Travel Blogging During Quarantine

Due to the recent Corona Virus (SARS-COV-2) almost the entire world has been on some sort of lockdown. From countries shutting their borders to stay at home quarantine orders, many people are stuck without anything to do. While I am fortunate enough to not need to work, my hobby as a travel blogger was all about me traveling the world, writing about my experience, and giving travel advice. If you’ve followed the blog you may know that my partner Cody decided to start a food and recipe blog as his retirement hobby, and I went for travel. In this article I’m going to discuss travel blogging during quarantine, from visitor numbers to how I’m creating content.

Quarantine Impact On Travel Blog Visitors

The major impact of this corona virus quarantine has been a sharp decrease in blog visitors. If I look at my January numbers and compare them to now, traffic has dropped 72%. If I was monetized that would severely impact my revenue. Also, my analytics for article ranking have changed completely, as most of my previous successful articles have dropped in visitors even more than the average.

This all makes sense of course, as people who cannot travel will do less travel research. I have noticed that my articles about travel within a country are still getting hits here and there. Articles like How To Get To Ijen From Bali, or Take The Train From Kyiv To Lviv have only dropped in visitors by 27%. Of course my general ‘What To Do In…’ or ’10 Places blah blah blah’ are the ones most severely impacted by the quarantine.

As an aside, I have asked Cody how his blog is doing and his traffic has gone up on average more than 400%. I guess this also makes sense because as people are stuck at home they want to cook (and drink) more so a blog that focuses on recipes and cocktails should get more traffic. Of course he also took advantage early and wrote 10 Comfort Food Recipes For Your Corona Virus Quarantine which greatly boosted his traffic site-wide.

What Do Travel Bloggers Do During Quarantine

So you may also be thinking, “what are you doing now that you can’t travel?” The truth is, I still have tons of stuff to post. While I try to post about a country while I am still in them, I have so many pictures from trips sometimes I can just think up a new article idea from looking at old pictures. I travelled a lot before starting this blog so for the past couple weeks I’ve been working on France stuff. Cody and I spent a month there back in 2018 and I’ve never uploaded content about France to the blog. This quarantine gives me time to go back to old trips and generate new content.

I’ve also reduced my usage of travel blogs as research as well. I guess that makes me part of the problem, but it is how I know why traffic is decreasing. Of course I have stopped doing so much active research on where to go next, because I don’t know when I will be allowed to travel again. We have already had to cancel our trip to Japan and our trip to Spain which I was looking forward to.

What I have been looking into more though is travel within my country. I live in Ukraine and while I have uploaded a ton of stuff about Lviv (the city I live in), I haven’t done much content for the rest of the country. I assume that intercity travel will be open before the national borders are, so I’m planning on a huge trip around the country. Hopefully this allows me to generate tons of domestic content.

What’s Next

Well, as mentioned above, I’m going to start traveling more within my own country. While visiting places all over the world is amazing, I want to reconnect with my roots. Hike in the gorgeous Carpathians, visit the pink lake, camp at the most diverse wetlands in all of Europe. Many people think travel is about visiting tropical locations like Thailand or Sri Lanka, and while I enjoy both those places there’s nothing wrong with renting a van and driving around your own backyard.

I will of course continue writing on the blog because it is something I love to do. Travel blogging during quarantine is still travel blogging, and I still have advice to give. Maybe I won’t be adding any new countries to my ‘menu’ for a few months, but I’d like to become an expert on Ukraine travel. What better way to do that than road trip this beautiful country all summer long.

I’m also spending my time connecting with other writers who are creating content during quarantine. My friend Megs even started her blog during quarantine. I’m always happy to see other female bloggers starting their online journey.

Final Thoughts On Quarantine And How It Is Affecting Travel Bloggers

My heart goes out to all the travel bloggers that have seen a decrease in traffic and affiliate sales during this pandemic. The virus is no joke, and I understand how it is causing many people financial difficulties. I’m lucky enough to not need money from my blog, but others are not so fortunate. When you do decide to travel again, look to the bloggers, the people who have been to the countries and places you want to go to first. I guarantee their hands-on advice is much better than review aggregators like Trip Advisor (ok, maybe not for restaurant suggestions) or package tour agencies.

And when you are planning your next trip, don’t think you need to visit some faraway land to make the most of it. Stay home now and make the most of it, then perhaps look into visiting places within a few hours drive. You may find that there’s something amazing in your own country.

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