I’m not going to lie: I think I have a pretty good travel blog. You probably do too, if you read it. I work hard to provide excellent practical travel advice to help you travel better, but I’m not the only great travel blogger out there. In fact — and I know this might be shocking — there’s a lot about travel that I’m not an expert on. Family travel? No idea. Travel as a woman? Clueless. Information on hotels? Only a little. Photography? I can manage to turn my camera on if that counts. Food expert? Only at eating it.
I’ve realized that it’s been about two years since I last talked about websites I love, so I wanted to take a moment and highlight some of my favorite travel blogs that can also help you travel better. There are so many good blogs out there, I feel like I’m long overdue to point you to some of them:
Legal Nomads
Besides being one of my all-time favorite people in the world, Jodi is also a damn amazing blogger who writes often about food and culture. She devotes a lot of time to food on the road, taking mouthwatering photos that make me jealous of her ability to do so. A former lawyer, she also writes a series called “Thrillable Hours” about other lawyers who gave up being a corporate lackey for life on the road.
The Points Guy
Brian Kelly is the reward points expert. I know a lot about rewards points, but this is a guy who spends hours figuring out the monetary value of points, which programs are the best, and crunching all the numbers. Forget about “travel hacker,” this guy is a travel hacker wizard. When I am lost or trying to understand a new change to membership programs, I defer to him.
Uncornered Market
If there was a contest for best travel blog, I would tell everyone to vote for me. Then I would go vote for Audrey and Dan. They tell heartwarming stories and take incredible, out-of-this-world photographs. Their blog focuses on cultural travel and sustainability issues (they even work with the UN Global Sustainable Tourism Council). I focus on the nuts and bolts of going places, whereas they focus on the people. They are simply great storytellers.
Nerd Fitness
Steve Kamb is a huge nerd. Then again, so am I, and we spend hours talking comic books and Diablo 3 on Google Chat. He’s also a huge fitness buff. Years ago he decided to combine the two and develop his site as a way to get nerds in shape. He also loves to travel and has developed some amazing techniques to stay in shape on the road without the need of a gym. His techniques have inspired and helped me stay healthier while I travel.
No Vacation Required
Canaan and Kent make up the dynamic duo that is most travel bloggers’ favorite dynamic duo. They blog about everything — from digital nomading, to travel, to random entries about their life, and everything in between. Theirs is a personal blog with a travel aspect. They are funny, smart, and witty. Plus, they share my love of Vegas, so what’s not to like!
Alex in Wanderland
I met Alex years ago in New York City and we’ve been friends ever since. The author of the article on diving in Koh Tao, Alex is a photographer, graphic designer, travel lover, and dive specialist currently roaming the States. Her blog features great photos, dive tips, travel stories, and a biting and self-deprecating humor. Plus, I helped pick out her blog name, so it’s hard not to love it.
Kirsten Alana
Kirsten is a great photographer who is an expert with taking photos with an iPhone. If you are a fan of my Facebook page, you’ll have seen some of her work — I share her photos often. Her website is filled with excellent photography tips and wonderful photos. I wish I was a tenth of the photographer she is.
Unbravegirl
Sally Thelen left her home in 2007 to teach in Japan. After taking a number of odd jobs around Asia, she is now on her way home from teaching in China, seeking new adventures. She writes with a funny, sarcastic, and biting wit about life in China, cats, and everything in between. It’s funny, it’s smart, and it’s interesting. All you can ask for in a blog.
The Everywhereist
Voted one of the best blogs of 2011 by Time magazine, Geraldine’s witty blog follows her love of travel and food. Many of her posts feature quirky and weird travel destinations, as well as humorous observations about life and people. Plus, her tone is hilariously amusing, and with posts like this about 50 Shades of Grey, it’s easy to see why she was honored by Time.
So go read, enjoy, laugh, and be inspired.
P.S. Don’t forget to enter my giveaway. I’m giving away all my frequent flier miles again and you can win one of two round trip tickets.
David
Some great choices Matt, including a couple I’ve not heard of before, cheers!
Kirsten Alana
Thank you for including me, Matt!! There are two I didn’t know about in here and you’ve included a few of my personal favorites. Great list.
Also, makes me realize how much I need to redesign my site when I see the professionalism of some of these other ones. I’ve concentrated on content and let the design part go a bit. #oops
Drew Meyers
Totally depends on what your goals are as to whether or not a redesign makes sense or not. The primary goal of most redesigns is increased conversion — buying some sort of product, building an email list, or contacting you for some other reason. What conversion means of course depends on what your business goals are. Looking at your site, unless your main business goal is to get people to read your content and engage with it (for some people, that is the primary thing they want their audience doing), then I would recommend a redesign to make your desired user actions much clearer.
Kirsten
Valid points, Drew! I want people to be inspired to go out and travel themselves, and to do so in a way where they really learn and experience another culture. That’s honestly my biggest and probably my only goal. I don’t want to sell them anything like an e-book, I choose to be employed in other ways than monetizing my blog. It’s why I always kept the design simple, so it was about the content. But I do wonder if it’s easy enough for people to navigate.
Drew Meyers
If you want to chat further, lemme know. Web design is what I’ve done for the past 18 months (but am moving away from it now to build a new travel startup)
Diane
So glad you featured Alex! She was one of the first blogs I started reading and is a nice person too! Checking out the other blogs on your list now. Thanks!
Jeremy Branham
Good list. I am familiar with almost every one of these. I love the writing of Sally, Canaan, and Kent. Love what Dan and Audrey do with their site. Thanks for sharing these!
Pol
Will be nice to see some Non-english speaking blogs as well 😉 specially in Spanish, a language you and many americans can speak
Alex
Wow, what an honor to be in this round-up with so many amazing bloggers! Thanks for featuring me, Matt!
Sally
Wowza. Thanks so much for including me. I’ve definitely got some awesome company!
Jeff
Thanks for giving me more reasons not to work on my own blog by giving me more blogs to follow. My facebook and twitter feeds are completely dominated by travel sites.
I have been following your site for a while and think it deserves to be on this list. Keep up the good work.
CheezyK
I’ve spent the last few days considering reducing the number of travel blogs I read because they are causing serious wanderlust and confusion (over where the next trip will be) … and then here you go placing a whole raft of excellent ones right in front of me! 😀 I have a feeling most, if not all, will be added to my reading list in short order.
Daniel Noll
Belated thanks for including us, Matt. Really honored that you would vote for us (blushes). I promise to be nicer to you next time we share a speaker panel.
Pete
Nerd Fitness.. what a great blog. Opened my eyes to far more then just push-ups in my dorm room.
NomadicMatt
Steve is the man.
Emily
Thank you for a great list.
It’s really fun to see what other travel bloggers are up to. Especially since the travel community I have lived in for the past 6 years — full-time RV travelers and full-time sailing cruisers — has a very different idea of what blogging is…
Full-time RV and cruising blogs tend to be day-by-day travel diaries, because we are all on the road all the time, constantly seeing new things. But we are following an itinerary that is linear — headed down a particular route.
Travel bloggers seem to blog about shorter duration trips that are done from a home base via airplane and hotels — traveling in a star pattern from home — and the emphasis often seems to be on providing travel tips for vacations.
Very interesting stuff — but all new to me!!!
NomadicMatt
Hey everyone! Due to the age of this post and the difficulty in moderating lots of posts spam, comments here have been turned off. If you would like to continue the discussion, head over to the forums at http://forums.nomadicmatt.com and chat there! I post frequently and reply to threads on the boards! See ya there! Thanks! – Matt