In order to build a blog with a growing audience you need to focus on producing quality content in a consistent manner, making it valuable and informative whilst being honest and relatable. That might not sound too difficult, but the real struggle comes when you have to try and fit this work in alongside all of your other commitments. This is why planning travel blog content in advance is key to blogging around a job, family, friends, hobbies, and staying healthy.

How to Plan Travel Blog Content

Before you actually start planning all of the content you want to produce, or think you should be producing, consider what is manageable for your lifestyle. There are so many people out there who think they are experts and will tell you that you should be posting blog posts and social media content on a daily basis, but if this isn’t achievable then don’t even try it.

Break down your day and look at when you do have free time. Could you make notes or draft a blog post on your morning commute? Do you have an hour in the evening where you could schedule you social media posts for the week?

If you only have time to publish one blog posts a week, then stick to that, make it a the best blog post you can, publish the same time and day each week. Don’t feel guilty for not being ale to do more. If you do too much you’re more than likely to burn out, get frustrated and feel like you’ve failed. You haven’t failed. Blogging should be enjoyed – so enjoy it.

Break Down Your Trip

The thing about travel is that there are so many aspects to taking a trip somewhere, the food, accommodation, things to do, specific attractions, guided tours, activities… the list goes on. This is why you can get so much content out of one simple trip, but it is also why you can get overwhelmed when it comes to deciding what to write about.

You don’t have to write about every aspect of your trip. If the focus of your blog is food then you might only want to write about where you ate and what the food was like, if the focus is on adrenaline-fuelled activities then you might only want to write about what you did whilst you were there.

The key to planning your travel blog content is to have all of this in mind before you even go anywhere. As soon as you book those flights and the accommodation, start thinking about what content you might want to create. Instead of just creating one long post that mentions everything then plan to write 2-5 posts for each trip.

The number of posts you create should be inspired by the destination and the length of time you were there. A day trip for example probably only needs one post, but a fortnight might lead you to write half a dozen. It all depends on what piques your interest. If you don’t like writing about food, then don’t. If you’re great at hotel reviews then make that your focus.

It’s your blog. Do what feels right to you.

Give Yourself Time

There are no rules when it comes to publishing blog posts or social media content. It’s completely up to you when you make your travel blog content available. Some people like to start working on their content whilst they’re away and even start publishing whilst still on the actual trip, other people won’t publish a post for anything up to a year afterwards as they have so much other content to work on first.

This is why having a posting schedule is so important, it takes the pressure off feeling as though you need to have all of your content available the week after you return. You don’t. If you’re still righting about that weekend in Paris six months after you visited then that is fine.

Use a Calendar

If you’ve set up your blog using WordPress then I highly recommend you download the plugin “WordPress Editorial Calendar.” This gives you an easy to view understanding of when you’re due to post. You can quickly and easily create draft posts and drag and drop them to whatever date suits you.

This ultimately takes away that feeling of failure if you are, for whatever reason, suddenly unable to post on a particular day. Feel free to move your content around. Give yourself the flexibility to fit blogging in around your life.

Obviously you don’t have to use this particular calendar, but I would recommend a digital one rather than a paper one. Paper calendars or diaries are great for planning your days in terms of booking events, but if you suddenly need to change your posting schedule, even slightly, seeing crossings-out and too many changes down on paper can really effect your motivation and productivity.

Draft in Advance

Go back to breaking down your trip, take the various aspects that you want to write about and create a draft blog post for each one and plot them into your content calendar using your arranged schedule.

Whatever travel blog content you want to create, don’t ever start a blog post with a blank page staring back at you.

If you start a blog post with headers, bullet points, quick notes, and an idea of how many photos you might include, you’ll find it’s much easier to write the actual post when the time comes as it will generally just be a case of filling in the gaps.

Remember, blogging is something you should enjoy, create the travel blog content you want, avoid putting pressure on yourself just because others do.

How do you plan your travel blog content and social media?

Let me know in the comments.