What's a Travel Blog?

Travel writing is not a new hobby. Ever since the act of writing began, people have been writing about their travels. Works like Alexis de Tocqueville's account of a revolution-era America, Che Guevara's account of South America in the 1950s and Hunter S. Thompson's gonzo journalism have shaped a whole genre of storytelling. 

Travelblog writers take their inspiration from such innovative writers. Since the advent of the internet, people have used the technology to keep their friends informed of their journeys. Only in the last 10 years has travel blogging really taken off. 

Precursors

Philip Greenspun probably created the first travel blog, before there was such a thing as a "blog." An MIT professor and web developer, he had enough experience with web development, photography, and writing to make up for the lack of tools to create a truly compelling web site (Travels With Samantha- best of the web in 1994. 210 Pages and 250 photos describing a heartfelt trip across North America to Alaska, inspired by the death of a beloved Samoyed). Not to mention that he had comments, signaling the openness that helped to popularize the blog format overall. This one is a classic:

"I'm a member of GOSA, the Geyser Observation and Study Association. I found that you seem to have investigated roughly five times as many attractive women as geysers while you were in Yellowstone. To each his own. If you hadn't seen Echinus at midnight, though, I would have been sure you were purely a poseur. Not one word about Grand, about Castle, the Lion Group, the difficulty of catching Beehive, the maniacally explosive madness that is Fan & Mortar, the isolated ocean of Artemisia...did you see nothing of any of these?"

What is a travel blog?

A travel blog is basically an online travel journal. Think of it as a blog, but with travel specific features, like a map. The cool part about it is that you can write it while you're on the road and your friends back home can read it and follow along with you on your journey instead of mass-mailing your family and friends with travel stories using email. Most travel blog sites now allow you to upload photos, videos and MP3 files to share with your blog visitors.