According to some estimates, there are over 600 million blogs online today, with more sites added all the time. From food blogs to fitness sites to parenting advice posts, there’s no end to the niches you can find online.
If you’re thinking of starting your own blog to document your family’s adventures, you might be thinking, “Why add another entry to that massive list?”
Family travel blogs aren’t a new concept, and there are countless successful examples online already. However, these simple sites are also great tools for families, whether your goal is creating a digital scrapbook of your family vacations or finding a way to earn some extra cash. With plenty of helpful benefits, there’s no reason not to launch yours today!
If you’re on the fence about starting a travel blog for your family, here are a few advantages to consider.
- Capturing Your Family’s Memories
For most families, the biggest reason to start a blog is to document travel memories. Vacations help you create memories that will last a lifetime, but it’s easier to access those memories with written records and photos!
Think of your blog as a travel journal. As your kids learn and grow, your blog will capture all of the little moments your family has together. When you want to remember past events, cherished days in the sun, or favorite trips, all you need to do is scroll back through your blog.
- Sharing Stories With Friends and Family
You likely aren’t alone in treasuring stories of your family’s adventures. Your friends and relatives back home will love seeing your travel photos and reading through the tales of your travels. During your time apart, these records can help you and your loved ones stay connected.
In addition, your travel blog can help you keep in touch with people you meet on the road. When you and your family enjoy frequent travels, you’ll likely make new friends you’d love to keep in touch with. Your blog is a great way to keep them updated and help them stay in touch with you even after you’ve all gone your separate ways.
- Connecting With Other Family Travel Blogs
On that note, creating a family website is a great way to connect with others on the powerful social network that is the blogosphere. With your new platform, you’ll find that your digital path crosses the path of family bloggers from around the world.
This is especially common if you promote your blog on social media, as most algorithms will start showing you posts from like-minded peers. If you want to get to know other family bloggers, interact with and share their posts, join social media groups, or offer to feature them on your own blog.
Making friends with other family bloggers can be a great way to expand your kids’ social circle. You can even set up trips or visit each other to have fun with your new friends. During these meetups, you and your kids can chat about your travel experiences, try local food together, and visit new attractions as a group.
- Having a Shared Sense of Purpose
Travel creates a shared sense of purpose among your family members. When you take a trip together, you often share a vision and goals for the journey.
Consider letting your kids in on the trip planning to create family goals. Maybe you want to check off 51 things to do in Orlando, try a new activity like kayaking, or stop at a list of roadside attractions. Let your kids give input on the journey and help finalize your itinerary.
This shared sense of purpose can strengthen your family’s bonds and relationships. You’ll also get to unplug from your usual routines and focus on the trip and each other while you’re away.
- Reduced Stress
Planning a vacation with kids can feel stressful and exhausting. From packing to surviving cramped hotel rooms, some trips can feel like you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.
However, research suggests that family vacations can have helpful lasting effects on our stress levels. They help us reconnect with the people who matter, make us feel happier with life, and even help us get better sleep.
Every vacation has its hectic moments, but giving your family a chance to relax, unwind, and unplug together can be helpful in the long term. When the trip is done, you’ll return home as a family feeling refreshed!
- Generating Passive Income
You may start your blog to save your family’s memories, but it’s worth remembering that successful blogs generate money as well.
Making travel content and building a reputation can attract more visitors to your blog. You’ll need to think about SEO, create an email list, and harness the power of social media. Advertising within your blog can help you turn your site’s growing traffic into cash.
You won’t make a lot of money right away, of course, and many bloggers don’t make much at all. In most cases, it will take months or years before you start to see a profit, so you shouldn’t expect much money at first.
However, successful bloggers can make anywhere from a few hundred dollars a month to several thousand. This passive income can be a great way to support your family or fund more trips in the future.
- Enjoying More Affordable Travel
Traveling with kids isn’t cheap. The average vacation costs between $4,100 and $5,100 for a family of four within the U.S. If you’re traveling abroad or to a high-end destination like Disney World, that price tag can skyrocket!
There are ways to make your travels more affordable, of course, like buying groceries instead of eating out. However, one helpful way to fund your trip is a family blog.
As mentioned above, it can take time to build a successful blog that generates money. However, once you’ve established yourself, the passive income can not only help make your travels affordable but also earn you freebies.
Influential blogs often attract attention from vendors and tourist hubs that want to promote their goods or services. As your family blog grows, you may begin to receive offers for discounts and free upgrades. Later, you might get complimentary tickets for tours and attractions, free meals, and hotel stays.
In return, all you need to do is write honest reviews of the offers you accept. For traveling families on a budget, these bargains can be a great help!
- Trying Unique Experiences
Because successful bloggers often get invitations to lodgings and attractions, you might find yourself trying unique things.
If you get invited somewhere unexpected or to an experience you hadn’t considered, your family will get to broaden your horizons in fun new ways. Being open to these experiences might help you step out of your comfort zones. You’ll also have great stories to tell at parties!
In addition, successful family bloggers may get special treatment from tourism companies or travel agents. In return for positive reviews, your family may get luxury lodgings, VIP treatment at attractions, and other goodies you won’t want to pass up.
- Teaching Valuable Skills
Family travel is a great way to gain valuable life skills. Start including older kids in the decision-making for your trip, and you’ll soon see that there’s a lot to learn through traveling.
Have your child help you navigate the transit system of a new city, read a bus schedule, or learn how to interpret a physical map. Point out the places you’ve already seen to help them get a sense of the region’s geography.
Your kids can also help you research hotels, bargain for a better price at a market, or engage in survival skills on a camping trip. If you let them keep track of your purchases, they’ll learn valuable math and money skills.
In addition, frequent travel can help your kids pick up time management skills. Preparing to reach an attraction or arrive at an airport on time can be a crucial learning experience!
If you choose to let your kids help out with the family blog, you can also teach them photography or videography skills. Older kids may even want to help with posts or writing.
Don’t forget that travel blogging can teach you things as well! As you expand your blog, you’ll have to pick up writing skills, HTML knowledge, and photo editing techniques. If you’re trying to share your posts online, you’ll also have to learn social media and digital marketing strategies.
- Leaving Your Comfort Zone
When you travel, you’ll spend most of your time outside your comfort zone. This is true for adults, but it’s especially true for kids!
Remaining in one place can have a stagnating effect on mental growth. In contrast, trying new things can help children master their anxiety and fear of the unknown, grow as a person, and increase their self-confidence. Because trips often involve the occasional challenge, delay, or setback, your kids also have to learn resilience.
- Exposure to New Cultures and History
When you venture outside the area where your kids spend their time, you expose them to new cultures and history.
Seeing how people live in other regions and communities can increase a child’s social awareness. It helps children learn to appreciate and interact with people from different backgrounds and walks of life. It can even help them become more open to new points of view.
In addition, learning about new traditions and cultures can be a lifelong gift. Kids who travel get to see different local customs, discover more about history, and even pick up new languages.
- Inspiring Others to Travel
One side effect of a great travel blog is that it inspires others to follow in your footsteps!
When you and your family fall in love with your bed and breakfast, gush about a theme park, or share videos of your snorkeling adventure, it may inspire other families to try these things for themselves. Bloggers often hear from readers and followers who are excited to learn more about their travels and plan similar trips. You’ll get to promote the adventures you love and see more people experience those adventures as a result.
Inspiring others in this way can be an incredibly rewarding and humbling experience. With your new platform, you’ll have direct influence over your followers’ opinions and travels, challenging them to try exciting new things.
- Trying a Risk-Free Hobby
Travel blogs are a risk-free way to capture your family’s memories.
If you’re not sure you’re in this for the long haul, you can use a website builder like Wix or Squarespace to create a free website. In most cases, you can have a blog up and running in minutes.
Once you start to see the value of travel blogging, you can upgrade your blog at any time by investing a bit more time, effort, and money. Buying a domain and hosting will run you between $100-200 on average, but these services often make it easier to add features and run your blog. Even better, they allow you to run ads and promotions to generate passive income through your travels.
If you ever decide you no longer want to run your family’s travel blog, all you’ll need to do is delete it. To save your writing, photos, and memories, use your host’s backup or export feature.
Start Your Family Travel Blog Today
Family travel blogs are a great way to preserve your memories of your favorite trips, make extra cash on fun experiences, and teach your kids valuable life skills. It’s also an easy and satisfying side project to start in just a few minutes. With a bit of time and effort, you’ll be able to document all of your family’s milestones and adventures for years to come!
If you found this guide helpful, don’t forget to check out our other posts for additional tips, tricks, and advice.