Why I Started a Travel Blog (& What Keeps Me Going)

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Hello! And welcome to the crazy world of Jennie Wanders 😅.

Writing for ‘fun’ on a blog isn’t really the done thing anymore.

But every once in the while, I have an urge to just write (and well, writing is the reason I’m in the blogging world in the first place).

So today, I thought I’d share with you why I started this wonderful little travel blog, and how my life has changed in the past 2 years.

It’s a bit of a long read, so snuggle up, get cosy, and enjoy reading the details of my weird, wonderful and bloody hard rollercoaster of a ride into the blogging world.

Why I Started a Travel Blog

Blogging is dead.

Blogging is dead, as some people say.

Is it?

Did you know that the recipe you just looked up, the pointless fact about a TV show you just read, or the skincare routine you just noted down, was all written on a blog? 

The meaning of the word blog has changed over the past few years. What once was an online diary, is now a whole world of, put simply, websites.

We don’t just blog to spill our deepest secrets anymore (which I did try and do ten years ago, but more on that later), but we blog to create, inform, entertain, guide and teach, and ultimately, to make money. 

Blogs account for over 500 million websites on the internet. That’s a lot of blogs. Trust me, blogging is not dead. 

In fact, blogs are thriving. It’s estimated that 409 million internet users read about 20 billion blog pages monthly. There is no wonder why 53% of businesses and marketers use blogging as their primary content marketing strategy (Neal Schaffer, 2022). 

With all the trends and phases the internet goes through, written word will always be king. 

It will always reach a wide audience. An audience of all ages. 

As a former primary teacher, when children were asked to research on the internet, we never told them to go on Youtube or Tiktok. Where would they go? Blogs. Because blogs dominate the internet. They’re full of information, guidance, teaching and entertainment. 

You don’t have to be reading someone’s personal diary to be reading a blog. 

Blogs are essentially the heart and soul of the internet. And they’re here to stay. 

So why did little old me start a travel blog in this manic, oversaturated, trillion-page internet world? I don’t stand a chance, do I? Well, I still did it. And here I am, and here you are, reading this blog post. 

So let’s start right at the beginning.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Even as a young kid, I liked to create. 

I’m not very artistic, so I found my main outlet to be writing. I’ve always been fascinated by the written word, languages and how words can be so powerful. 

I’ve kept a diary since I could hold a pencil. I’ll admit that my adult journaling isn’t as frequent or exciting as my teenage scribbles, but it’s still there. 

I still have torn up notebooks from 20 years ago of me describing a chocolate milkshake in a Spanish cafe on a family holiday. I’ve always liked to write, but God did I write about some shit 😅.

Then the fateful day of Piczo arrived. I was able tp create my own website, put up random memes and be able to write (albeit a load of shit) on a page on the internet. I was hooked. 

Hours upon hours were spent after school designing this piece of utter rubbish. I wanted it to be perfect (which I’m sure, at the time, I thought it was).

It gave me so much joy, so much happiness, and when the days of Piczo were over, I was gutted. 

Little did I know, I’d be creating a bigger Piczo one day, and it would actually be paying my bills. 

The infamous travel bug

Years of writing in random diaries, online personal blogs on Microsoft Word, and random notebooks (which I so desperately wish I still had) later, it was time for me to make a big decision. 

My career.

I was 18 years old and I didn’t have a bloody clue about where I wanted my life to go.

The only thing I knew? I wanted to make enough money to be able to travel as frequently as possible. 

Then I found teaching. It paid ok, I would get a lot of holiday each year. I liked working with children. So I signed up, and began my teacher training.

Throughout my four-year course, I spent my ‘off’ time travelling the world. 

My first solo trip was to America in 2014, where I worked in a kid’s summer camp and drank beer out of red cups on the weekend.

I travelled Europe via interrail with my best friend and had my first eye-opening trip to Asia; backpacking Thailand for a month. 

My travel bug was well and truly here, and here to stay.

Stuck in a save-travel-save-travel cycle

Seven years passed, and I was in a cycle of save, save, save, travel, travel, travel. 

I had taught all over London, in schools in Melbourne, Australia, and still felt like something was missing. 

This on/off life of travel just wasn’t cutting it. 

Time continued to pass, and I’d continue to sit on social media and see more travel creators popping up. 

I didn’t really understand what they did, let alone how much money they made from it. All I knew was they were living a life I dreamed about. 

Feeling burnout from teaching and bored of my repetitive life and 9-5, I started talking about these creators to my friends and family. 

“I just wish I could get paid to travel. Look at them, they’re doing it full time!”

“Oh Jen, don’t be silly. That’s such a small percentage of the world. No one actually does it and makes money. It’s all a lie.”

And that was it. 

I went back to being a teacher, living inside the box that everyone assumed I’d be in forever, and carried on.

I continued to be swept up in the monotonous life I was expected to have

In 2019, I took a 15-month trip.

I travelled New Zealand, Asia and Australia, and worked as a supply teacher in Melbourne to ensure I had enough money to get by. 

Another rinse and repeat of the save, save, save, travel, travel, travel cycle. 

Around 6 months after I arrived home from New Zealand, I was back working full-time in an English school, and I was happy(ish).

I had good colleagues and a nice boss, I was living in a fun part of London with my boyfriend, I had great friends and was quite simply, plodding along back in my ordinary life. 

But something was missing. There was always something missing. It was just easier to cover up some days rather than others. 

Hiding this feeling for everyone around me, and even myself, sometimes it would become too loud to ignore. 

I distinctly remember walking home from school one day, texting my boyfriend. It wasn’t a particularly memorable day, but I felt drained. I felt burnout from the English school system, and that niggling gut feeling was louder than ever.

I text Tom how I felt, explaining how I felt like I’d lost all ambition. I’d lost myself on the monotonous hamster wheel we are all so easily put onto.

Side note

I’ve crazily just found the exact conversation I had with Tom in 2019, before I’d decided I wanted to work remotely. If I’m honest, it’s making me feel quite emotional. I felt so lost back then and felt I really would be stuck in a job that I didn’t like forever. 

In the texts, I explain to Tom how I feel like I don’t have any goals or aims anymore. I didn’t have a direction in life, or anything to work towards. To be honest, with teaching, I really didn’t. I didn’t want to progress in a school and be head of year or a headteacher, so I really was stuck. 

Looking back, I feel so bad for that version of myself. 

Just knowing how alone I felt and how confused I was with everything happening around me. 

Late twenties (for anyone) are such a confusing age, and everyone is at such different stages in their life.

I wish I could have told myself that it will change. To just keep going. Change is coming.

A seed was planted

After I’d texted Tom about how I was feeling, something inside me began to change.

It was like I had pierced a tiny hole in a water balloon, irreparable. Slowly, slowly, the water leaks, just like my ideas were.

A seed had been planted. 

In December 2019, whilst watching Somebody Feed’s Phil (lol), Tom and I decided we wanted to travel full-time again. And then, 2020 crept up on us. And we all know what happens next.

Travel disappeared in front of our eyes, and even the thought of leaving my steady income job vanished. The world was turned upside down.

My tiny seed was buried. Buried by overwhelming thoughts and heaps of soil.

The idea of breaking free was lost, once again.

Can blogging provide me with a full-time income?

But even when a seed is buried deep, it will find its way to sunlight eventually.

My dreams of travelling full time continuously crept back in, and I started researching. 

I idolised bloggers like Blonde Abroad and Never Ending Footsteps, and started looking deeper. 

Did their blog fund their life? Could I start a blog? How easy it is to make money from a blog? 

When I found out people were earning a full-time living (usually triple what teachers earn), everything changed. 

Small rewards build confidence

By January 2021, my tiny seed was no longer a seed.

I’d taken a giant step into making my blogging dream a reality and bought a domain. 

This was a whole new world to me. The first day I joined WordPress, I cried. I cried for about 6 hours straight with how hard it was. 

I continued teaching and working on the blog alongside it. Nobody, apart from Tom, knew about the blog. If I’m honest, I felt a little embarrassed. 

I was trying to be a full-time blogger?! Who did I think I was? 

But, I continued. I didn’t let my limiting beliefs and fear of failure stop me. I didn’t think about the people who would judge me. 

It took me a while, but I finally realised, this is my life. I pay my bills, I’m the one who has to live with my bank account. Why should I care what anyone else thinks?

However, blogging isn’t as easy as it seems. And if you’re reading this as another blogger, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

Blogging is bloody hard. It’s way harder than teaching. The number of hours I have studied, trained, worked, and written are more hours than my entire 4-year university degree. 

In the beginning, I made a lot of mistakes (well, I still do). But I couldn’t make progress without messing up first. 

For around 3 months, I blogged totally solo. I watched Youtube videos, read other blogs online and of course, compared myself to successful bloggers like the Blonde Abroad. 

Throughout this journey, there have been some really tough times. Times when I’ve thought I’m not good enough, that I’m not worthy of a location-free life, and that I should just go back into the box I had always been in.

I still do have days like that. 

But with the help of a blog coach, some highly-valuable blogging courses, supportive Facebook groups and SEO mentors, I started to see small rewards with my blog.

And with rewards, comes confidence. 

My dream of earning online and being totally location-free was becoming more realistic, and I finally quit teaching 9-5 in December 2021. 

Do I even get paid to write?!

Let me be honest about money here.

I am not yet earning a full-time income with my blog. But I will be. Why? Because I will work tirelessly to get there. 

If someone else can, why can’t I? 

With the right training, effort and mindset, anyone can do it.

Full-time blogging, to me, is the dream.

I currently work part-time as an online English tutor and virtual assistant to pay my bills, but I am now totally location free. And ultimately, that was always the goal. 

And now, I see my traffic grow regularly, my blog income increase and learn something new every single day. There’s no better feeling than that!

My dream of being able to create and get paid for it is becoming a reality. 

Blogging has never been, and never will be, a hobby for me. It’s part of a profitable, scalable and successful business plan.

So why did I start a travel blog? 

Well, this blog was never a hobby. From day one, I set it up to be a monetisation tool to fund my travels. 

But I combined my love of travel, writing, creating and being my own boss to decide on becoming a blogger. 

Will I ever go back to a 9-5, or have someone tell me what to do every day? Probably not. 

If I’m truthful, I’ve never been good with authority, and being my own boss is the only way for me.

And nothing excites me more than learning new skills to make money for myself. 

So here I am, managing a travel blog and teaching myself how to run my own business. 

Ultimately, this blog is my future. 

Whether it leads me down a different path, such as coaching, mentoring, or a new site – it is the first (and biggest) step to a different future. 

And I am so grateful for past Jen for being so brave, and realising I was never meant to sit in the box I had always been put in.

That I was never meant to live an ordinary, 9-5 life, having Sunday scary’s on a weekly basis. 

I’m grateful to the Jennie who bought a domain in January 2021, without having a bloody clue what to do with it.

She’s allowed me to progress into the person I am today. 

A person with all the ambition in the world, with a daily affirmation that the sky is the limit, and that I am truly capable of anything I set my mind to. 

Dealing with judgment from others

I only told my family and friends about my blog a few months ago. It’s still something that’s hard for them to wrap their head around.

I’m not on a set salary. 

I don’t “go to work” every day. 

I’m my own boss and make my own money. 

This is something I don’t think any of them had predicted for me. 

Plus, the career ‘blogger’ still isn’t socially acceptable. 

People are quick to judge, to jump to conclusions. I know for certain people from my past life are convinced I just want to take photos and sell some teeth whitening kits for money.

This couldn’t be further from the truth!

Content creators, bloggers, Youtubers – they’re real jobs. We work hard!

Of course, there are people who take advantage. People who don’t work hard, and want everything handed to them on a plate.

But there’s still such a stigma around making money online. 

Even now, I’m flustered when someone asks me what I do for a living. 

It will become easier in time. But for anyone else dealing with this, just remember;

You do not have to justify your career to anyone.

You are the person who pays your bills. Not them.

When you’re old and grey, do you want to look back and think “I wish”, or “Wow, I can’t believe I…”?

Never let the thoughts of others dictate what you do.

Always, always trust your gut.

When starting to blog full-time, I always had the same thought. 

A belief that kept me going, even when it felt impossible.

If something doesn’t feel right for us, that’s ok. 

We don’t have to live a life others believe we should.

Something wasn’t right for me, and I had to act on that. 

The 9-5 might be right for some of you.

It might make you happy. You may enjoy working for a boss, getting annual bonuses and having your work hours set.

I love that for you, and if that aligns with who you are, then do it.

But if there’s that tiny niggling feeling. 

That feeling that you want more. 

That something doesn’t feel right. 

Then there’s a way out.

It isn’t easy, but you can do it.

There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of ways to make money online. To travel full-time and experience the world to its fullest. 

Think about what you could do long-term. What makes you happy. What brings that spark back and makes you want to wake up at 6am to work on. 

Back in 2021 I thought copywriting might be for me (alongside blogging). After spending £500 on a copywriting course, I found out the copywriting world doesn’t align with who I am. 

In addition to this, I realised recently I don’t want to move into content creation and taking photos for brands and hotels. It doesn’t make me as happy as writing does.

So think about what’s right for you.

What success means to me

It won’t happen overnight and don’t expect it to. But be open to ideas and trust your gut.

You might have to pick up side jobs that you don’t want to do long-term, like online teaching or being a virtual assistant.

But if you don’t want to be in the box you’re in, change it.

I’m not special. I don’t have a magic secret.

I just made a decision to work for myself, and never feel anxious on a Sunday again.

Who knows what the future holds, and where this crazy path will take me.

The sky is the limit for bloggers (I know personally of bloggers making £5k-100k a month), but honestly, it’s not just about the money.

It’s about the freedom it gives me. I’m gaining my life back.

We’ve just booked our one-way flight to South America in October 2022, and we have no plans to return. 

We have a house in London, so we’ll come home whenever we feel like it. 

It could be 3 weeks, 3 months or 3 years.

Isn’t that the true meaning of success? Being able to choose your path, and work from anywhere in the world?

That is success to me.

And that is why I started a travel blog. 

A wrap-up

If you’ve made it this far, I am so grateful and totally appreciate you!

If you love travel as much as me, and want to break away from the 9-5 life, keep an eye on Jennie Wanders. It’s going through some big changes, and you won’t want to miss out!

The best way to stay in the loop is to sign up to my email list here, as that’s where all my big announcements happen!

Oooh and don’t forget to follow me on Instagram! I’d love to hear what you think about this post (or any of the blog!) and become friends.

As always, happy travelling!

Jennie 😀 x

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