Why Bother To Make a Travel Blog (or do anything, really!)

working on a laptop

“Starting a travel blog in 2014? Are you mad?!” the voice in my head questions constantly. “It’s a saturated market! You’ll never be successful! What a waste of time! Now go and eat a doughnut to make yourself feel better.”

I guess to start a travel blog nowadays you need to be a little mad. Every day I log on to Twitter and I’m bombarded with hundreds of links about hundreds of places from hundreds of websites. It’s overwhelming. How could anybody be successful with so many competitors out there? It’s impossible surely.

Every time I have an idea for a blog post, something that I have experience with, I type the idea into Google. Pages and pages of results come back to me. It’s almost too much to bear. Should I even bother to give guidance or my opinion when a thousand others have already said everything that can be said? “You’re wasting your time! Why bother?” that critical voice shouts loudly at me.

“Why bother?” I reply back defeated. “Why bother?”

Good question–why bother? Whatever I write will surely only be an echo of others. However as I think more on that question, the more it pulls me under.

Why bother to do anything at all? Why get up in the morning? Why eat? Why drink? Why bother to be myself when there’s already so many other versions of me out there? Why, why, why?

In the past, I had no answer to this question. It left me depressed. Nowadays, I’m a little happier but still the answer evades me. I’m sick of that voice though. Who the hell is that voice? It must be me…it’s in my head…I’m controlling it.

Really that voice isn’t me though, it’s a combination of a bunch of voices I’ve heard all my life. It’s every apathetic teacher I had at school, it’s my father cynically believing I can’t succeed, it’s the whole world around me. I’m sick of this apathetic attitude so many of us have nowadays, the constant muttering of “Whatever!”

To that voice, I say,“Fuck you!” Why should I live my entire life based around what other people think? Why should I fail, or do nothing because it’s what others expect of me? Possibly it’s better to fail and do what you want to do than to do nothing at all.

Belief is a hard thing to come by these days, I can just about believe in this blog. Maybe I have to believe in it to prove to those people that they are wrong.

“Why not do something else? Something easier? Something with a better chance of success?” Another good question. Simply because I like to write, I love to blog. I’ve been blogging for over 10 years now in some shape or form and I always come back to it, so it must have something to it.

I’ve also come to realise that there’s something missing out there when it comes to travel blogs. Something that I’ve always looked for.

Whenever I read a guide. It’s never written for me, it’s written for somebody else. Seasoned travelers, confident people.

Before going on any trip, I have a thousand questions running through my head and I can never seem to find an answer because these are the questions others don’t ask themselves. Before going to a restaurant in Korea I was obsessed with how you pay. Do you ask for a bill? Do you wait for a bill? Do you get up to pay? Do you tip? How much do you tip? What do you say when you leave? All of these questions were never answered and without those answers I lacked the confidence to go into restaurants. I like to know about situations before I get into them otherwise I just feel awkward and anxious.

This site is for those anxious people. I want to create a blog with all the answers. Guides so in-depth that every possibility and problem is explained. Stories that allow you to see how I deal (or don’t deal) with situations. I want everybody out there who is scared to go to a Korean restaurant to conquer that fear.

It will sound silly to some. Those of you who can jump blindly into anything without a care in the world. It’s not silly to me though and hopefully it isn’t silly to a few others too.

“But…but…but,” the voice in my head is grasping for something, “isn’t this a bad idea? You want to create a travel site for people that are scared of traveling?”

I suppose the voice has got me there. Maybe this site won’t be a success, maybe it will drift away like so many others do. Maybe nothing will come of it all.

“As long as I help one person.” That’s what I tell myself. That’s what I truly want. As long as somebody out there reads the site and is better off because of it, then I’ll have succeeded.

The more people I help, the better.

The voice is silent.


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Comments

  1. says

    Oh man, I relate to this so much! While I oscillate between being a confident traveler and an anxious one, I get those fears and doubts of “why do anything at all?” But I think rather than doing it for the impact, we do it for the experience. While all those blogs exist, we want to be the people CREATING them. We want the experience of that. Or anything else. So even if it’s “all been done before” (whether it’s storytelling, traveling, whatever it is), it hasn’t all been done before by US. And that sort of keeps me going.

    Also: community. If you put aside blogging for money or business purposes, if you do it as a passion and for fun, then you find that there are lots of people out there who think and feel similarly and who care about your experiences as well.

    It’s weird writing this comment because I almost feel like I am speaking to myself. :) Anyway, just wanted to say that the premise of this blog is awesome and I will be watching & reading! :)

    • Dan says

      Hey Erika! First, thanks for the comment. We truly appreciate it because since we’re such a new website we barely get any visitors or comments. Sniff sniff. To show our appreciation we’d love to send you a postcard! Throw me an email with your address ([email protected]) if you’re interested.

      I think I’m definitely an introspective person so I constantly question myself about everything and why I’m doing it. I really agree with your idea of these experiences not being done by us and that is what makes them special. I used to get really sad about how my life is not unique. We like to believe we’re all unique but really it’s so easy to place yourself into a group which makes you feel not so unique at all. (Like, “Oh I’m just another travel blogger, how uncreative am I?”) However I’ve come to realise that what does make us unique are our past experiences. Nobody is truly the same as I am, as nobody has had the exact same 28 years of life that I have. Some have had similar, but not the same. This is part of the reason we decided to write about travel and anxiety because it’s what makes us unique.

      Hope you do come back to read. (You could always sign up to our mailing list so the posts will go straight to your inbox!!! Sorry, have to plug it!)

  2. says

    This is brilliant. I’ve definitely questioned why I even bother with my own blog. What’s the point when, like you said, there are so many others out there writing the same or similar thing. But then I realize I can offer my own insights and observations into what I write. That is something unique to myself. I’m a sucker for efficiency and I’m always wanting to know the best way to do something and I always find travel blogs are great for inspiration and all that, but they don’t exactly tell you how to do it or what to expect (some do, but not a lot).

    Even now, a year into the blogging journey and I’m still questioning why I blog. Why do I even keep going? I’m not traveling as much as I use to and it takes up so much time. I don’t know the answer, and yet I still keep on plodding along. Tis strange. Hopefully I find the answer somewhere along the way.

    • Anxious Travelers says

      I’ve been blogging for over 10 years and I always go through periods of not bothering because it often seems like nobody is listening. It can seem like a waste of time. I’ve started to change my attitude a little and now try to write more for myself. It’s nice to have something to look back on in another 10 years to see how I was feeling and what I was thinking!

  3. says

    “As long as I help one person.”

    Well, you’re definitely helping me! That’s a start! 😉
    I’m afraid of flying and I’m an anxious person. It’s good to read about people who have doubts and fears but chose not to let them win.
    You’re right: there’s plenty of blogs by confident travellers (are they, really?), so I’m looking forward to read more about you guys on this blog.
    I’ve been keeping a journal since I was thirteen because writing my feelings down was a relief and I’ve been publicly blogging since 2005, so it’s been a long journey and I still feel it’s helping me in some way.
    Glad I found you! Greetings from Italy :-)

    • Jamie says

      Hi Ally,

      It’s so great to hear that we’re helping you. So many people stay in their safety bubble because they’re terrified of the unknown. I refused to be one of those people! Writing truly is a great form of therapy, isn’t it? It’s always been my way to express myself, too.

      I’m glad you found us. :) Thank you so much for reading and commenting!

    • Anxious Travelers says

      Thanks for the comment, Ally! I’m glad you’ve enjoy our writing, unfortunately I can’t read your own because it’s in Italian! I’m amazed by your English, it’s better than mine! Why is it so good?!

      • says

        Hi!
        I used to have a whole blog in English, but since I was looking for a way to express myself freely with no boundaries I had to switch to my mother tongue.
        I guess it’s my undying love for the UK and London in particular that makes me able to be somewhat fluent in English (thank you for the compliment!), since I barely managed to survive while in Paris (and I had studied French for five years!). 😉 I can totally relate to that post about the mispronunciation phobia too: I remember it was embarassing just to ask for a glass of water. It actually happened all the time when I was in England as well, because everyone said I had an American accent (too many tv series to blame?) and I tried to sound more british, probably failing epically.

        • Anxious Travelers says

          That makes sense, it’s obviously easier to express yourself in your native language due to vocabulary but also possibly because your thoughts are in that language. Actually often before I type out a post I write it in my head…which sounds strange but it helps.

          I also studied French in school for over 5 years and at the time I thought I was terrible, but even now 10 years later I have an OK grasp of it. It’s amazing how much I learnt without trying.

          Funnily enough I have major problems with asking for water too. I’m from Northern English and due to that I have a strange accent. I pronounce water as woh-ah. Whenever I ask for water in other English speaking countries I just get confusion.

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