I'm generally not a fan of deceiving the IRS, even though it feels silly to say that not claiming all of your expenses is "deceiving."
The IRS actually gives the following guidelines to clarify the difference between hobbies and businesses.
1. Whether you carry on the activity in a businesslike manner and maintain complete and accurate books and records.
2. Whether the time and effort you put into the activity indicate you intend to make it profitable.
3. Whether you depend on income from the activity for your livelihood.
4. Whether your losses are due to circumstances beyond your control (or are normal in the startup phase of your type of business).
5. Whether you change your methods of operation in an attempt to improve profitability.
6. Whether you or your advisors have the knowledge needed to carry on the activity as a successful business.
7. Whether you were successful in making a profit in similar activities in the past.
8. Whether the activity makes a profit in some years and how much profit it makes.
9. Whether you can expect to make a future profit from the appreciation of the assets used in the activity.
Even if you are losing money every year, you can still justify treating your website as a business by following as many of these guidelines as possible. They know that many businesses lose money in the first several years, and as long as you can show that you are treating it like a business and are making progress, they are going to be fine with it.
Cool. i think most of the answers to these are "yes", with exception
#3 this is a early retirement venture. I expect 99% of my income to come from my investments and pension, but a little side money is cool.
#7 this is new to me, and I'm learning new skills as I go
On #9, I think if I got sick of doing this, I would be able to sell the blog. People want aged sites with domain authority and ongoing income. Current valuation is around $2000.
The toughest thing for travel bloggers is knowing how much they can deduct and whether they need to report "freebies" they get as income. I haven't really gotten freebies so not an issue yet, but I've seen some bloggers get comped $10,000 Villa stays, free multi day tours, etc - but they they have loads of work, photos, etc that come from these. But how much of your travel is deductible? I think clearing going to a conference could be deductible but what about flying to South America and taking a cruise to Antarctica on my dime to write blog posts about that? I'm not planning on deducting that but say in the future I have enough revenue to cover such trips, does it become deductible then? I've seen some successful travel bloggers claim they deduct all of their travel expenses.