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Why I Started a Travel Blog (Again)
I’ve started blogs before. A cooking blog, a family blog, a lifestyle blog and I eventually quit all of them. Part of it was timing (I had babies), and part of it was that I got bored writing about stuff I had to do anyway. Nobody needs a blog post about me unloading the dishwasher.
But this one is different. It’s about doing fun activities. I don’t need the money, and I still want to write about travel and points & miles even if I never make a dime (or a referral bonus). Tracking my progress is more of a “what if” experiment.
Blog Traffic Report: July–September 2026
Three months in: 1,141 Google impressions, 128 active users, 298 sessions. My Google impressions went from 34 in July to 597 in September. Google is finding me, slowly.
Most of my traffic is still people I know. Direct was my top source at 148 sessions, then Google organic at 73, Facebook at 41, Instagram at 27. The average engagement is 44 seconds, and I’m working on that.
What I Published: 18 Posts in 3 Months
18 posts. Two in July, seven in August, nine in September. I started slow but am slowly catching up on my backlog of post ideas. Most of July was building the site before I could start posting.
What Worked: Instagram Growth and Google Impressions
Instagram. My followers went from 522 to 2,178 in three months, and views tripled to 6,699 in September.
Google is waking up. Impressions climbed every single month: 34 → 510 → 597. My Giverny day trip post has 537 impressions, but it ranks around position 70, which sounds terrible, but it means every spot it climbs turns into real clicks. Updating that post is on my to-do list.
The publishing cadence. Going from 2 to 9 posts a month may not be sustainable. I slowed down a bit in October 2026, but having a backlog of ideas in my tracker helps (more on that below).
What Didn’t Work: 404 Errors, Pinterest, and 44-Second Engagement
36 views landed on my 404 page. Roughly a third of my homepage traffic hit a broken link instead. That’s embarrassing and also an easy fix: I’m installing a plugin and setting up redirects this week.
Pinterest fell off a cliff. Impressions went 986 → 2,200 → 537. I’ll be working on figuring out a sustainable Pinterest strategy.
44-second engagement. People show up, they skim, they leave. I have a list of posts I’ll optimize with better headlines and stronger intros in Q4.
Revenue: $0. Not surprised
How Much Does It Cost to Start a Blog? My First 3 Months
$1,369 invested, $0 earned. About $1,039 of that was one-time startup costs (LLC, theme, legal docs, domain), and it costs roughly $120 a month to keep the lights on.
The order of operations going forward: affiliate links now (Amazon Associates, Stay22, TravelPayouts), Google AdSense next (application in progress), then Journey by Mediavine once I hit 1,000 sessions a month. I’m at about 100 a month, so that’s the milestone I’m chasing.
My Q4 2026 Blogging Goals
Three things:
- Fix the broken links. Redirects, then update my own internal links.
- Get AdSense approved.
- Hold the publishing pace at 8+ posts a month.
Thinking About Starting a Blog? You’ll Never Run Out of Ideas
Here’s the thing I wish someone had told me: you will not run out of things to write about.
A few trips to London turned into twelve post ideas without breaking a sweat: trip reports, two hotel reviews, three day trips, packing, transit, booking with points, teens, a concert, football. And that’s before the points-and-miles content, which doesn’t require any travel at all.
I take two or three big trips a year. At one or two posts a week, my backlog alone is months of content. The trips aren’t the constraint. Writing them down is.
That’s Q3. See you in January for Q4.
Keep reading
Curious what all this traffic is landing on?
- Giverny Day Trip from Paris — my most-found post on Google, and the one getting an update next
- Points & Miles Basics — new to points and miles? Start here
- How I got started with points and miles — the longer version of how I fell into this hobby
- London Mother-Daughter Trip — where half of those twelve London post ideas came from
exploring:
