Start a Travel Review Blog  by Avril Harper 

Does your heart beat for the sound of tyres on the open road? Does your love of travel make you yearn for a way to make a living out of travelling and meeting interesting people? Do you have basic writing skills and you know how to use a digital camera? Do you like to research the history of new destinations and visit new and interesting places? If you can honestly answer 'yes' to any or all of those questions, than you just may be the perfect person to start a travel review blog.

Blogs are great, because just about anyone can create them and most of the time, they don't cost a dime to get started! Your travel blog can be your venue to tell about great places you have visited, and explain why they were so interesting and why other people should visit them as well. On the other hand, you may want to explain popular travel pitfalls and warn people to stay away from certain tourist destinations for whatever valid reason. Your travel review blog will generate an income once you have built up your visitor levels, because most advertisers pay you based on the number of potential customers they are reaching. So the more people you can get to your site, the more money you’re likely to make.

In addition to places you have already visited, your travel review blog can give people tips on packing, inexpensive ways to get from point A to point B, great places to eat while you are in a far away city or country. You could also talk about different places you hope to visit soon. Try to get readers to offer their own comments and reviews as well. Nothing interests potential travellers more than information that has been gathered by unbiased sources over a period of time. Allowing strangers to add their experiences adds another layer of personality and is a great free source of content and ultimately traffic also.

Since most towns and cities have websites that provide additional historical information or lists of places that would attract a traveller's interest, you will likely want to include links to these sites. An informed traveller is a confident traveller, so the more information you can provide about a potential destination, the better.

While travelling to places you plan to write about in your travel review blog, be sure to take careful notes of even the tiniest details. Did you notice dust on the surfaces of the hotel or motel room that you stayed in, for example? Would the place appeal to people with allergies or were there special amenities offered that you did, or did not, take advantage of? What was the weather like during the time of year you visited? What were your impressions of various landmarks and places of interest?

It’s also a good idea to let your personality show through when writing about your travels. A purely factual account of travel is rather boring to read. After all, you want your travel blog to inspire your readers to embark on enjoyable travels of their own, you do not want to bore them to death.

When travelling to new destinations or even places you have visited in the past, be sure to spend some time in the town, walking around and talking to local residents who are also usually more than willing to share information about their own favorite places like hotels and restaurants. This is almost always the best way to find out about places that are off the typical beaten path. These are not the kind of places your readers can easily find out about for themselves, so providing unusual and hard to find information will set your blog apart from websites that only offer the tourist traps that everyone already is familiar with.

You might also want to offer your readers a way to get daily or weekly updates to your blog. By setting these updates in place, it will offer your readers a sort of newsletter experience without adding to your workload, since most updates can be put in place with little or no upkeep on your part. It will remind readers to visit your site and provide them with updates with little to no effort on their part either. These update services or feeds are usually free and can provide a win-win situation for both reader and blog writer!

So get out there, see the world, and share your experiences with your many fellow travellers who are waiting to find and read your travel review blog!