9 Disadvantages of Living on the Road, According to Travel Bloggers

“Give up your boring job and start traveling! Everyone is waiting!”, say the social networks. A lot of people are envious of travel bloggers who share amazing photos of the various places they visit. However, the life of a traveler is not as easy or as glamorous as it seems.

In this post, we awesome.club, we’re going to show you the hardships of life for travel bloggers. And, as a bonus, we’ll show you an interesting new trend in the world of travel blogging.

“It is very likely that earn nothing during the first year🇧🇷 Most advertisers are not going to invest in a very new blog. It is necessary to gain reputation to become relevant and attract partner brands. And even experienced bloggers are not usually financially stable. Sometimes I earn a lot and another day I run out of money. It is very important to save and plan your expenses”, says Kate McCulley, creator of the blog Adventurous Kate.

“This activity requires high investment, especially in the beginning. Tickets, accommodation and equipment are quite expensive. I’m really sorry that I didn’t save enough before I quit my old job”, comments Jennifer O’Brien, from The Travel Women website.

“A lot of people think that I just travel and write a few posts and that’s all. In fact, I work hard. In the beginning, I spent at least 12 hours on the computer to create my website and turn it into a business. I spend a lot of time negotiating with advertisers, handling social media management, editing photos and videos, and communicating with subscribers and other bloggers. I always want to improve my blog”, informs Nellie Huang, from the WildJunket blog. “The competition in this area is very strong, each click is important. We make every possible effort to continue to increase traffic to our site,” say Elaine and Dave, creators of the blog The Whole World is a Playground.

“My poor husband! You have to take the best pictures in the world wherever you are! We cannot eat or drink until everything is photographed for a post. To take a great picture, he climbs mountains, lies down on the ruins floor and waits for the sun to rise in the dark”, says Elaine (from The Whole World is a Playground website). “The worst happens in departure lounges and on planes. While people are minding their own business, we have to photograph everything of interest. I was often asked if it was my first time on the plane. Not. I just want to take pictures of the food, the cabin and the seats. A lot of people consider us crazy,” she adds.

“We travel with a lot of heavy and expensive equipment, like the camera, the laptop and chargers. I always carry a 10 kg backpack, which is very tiring. Besides, I control everything so that nobody steals from us. I need the Internet all the time and I get really nervous when there’s no Wi-Fi,” says Nellie Huang (WildJunket website).

“I love to travel and write long texts, so I still haven’t adapted to the format that Internet audiences like best. Almost all bloggers create posts like ’10 Things to do in city X…’. It is obvious that these posts are easy to read, have keywords like ‘vacation’, ‘sea’ and attract attention with beautiful images, so they will always appear at the top of Google’s lists. In my opinion, this type of content lacks soul and real emotion”, says Ana, creator of the blog Slightly Astray.

“A year later, I realized that I am a terrible travel blogger. I visited 20 cities and managed to write posts only about seven of them. Furthermore, my texts lacked useful and practical advice. I didn’t know how to promote myself on social media. Many times I tried to write something inspiring, but I always failed,” writes Ana (Slightly Astray).

“Once I was videochatting with my traveler friend. She was very tired and complained of stress and insomnia. The next day, she already posted a photo on social networks in which she appeared super well, willing and recharged. She looked like she really enjoyed her trip. Showing the ideal life is an integral part of the work of travel bloggers”, informs journalist Nikki Vargas. “Another example. In Morocco, I got a stomach ache from rotten chicken. Why did I decide to leave my home, family and friends to travel the world? My posts are more of the same (a lot of people already write about Morocco), the photos on Instagram are not nice and my blogging career is ordinary. ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ I thought. I had the same crisis situation in the Philippines, Mexico, Indonesia and Argentina,” she admits.

🇧🇷We lost contact with family and friends. We didn’t see our nephews grow up. We really miss meeting our relatives. Although we use Skype and Facebook a lot, nothing can replace face-to-face communication”, says blogger couple Dave and Deb, creators of The Planet D blog. “When I was 20 I started to travel. It was absolutely normal for my age, but now I’m 33 and most of my friends are married with kids. Sometimes that takes us away from them”, says traveler Shannon O’Donnell.

“I travel a lot and therefore cannot maintain stable relationships. I tried long distance dating but failed. I don’t have the possibility to meet new people. When I get to the first date, people start asking a lot of questions about my travels”, comments Jennifer O’Brien (The Travel Women). “When you meet a nice person, deep down you understand that it won’t last long. That sense of oppression is terrible. If you decide to have a serious relationship, you will have to make a choice: give up travel or your partner will have to drop everything and travel with you🇧🇷 Not everyone is ready to take that risk,” said Victoria Brewood, creator of the Pommie Travels blog.

“When you take a vacation, you’re looking forward to enjoying new emotions and experiences. But when you travel all the time, that feeling disappears and you start to find everything ordinary. I’ve seen so many waterfalls, temples and sunsets that for me it’s all the same. Traveling is an addiction and any addiction makes emotions more and more ordinary. You start looking for something that is really out of the ordinary. Like a drug addict who is always looking for something stronger”, says Victoria Brewood (Pommie Travels).

“The life of a traveler can be very tiring. Packing your bags, living in different hotels, making reservations, planning itineraries, reading maps can all be very tiring. Sometimes I don’t want to think about anything. I want to work on the computer, cook at home, go to the gym and nothing else. I wanted to be able to organize the wardrobe instead of putting things in the suitcase. I understood that I would need a base to live more than a month at a time”, concludes Victoria Brewood (Pommie Travels).

Despite all the drawbacks mentioned above, most travel bloggers don’t want to give up their job. However, many nowadays prefer responsible tourism instead of visiting many countries to take thousands of photos, all produced, and to post the sights. In this context, the proposal is to minimize the negative impact of tourism on the Environment and contribute, in some way, to the development of the region visited.

Followers of this practice not only enjoy the beaches, but also clean them. They try to get to know the local culture and find out more about the region’s problems. Instead of writing posts like “What to see in X city in 3 days”, they advise how to travel on a budget, with children or with people who have disabilities or mobility restrictions.

What is most important in a trip for you? In your opinion, is living on the road worth it?