The 9 Most Successful Travel Bloggers of the Year
What does it take to become a successful blogger? Everyday, more and more “get rich quick” schemes are popping up all over the internet with the exciting prospect of becoming financially independent as a blogger. For those who have spent time developing a blog, you may find these adverts laughable (though understandably enticing). Developing a successful blog takes time, dedication, hard work, an array of skills, more time and dedication with a pinch of talent and some luck. You must balance being a journalist, web designer/programmer, researcher, promoter, networker and publicist on a day-to-day basis with no likely guarantee of ever becoming “rich”. So what drives us travel-obsessed enthusiasts to keep blogging? It’s definitely not about getting rich, or getting rich quick. Our dream is to sustain a “portable lifestyle” and share our passion for travel and the world with others.
So which travel bloggers are at the top of their game? This is how the list is determined:
Our list is comprised of unique indie travel bloggers (vs. corporate funded blogs) who have made substantial progress in 2009 based on Alexa, Twtter, RSS and Google PR stats. If you don’t win this year’s Lonely Planet Blog Award, we still acknowledge all your hard work, so congrats!
NomadicMatt
nomadicmatt.com
Alexa: 47,138
Twitter: @Nomadicmatt Followers: 5,725
RSS Readers: 1,967
Google PR: 3
Nomadicmatt has become the pimp daddy of travel bloggers in less than 2 years. His website is “designed to keep people motivated to travel” and has kept Matt nomadic for 4 years. Many travel bloggers look to Matt for advice which is why his ebook “Make Money with your Travel Blog” has been so successful. Plus, not many travel bloggers can claim to have a cute animated header of themselves. Good work and keep on pimpin’ Matt!
Everything-everywhere
everything-everywhere.com
Alexa: 36,858
Twitter: @EverywhereTrip Followers: 103,873
RSS Readers: 10,313
Google PR: 5
Gary Arndt launched his blog soon after he began traveling in 2007. Today, everything-everywhere.com reaches almost 200,000 readers a month! His blog gives great “where to go” and “what to do” advice including many interesting insights on the travel industry and the world. You can also find an amazing collection of photos on his site. Gary didn’t figure out how to be successful overnight though, check out his list of accomplishments on his about page…You kick ass Gary!
Vagabondish
vagabondish.com
Alexa: 51,132
Twitter: @Vagabondish Followers: 6,187
RSS Readers: N/A
Google PR: 3
Vagabondish started out as a personal travel blog by editor, Mike Richard. By the time he got home from his initial journey, Vagabondish gained a large readership. Instead of calling it quits, he changed the website into a travelzine that now shares “offbeat backing news and advice” from around the world. Mike found an interesting niche in travel blogging by sharing particularly unique articles and featuring writing contributions by top notch travel writers. You’re a tiger Mike!
Indie Travel Podcast
indietravelpodcast.com
Alexa: 167,355
Twitter: @indietravel Followers: 3,211
RSS Readers: 2,137
Google PR: 5
You have seen this face all over the travel blog sites. His name is Craig Martin and along with his wife Linda (what a freakin’ cute couple by the way), they do an incredible job of helping people out with their travel questions. Indietravelpodcast.com is very well designed and provides a travel podcast and zine full of great advice rated highly by many . There is no secret to the success of their blog other than the hard work these two put in for the love of travel and helping others. Thanks!
Almost Fearless
almostfearless.com
Alexa: 73,922
Twitter: @almostfearless Followers: 35,762
RSS Readers: 4,481 Google PR: 4
This woman is pretty flipping amazing. Christine Gilbert was on her way to becoming a very successful corporate worker bee, but instead dropped out of the 9-5 world to start a career as a freelance writer. Now, she has attained success with almostfearless.com – and it didn’t take her long to do it. Christine is a fantastic writer and an amazing marketing strategist who consistently uses blogging fundamentals to promote her site. The theme to Christine’s blog is simple, “Redesign your life. Travel the world”. You are a savior to many!
Go Backpacking
gobackpacking.com
Alexa: 71,921
Twitter: @rtwdave Followers: 2,351
RSS Readers: 1,081
Google PR: 3
David Lee has assembled an amazing crew at gobackpacking.com. As Editor-in-Chief & Founder, David and his team of travel writers provide a very thorough website with tons of great travel advice for the low budget backpackers including planning, destinations, reviews, and photos. He has personally visited 22 countries with a 6 month stay in Medellin, Colombia. We love Colombia! Good job everyone at gobackpacking.com!
Galavanting
gogalavanting.com
Alexa: 232,063
Twitter: @galavanting
Followers: 2,422
RSS Readers: N/A
Google PR: 4
GoGalavanting.com is a travel blog for the ladies. Co-founded by Katy Quissell and Kim Mance, they are best described in their own words…”Kim came from a pious community with a pastor who was shunned for being gay. Katy lived in the burbs, feeling angsty and perturbed. As feminists, we both got away”. In addition to sharing great tips on worldly style and very well-written travel essays, these ladies produce an online travel show! GoGalavanting.com is shaping the way women travel and has found an amazing niche in the travel blog world.
Traveling Greener
travelinggreener.com
Alexa: 293,372
Twitter: @travelinggreen Followers: 12,688
RSS Readers: N/A
Google PR: 0
The green world is blowing up! (not in a destructive fuel burning power type of way). There are MANY new green travel blogs popping up all over the place… Travelinggreener.com is not necessarily the highest rated statistically among them, but they will be soon enough. The website is simple, clean and shares great content enjoyable and interesting enough for those who may not initially be interested in green travel (see, that’s how they get ya!). Their blog is updated daily with interesting posts and great tweets!
foXnoMad
foxnomad.com
Alexa: 118,116
Twitter: @foxnomad Followers: 1,085
RSS Readers: 336
Google PR: 2
A group of traveling buddies started foXnoMad in 2006 as a way to keep in touch with each other (Facebook was a baby). After the group lost focus on keeping the site up, Anil Polat was the last blogger standing. Now, foXnoMad has become a way for Anil to ”connect with other travelers, discover their world, and share what I’ve learned about mine”. His story is a GREAT example of what it takes to learn how to become a successful travel blogger. Good freakin’ work man!
Every blogger that made our list this year deserves the recognition. In an industry where numbers and ratings are important, these guys don’t lose sight of the passion and dedication it takes to be successful. We commend you. Fight the good fight and bring out the big guns for next year’s list.
Written by: Freddie Pikovsky
All stats were taken on 12/3/2009 from the following sources:
Alexa, Twitter and prchecker.info
Tweet This
Share on Facebook
Digg This
Save to delicious
Stumble it
RSS Feed
A BIG thanks for including Go Backpacking on your list. We’re in great company, and I’m excited to see what 2010 holds for all us travel bloggers!
Thanks for including us in such a list; we’re honoured. It’s been a big year for us: forming a company around the site, starting a magazine in addition to the blog and podcasts and winning an LP gong. Kind of crazy, but onwards and upwards for all of us and the whole travel blogging community.
It is our pleasure to get to work with you guys. Right on Craig, keep going man!
We’re very happy we get to work with such cool people in this industry…Next year will be interesting
Great list, all stellar travel bloggers!
Thanks so kindly for including Traveling Greener in your list of such accomplished travel bloggers! It is such an honor. The blog is newer and we’re working hard to share green travel content that is interesting (and hopefully inspiring!).
Sonya – I realize your site is newer (such as ours) and I was very impressed by how much progress you have made in such a short time. The site is great, keep it up and kick ass in 2010!
Wow, such a great list of travel bloggers here, I’m really honored to be mentioned in the same group.
Wonderful list – all great choices, and well deserved. Kudos to all for their accomplishments!
Nice list, congrats to all; blogging has certainly enabled some diverse voices beyond the traditional newspaper sections and travel magazines.
All are great travel bloggers and deserve the recognition. I even consider a few of them friends. Cheers!
A great list indeed. I’ve been following most of these on Twitter and they’re all super duper to have a conversation with (not everyone on Twitter is you know
)!! I think that’s part of what makes them so special. Great job all.
Thanks for creating this list wisely. I’m happy that you’ve included genuinely good bloggers in the list because the other lists I’ve seen are showcasing useless blogs and bloggers. Being an enthusiastic travelers, I’ve also started traveling a lot as earlier I was busy in my studies but always had a passion for traveling a launching my own blog where I can write about the destinations where I’ve been. Recently I’ve also created a blog where I’ve posted about the destinations that I’ve covered in the last 4 months and all the credit for the same goes to my tour planners who assisted me by giving me affordable tour packages.
What a fantastic list of amazing travel bloggers! Congrats! They definitely deserve it.
Still, I’m always sad not to see any family travel blogs in such a list.
The stunning @SheilaS at http://www.familytravellogue.com/ and delightful Debbie at http://www.deliciousbaby.com/ both have Google pagerank 5 & good Alexa ratings….oh and so do we at soultravelers3. Sheila is one of the top thought leaders in travel, Debbie has the highest or one of the very highest Technorati ratings too. We have been traveling the world as a family since 2006…longer than any family blogging travel, won 2 LP awards & featured in 4HWW and NYT’s.
Twitter, Alexa and RSS can all be gamed very easily, but pagerank… not so much. Google doesn’t care if you have a stumble clique or if you get a special prize for signing up for a RSS feed. (Of course, I know nothing about SEO or Google, so I could be wrong & perhaps there is a way to affect it).
I know family travel is not your niche, and not to take away from these fantastic, hard working bloggers, but there really are sooo many hard working travel bloggers & I would like to see at least one listed from the family travel blog realm….so I’m taking that liberty!
If you think it’s hard work as a single or couple (and it is) add caring for and educating a child or 2 or 3 at the same time!
Soultravelers3,
We actually did incorporate a variety of niche travel sites. There’s backpacking, green travel, travel podcasting, female focused travel etc. Soultravelers3.com, and the other sites you mentioned are great blogs, definitely at the top of their niche market. But we had to limit the list and these are the ones we chose with good reason, not to discount other successful bloggers. There is always next year
Great List – I know most of them and I certainly know how hard they work to be one of the best!
Congrats to all!
This is an excellent list and includes those travel bloggers that Aracely and I seek advice on the most. We have even been lucky enough to spend time with some of them face to face. Congratulations!
Aracely and I are striving to make such a list someday.
nice list…
i’ve been following some of them and i could say that the info in their blogs are really helpful to travelers and neophyte bloggers like me…
good job guys!
Thanks for putting this together and props to everyone on the list making it happen. The travel blogging community is a truly amazing group of folks.
This list is so well deserved and a heart warming boost and incentive for a budding travel blogger like myself.I’ve read and consulted them all to learn the secrets of success. Gogalavanting is my favorite though, because my blog is also dedicated to the single woman traveler.
Thanks a million for this splendid list.
So much more relevant than the travel directory on Technorati.
Cheers,
Mike
@headup | @pop_art
Thanks for the list. Some I know, but mostly new ones I will check out.
Thank you for this great list! As a new blogger in 2009, I’ll check out each blog for ideas. I’m writing about my own corner of the world – Southwest Washington State – but appreciate the inspiring ideas and compelling content on blogs from throughout the universe!
Love the list I am going through the list and realizing I’m already following a good portion of these travelers on RSS feeds and/or twitter. Although I found a few others to add to the mix. As a newbie to the travel blogger world I’m always looking at how others successfully do it. In other words, thanks for the list!
That’s the way to learn, thanks Cornelius!
Some day there will be an (almost) perfect ranking service for these type of things. Until then, you’ve made great selections, many of which I already read read. Congrats to all.
Thanks for this awesome list – we started out hopeful that our Blog would help out with our student loans but turns out we’ll be lucky if we can get a cup of joe out of it! But we’ll continue anyway because it’s cool to look back and see how far we’ve come. How’d I miss all these awesome blogs!? Thanks again – great stuff!
Congratulations to all – thoroughly deserved! Hoping that I make the list next year!
Onward with 2010!
Nice list and congrats to the featured for 2009. When will the 2010 list be announced?
David
Malaysia Asia
You’ll have to wait until December
Great list, laughed to myself when I discovered I was already following all of them bar one. (I must be younger at heart than I thought!)
Really liking OTP too, keep it up!
Sometime I wish I was here…
Hi
Great Blog. The blog is newer and we’re working hard to share green travel content that is interesting. you’ve made great selections, many of which I already read read. .
great list guys – these guys rock! let’s hope a few of us can feature here in the next year or two