5 Survival Tips for Travel Bloggers During Corona Times
July 28, 2021We are gay couple, Stefan and Sebastien, and Nomadic Boys is our gay travel blog, which we started in 2013.
Since we started our blog, we have been largely on the road, creating content for our website, which has now turned into our full-time vocation. Over the past 6 months however, like many in the travel industry, our income has taken a huge hit as people are forced to cancel or postpone their trips (ourselves included). We have used this time to work on our website and do all the many things on our loooong to-do list that we’ve neglected for years. Whilst this has been a nightmare for the industry, it’s taught us a few important lessons as travel bloggers:
1. Save save save!
We cannot stress the importance of building up a comfortable nest fund for your business. It’s a very obvious tip, but the Covid19 pandemic has taught us the importance of this. We were fortunate to put away some money each month and have built up a nest for our business to live off, which has allowed it to continue running during the pandemic. Of course, once we come out of it on the other end, we plan to build on this – who knows what/when such a global unprecedented phenomenon could happen again, and when it does we want to be totally ready to survive it!
2. Working from home routine
Working from home has been the norm for most, including ourselves. Whilst it may seem a blessing and a novelty at first, it quickly runs thin as you blur the boundary between work/home. What we’ve learnt works best is to try to define the boundary by sticking to a routine for working hours whilst also factoring in downtime to make meals have a weekend. We think this is super important to working efficiently and work hard to achieve this.
3. Keeping healthy and fit
This applies whether there is a pandemic or not! Now more than ever, having an important immune system is super important! At the same time, not being able to travel and being hunkered down at home is a little depressing. One way to counter all this is to try to work in an exercise routine into our daily lives, whether it is a range of bodyweight exercises or going for runs. One thing that has been amazing for us during the pandemic is we have learnt more about our surrounding area where we live in Cyprus by going out for evening jogs.
An article that really helped us with keeping fit article during the global pandemic:
4. Discovering new hobbies
With all the down time, we have discovered new hobbies and had the chance to get back into neglected ones. For example, Stefan has discovered a love for cooking, and is using it to learn more about his Greek roots. Seby used to be an excellent guitar player as a teenager but has abandoned it. During the pandemic, Stefan got Seby a guitar for his birthday and he has been loving getting back into his old habit!
5. Eating healthy
Another tip that applies regardless of a global pandemic. We have had more time to plan our meals and focus on healthy eating. One particular passion of Seby’s is to try to find ways to make classic dishes in a healthy way – such as pizza with a cauliflower base instead of flour or the use of whole-wheat and coconut flour for banana bread instead of standard flour.
An example of one of the recipes we’ve used:
https://cookieandkate.com/healthy-banana-bread-recipe/
Whilst the pandemic has been a gut punch to travel bloggers and everyone else in the travel industry, it has also allowed us to stop, take a breather and assess how we can improve and better our business for the better so we may come out the pandemic stronger than ever!
