Travel Blogging Hold The Travel – KSB Updates From Isolation

This month I planned to bring you content for planning a solo trip to Romania and some local guides for the Veneto region of Italy, but obviously, that was all canceled. I’ve been continuing to post my regular blog content that I think is valuable for planning vacations because the restrictions won’t last forever. But I thought today I would post something different. It’s more of a journal style of post, to kind of address the elephant in the room – the weird state being a travel blogger who can’t travel.  Maybe it’s helpful for you, maybe it’s not. I don’t know, but either way, I thought it’d be good to just chat about some of the KSB updates from isolation and how I’ve been using the time.

Travel Blogging Hold The Travel – KSB Updates From Isolation

How lockdown affects travel blogging

Of course, the travel restrictions around the world has a big impact on travel blogging, one of the biggest being financial.

There are fewer people reading blogs to plan trips, meaning fewer people seeing ads, booking accommodation, and tours or buying through affiliate links. In addition, most of the trips already booked with those links were canceled meaning no income for those.

For many of us, our income took a hit.

I’m lucky to be in a position that this hasn’t destroyed me financially or anything like that. But, if it does last a decent amount of time it will make it difficult to keep up the expenses to simply run the blog – website hosting, software, etc. (Side note, you might see more ads than normal on my site and I know it’s annoying but it’s just a temporary measure to give things a boost, and I’ll reduce them later).

Another way it’s affected travel blogging is that it makes it tricky to get content since I’m stuck in the house. I am using the time to go through older posts and find gaps where I could add more posts about a destination, or general areas where I can add travel tips, and hopefully that will improve my overall site.

As a fan of blogs, it’s been a great time to see the true colors of the bloggers I follow and know who to put my support behind as well as who to stop supporting.

Bloggers who have lost touch with reality and posted self-entitled whines about the situation or encouraged travel against safety advice lost my support first up, along with those not offering anything valuable to support their community and those who use their community when they need them.

I love to support bloggers because I know how helpful it can be, and this whole experience exposed the trash and allows me to focus my support on people I have more respect for.

Changing up my content

Originally, I intuitively felt that continuing to post on social media according to the plans I had set before all this happened wasn’t what I wanted to do.

Something felt off about simply posting travel photos and acting as if nothing was happening. Also, I for one had seen enough of the travel photos with an unoriginal ‘take me back’ style caption. How many of those did you see?

So I figured that I would flip it and do something completely different.

I changed my social media content to just provide some laughs by making some videos that I thought would be funny. At least then people could spend a minute laughing each day and get a break from the stress, plus it gave me a creative outlet for my own stress.

It was never really planned out but just something I did once that caught on and I figured I’d keep it going as long as I have ideas and people like them.

I’m currently wondering what the transition back to regular travel content will look like and how to navigate that, so if you have any ideas on how I can make sure the content is something you enjoy, I’m all ears.

Am I going stir crazy not traveling?

To be honest, not too much.

I don’t really base my identity around traveling. It’s something I love that I’m fortunate to do, but I’m also comfortable being at home.

It’s been a good time to focus on other things I enjoy around the house, have more time to chat with my friends here on the Internet, and get ready for my upcoming move to the US.

I love a good challenge and have loved the challenge of trying to be creative without all the bells and whistles. Anyone can be creative when they’re traveling to new places but the real test is when all that is gone.

How creative can you be then? How can you help people then?

For me, it’s been a great time to try new things with content, push myself, put myself out there, and grow creatively.

I love to travel, and I’m looking forward to getting back into it, but I like to enjoy each chapter for what it is instead of trying to force it to be something else.

This phase has been a good opportunity to enjoy the simple things at home, expand creatively, and help others.

Looking forward

We are all living with some sort of restrictions and I hope it can pass soon so we can get a little normalcy back.

I don’t know about you but I’d love to be able to leave the house without thinking about whether I have the right permit or not or walk through the grocery store without mentally measuring one-meter distance.

I have a feeling that the first trip after restrictions is going to be appreciated in a different way too. Are you thinking of going anywhere this year or waiting to see how things unfold?

“Snorkeling with waterfalls” in isolation

Supporting KSB

There’s no pressure to do any of these, but, if you feel like you get value from my work and want to support my blog, here are some of the ways you can help:

• Like, comment, and/or share my posts on social media – these, especially sharing on your own page or in travel groups you are a member of, are a huge help to introduce my work to a new audience.
• Read some of my blog posts to help boost page views.
• Send me feedback for post ideas and how I can give you the content you want.
• When you book trips after restrictions are lifted, use my affiliate links like Booking.com.
• Use this Amazon link before you do your regular shopping there.
• If you’re booking tours, consider my tour affiliate Take Walks.
• Choose the KSB Travel Journal when you buy your next travel journal.
• Use my affiliate link when you shop with GoPro.

That’s about it for my updates and just want to say thanks for being here and being part of KSB. Sending lots of love to you and yours.

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