Travel Blogs = full time job

[dude]

Interesting article on how living a putatively carefree travel lifestyle can quickly turn into a full-time job:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/travel/that-solo-travel-blogs-vacation.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&moduleDetail=inside-nyt-region-0&module=inside-nyt-region&region=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region

[StockBeard]

It's difficult to get from the article if these people do it because they need the money (and are kind of stuck in the rat race even though they thought they were escaping it initially), or if they are just enthusiastic about their hobby turned into a good business (and just don't want to quitO. Certainly, the guy making $750'000 a year should have enough money to just pull the plug by now

[BrightFIRE]

I assume they blog about travel because they enjoy travel, but the article did give an impression of the first woman as maybe biting off too much. There seems to be a self-imposed fear of losing all their readers if they take a break, which is likely untrue. If you've been around long enough to have thousands of followers, your readers will still be there when you get back.

I follow a travel blog (MommyPoints) where the author has barely traveled the last 2 years after having a baby with significant health issues. She still writes about travel, it's just not as much about her own travel - and she still has a loyal following. But she's part of the Boarding Area blog network, which I assume does a lot of the heavy lifting of maintenance and advertising.

Contrary to "do what you love", I've always hated the idea of turning a hobby into a job, because I would then feel obligated to do it whether I wanted to or not, which would kill the love - so I will not be turning my travels into a blog.

[arebelspy]

So the nice part about being FI is you can blog if you feel like it, or not, if you don't feel like it.

I mean, some of the FI bloggers (who actually are FI--plenty of them aren't) probably feel some compulsion to blog, for fear of "leaving money on the table."  But some actually enjoy it.

The wife and I have a FI/travel blog.  Sort of.  We should update it, but right now, don't feel like it. I did renew the domain registration last week though, and at some point we may suddenly feel like it, and update.

The people who HAVE to blog, because their income depends on it?

Yeah, it becomes just another job.

They may be passionate about that job still, or they may come to dislike it.  Because they have to do it.

When you're FI though?

You don't have to do anything.  That's the beauty of it.  Want a travel blog?  Start one. Want to update it? Do so. Don't want to? Great, skip it!  No need to monetize, build readership, or anything you don't want to do.

It's pretty great.  :)

[Debonair]

I have a travel blog and even though it is new it can take up a lot of time. I hope it gets big enough to be a full time job. Granted so far it's more a hobby that I hope gets big. Fortunately I don't need a ton of money, so I won't need to drive myself nuts.

[Done by Forty]

I suspect the retirement police have a lot of thoughts about whether the writing people do constitutes work (and therefore, is not "truly" retirement). For now, I certainly plan to keep writing for a lot of reasons: I enjoy the discussions in the comments sections, it helps me feel like I'm part of a community, and I find it to be rewarding to both write and to have written.