planning. It automatically compares the backlinks of your chosen competitors to find which might be most helpful for you to target, then helps you email those sites and track your progress. It also allows you to sort results by its own quality scale, which combines different metrics to determine which backlinks are most valuable and easiest to acquire. I used this tool to select a handful of sites to send guest post submissions for high value backlinks.
Moz ($)
Another powerful SEO research tool offering 30 day free trials. It’s also a leader in the field, though it felt slightly less intuitive and I had trouble sorting backlink results in a useful way.
Google Analytics (free)
Analytics is the leading software for tracking and learning about the visitors to your site, helping you make decisions about content, site design, and much more. This one is a given; everyone with a website should sign up for an account from day one.
Google My Maps (free)
From your Google account you can make custom maps to add to embed in your site. You can use these to pin any locations you want and add information, images, and links in a pop-up blurb. There’s any number of things you can use these maps for as a travel blogger, but as an example, here’s mine. I use it to pin the location of every job I add to WanderJobs so that travelers have the option to search visually based on where they’d like to go, instead of by the type of job they’re seeking.
WordPress Tools
Google Language Translator WordPress plugin (free)
One way to put yourself a bit ahead of the game as a travel blogger is to translate the blog posts you’ve already written into the most common languages of your non-US visitors. Google Language Translator is an easy-to-use plugin that I’ve installed on my own site. It gives your readers the option to instantly translate any of your posts into any language you’ve checked off the list.
Geotagging on WordPress (free)
Likely you’re writing posts about specific travel destinations and events. WordPress has a built-in option that allows you to geotag any of your posts or pages to a location, the same as many social media sites do. I won’t explain how to do it because WordPress changes its UI so often, so search Google if it isn’t immediately clear. There are also numerous geotag plugins to choose from.
Free Travel Opportunities
Master List of 100+ Resources for Free Travel
This incredibly thorough list is a fantastic tool both for your own travels as well as for your readers. It includes:
- Best sites to find paid seasonal adventure jobs with housing
- Sites for volunteer work-exchanges
- Homestays and free accommodation sites like couchsurfing
- Homeswap sites
- & more
Business Tools
Upwork ($)
Occasionally there’s going to be something you need done that you don’t know how to do. Find freelancers here, sorting by budget, experience, or other factors. There are experts in everything: content creation, social media marketing, editing, backlink outreach, WordPress customization, graphic design, etc.
Mindvalley (free/$)
A transformational education platform for personal growth and business, Mindvalley has an enormous lineup of resources to choose from: a free podcast, short-term free courses, paid mentorship, international events, and more. I love everything I’ve tried with them and they deliver a huge amount of value. I often start my day with their latest podcast episode.
Travel Affiliate Programs
A simple way to add more sources of income to your travel blog is to join travel affiliate programs of large travel companies, like airlines and 3rd party booking. As an affiliate, you’re give a unique referral code to use within your blog posts. Each time one of your readers follows your referral link and makes a purchase, you’re paid a percentage of the sale.
Some companies that have affiliate programs are:
Booking Companies
Airlines
Other
- Eurail
- World Nomads (traveler insurance)
- Lonely Planet (guidebooks)
- Royal Caribbean (cruises)
Other Affiliate Programs
Of course you’ll be making recommendations other than cheap hotels & transportation. Here are some options for different types of affiliate programs.
This is all-time favorite way to buy books. They are used condition, no-fuss, low-waste packaging, and incredibly affordable. I rarely pay more than $4 for a paperback and have yet to pay shipping. If you’re recommending books to your readers, it’s a great alternative to Amazon and you can feel better about supporting a smaller company.
Commission Junction Affiliates
CJ is sort of an affiliate hub; sellers and companies use it as the software for their own affiliate programs. So you can search for products on the site, or sign up in order to become an official affiliate of another site, like Thriftbooks.
Photo Tools & Free Photography
Pixaloop ($)
This app really makes it feel like we’re living in the future. In true Harry Potter-esque style, you can easily add animation to your travel photographs to make it look like clouds are moving, rivers are flowing, etc.
Adobe Lightroom ($)
Perhaps the preeminent tool for photographers, Lightroom is one of the strongest and most useful programs for photo editing. Even as a beginner, with a few clicks of the mouse you can dramatically improve your photos.
Wikimedia great source of public domain images and photos that you can use on your blog. They aren’t all of fantastic quality, but some are, and many are good enough to spruce up in Adobe Lightroom to give them some extra punch.
While most photos uploaded to Flickr are copyrighted to their owners, some are uploaded to the public domain. Flicker has tons of travel and destination photos so this is a good place to search for free images for your travel posts.
Sites & Blogs
Best Blogging Tips
There are a few sites that really standing out in the blogging for business world. The leaders consistently delivering excellent content and high value to their readers are:
Digital Nomad & Budget Travel Blogs
Most budget travel bloggers are at some point seduced by the digital nomad lifestyle. If you’re considering making the jump, there are some fantastic bloggers to follow who have already done that and will help walk you through it.
- Justyn Jen (a young woman shares her best marketing & travel tips)
- The Blog Abroad (Gloria-funny as heck- shares her adventures & tips)
- Goats on the Road (Nick & Dariece have been traveling since 2008)
- The Planet D (a traveling couple: Dave & Deb)
- Wandering Earl (one guy on the go since 1999)
- The Broke Backpacker (Will shares his cheap travel resources)
Check out World Packers list of the top digital nomad blogs of 2019.
Books
Sort of a rite-of-passage read in the budget travel community, Tim Ferris shares information both practical and inspirational. It’s kind of love it or hate it, but no denying its motivational power.
This has steadfastly remained on the list of top long-term budget travel books since 2002.
Top Tips
Test products to sell
Always do market research before creating a new product. This is now incredibly easy to do with Amazon Affiliates, assuming you’ve got a bit of traffic to your blog already. You’ll need to
1. Create a “best of” list blog post
If you want to write and sell an ebook, for example, create a blog post along the lines of The Best 15 Books for Budget Travelers. Make sure the post is genuinely useful and of high quality, and then promote the bajeezers out of it on social media and wherever you can. (You could also make this a Shop page on your site, it doesn’t necessarily need to be a post.)
2. Find & link to products on Amazon Associates
Sign up for Amazon Associates and link each of the 15 books in your blog post to their corresponding page on Amazon using your affiliate code. Again, actually take time to choose the best books: those that are well written and at the top of their categories on Amazon.
3. Track sales
See which books people are buying through your Amazon Associates account. If none of the books is popular, replace some books in your blog post with new ones until you find ones that do sell. Then, write those books. Write them well. Add your own book to your Best Books blog post.
Find trending travel topics to write about
Save yourself some time trying to figure out what fresh new topic the kids want to hear about. Just copy what the experts are doing. Some of the top budget travel blogs and websites have pages where they ask writers to contribute articles about certain topics, for which they’re willing to pay handsomely. Check Matador Network and Nomadic Matt (perhaps the single most popular budget travel blog) to start, but conduct your own searches as well.
This means that someone from that site has put a lot of time and effort into figuring out what topics and keywords are worth paying money for. So write about those topics, especially if multiple blogs are asking for the same things.
Live in Digital Nomad Hubs
If you are making enough money through your blog to live in some tropical paradise abroad (which is significantly cheaper than living in the US & Europe), know that many before you have reached this goal and migrated to one of many “digital nomad” locations. Usually based in cheap, safe cities in warm climates, these places attract budget travelers because of their affordability, high quality of life, low cost, social connectivity, and central locations to use as a base for adventures. Many places in Thailand consistently make the list, but search around for the most recent hot spots.
I particularly like this list for female digital nomads.
As always, send an email if you have a useful resource to recommend. Good luck, wanderer!
