Review - Real Travel Blog
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Real Travel is a travel guide and trip planner full of trip stories and tips from real travellers. The Real Travel blog is a selection of blog posts, photos and recommendations from members of the community, selected by the Editors to feature in the blog.
It’s always interesting for me to read other travel blogs to look at what they have on offer to readers. I decided to look at three most recent posts about Europe, as that’s the region which I know best. The most recent European posts were about Rila Monastry in Sofia, Bulgaria, Sightseeing in Strasbourg, France and Corwen in Wales. I did like the fact that none of the recent posts were about really well known destinations/tourist traps.
Each post contains a photo of the day, an introduction by the Editor and an excerpt of the post by the travellers with a link if you wish to read the whole post. There are also links to travel guides and tips pertaining to that area at the bottom of the post.
I felt that the posts were written from a very personal perspective which is to be expected if it’s taken from a personal travel blog. The posts were of varying length and detail. However I’m not sure of their utility or relevance to many readers precisely because of this very personal angle. For example I am not interested in reading about how cheap it is to buy beer in Bulgaria and how many cocktails and beers you can purchase for 20 euros. The post about Strasbourg was so sketchy based on a brief stopover, saying “it would have been fun to explore given more time”. I felt I knew nothing more about Strasbourg after reading the post.
My overall impression is that the blog entries and posts are an excellent, cheap way for Real Travel to get content for their site provided by their community. From a business perspective I think it’s a very effective model because the appeal of the posts being written by “real” travellers versus travel writers. This appeal will bring many visitors to the blog, a certain percentage of whom will go on to make a booking through the affiliate links on the site or click on the Google Ads. I’m just not convinced that reading the posts will necessarily provide the information for which the reader is looking.
As a blog author, I think it would be great to have a variety of posts written by other people from which to choose, instead of writing all the material yourself.
October 18th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
[...] to my blog, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Since l reviewed the Real Travel blog I’ve been reading their blog posts about Europe. The entry entitled, [...]
June 6th, 2008 at 9:38 am
The beauty about the web is that there’s something out there for everyone, and while there’s a lot of garbage too, after one visit you don’t have to go to a site again if you don’t like it. Personally, I’m not one for the social networking travel community sites, I did try a few last year to see if it’s something I might like to get involved in, but it just didn’t appeal to me. But they - like Real Travel - certainly meet the needs of some travellers. And we don’t all want information from the web. Personally, I like blogs where I can see the writer has a unique voice and vision and is more reflective and/or opinionated, I can’t stand these blogs where people only comment on other travel news. I’d rather read the straight news myself, rather than someone’s take on it, unless of course they come from a strong position of experience in the industry, but then that’s my opinion and obviously other reader’s think differently. And that’s the beauty of the web… :)
June 6th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Yes the web is a double edged sword, am amazing amount of information to suit all tastes but a load of rubbish as well. It can be hard to find what is useful to you.
I have mixed feelings about travel social networking sites. They can potentially bring a lot of traffic but often this traffic is very fleeting and doesn’t yield any revenue for me. It may be good for building your brand but if visitors go to loads of sites every day I’m not sure that your brand will stick in their minds.
I do think that writing a travel blog is a challenge. I’m writing a blog for my travel business so I have to satisfy the reader and promote my business.