The state of Singapore’s travel blogosphere

To be a successful blogger, it is important to know and read blogs of the topic of interest. This way you know the popular post styles to emulate or determine an area or niche that has not been covered to focus on.

Travel in general is a very well-covered topic around the world – from travelogues to blogs focusing on green tourism, heritage tourism or medical tourism. There are blogs that talk extensively about consumer rights, the aviation or hotel industry and the lowdowns of travel agencies be it offline or online.

Against such a backdrop, how does a fledgling travel blog like Bring Me There hope to find and sustain traffic? In fact according to Gary, blogger of Everything Everywhere, people do not generally hunt for travel blogs, they usually chance upon them in the midst of doing research for an upcoming trip. The strategy is to locate the blog where people are more likely to bump into it.

It is true to a certain extent that destinations remain more or less the same whether it is today or several years later unlike politics, news or technology, which is why it is never quite ranked high on Technorati. How then to infuse a travel blog with currency that keeps people coming?

Chris Elliot focuses on the day to day business and policy changes that will affect the consumer. As he has a wide network for his information source, it keeps his blog up to date and the place to find insider information. Gary, on the other hand, has taken the bold move to travel round the world again and again and blogs his exploits, building a community of followers who are inspired by him.

In the local blogosphere, I am actually quite surprised at the scarcity of travel related blogs. Maybe the real travellers don’t blog and those who do blog, don’t travel? Searching through several Singapore blog directories, I am met with mainly corporate blogs, spam blogs or blogs which have been dormant for more than a year.

It is through Ping.sg that I have found six active travel blogs by Singapore residents that pass my test of usefulness and relevancy. Here are they:

1. A Nice Holiday – entertaining and engaging insights on day to day Singapore and the occasional trip made alive with photos, videos and travel news
2. Travel Blog – interesting tidbits on the history of sights in Singapore and places of interest blogger has travelled to
3. Best Vacation Deals Today – latest airfares and tour packages and the occasional destination information based on first person travel experience
4. TravelTodayLah – another comprehensive database of published travel packages, categorised according to countries for easy access and comparison
5. World Holiday Tours – compilation of posts by different bloggers on various destinations around the world
6. Online Travel Guide – essentially an online travel store with good destination guides and tourism perspectives updated monthly

How can Bring Me There be different and yet useful at the same time? Its core message is to advocate independent travel as opposed to staying within the comfort zones of a tour package, where one see but don’t experience.