Free guideUpdated September 2026
How to start a blog from anywhere.
Ten steps, plain English, no tech background needed. This is the exact process I would follow if I were starting The Rocky Safari again today, written for anyone who wants a blog that can travel with them.
Some links on this page are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend tools I have paid for and used on this blog.
Before we beginA word from the beaches of Mexico, originally
Thirteen years later, still worth it.
Blogging can look overwhelming from the outside, and I will not pretend it is never a lot of work. But there are few things as rewarding as having a corner of the internet where people stop by, read your writing, start conversations, and occasionally tell you that something you wrote changed how they see things.
By the way, I’m Rocky, the most awkward and peculiar travel blogger on the internet. I started this blog in high school, writing about whatever I did after school and on weekends. It followed me through four years of college, then out into the world, and today it is a travel blog about slow solo trips and the wild creatures I meet along the way. Same site, same name, thirteen years of evolution.
When I first wrote this guide in 2016, my advice was to start broad and cover many topics so you never got bored. I have since niched down, and my advice has changed with me. Pick a lane you can stay curious about for years, and leave yourself room to grow inside it. The name you choose, the hosting you pick, and the way you set things up should all give you that room. That is what this guide is built around.
The internet has changed since 2016. AI answers now sit above search results, and Pew Research found people click a result about 8% of the time when an AI summary is present, versus 15% without one. That is real, and it is exactly why the things AI cannot replace matter more than ever: first-hand experience, a name people search for on purpose, and an email list you own outright.
A blog built around your own stories and your own readers is still the best asset you can own online. It just has to be built that way from the first day. I will show you how.
The ten stepsTick them off as you go
Your blog, one afternoon.
Step one20 minutes
Pick a name you’ll still love in ten years.
Your blog’s name is where everything begins. It is what you will promote, link to, and share with the whole world, so choose something people can read once, understand, and remember.
The Rocky Safari is a spin on my real name, Rocky Trifari. It rhymes, it implies adventure, and it has a hidden meaning that ties into what I write about: in Swahili, safari means journey. A great fit, wouldn’t you agree?
Have fun with it and be creative, but do not make it so specific that it boxes you in. A name built around one city or one year of your life will feel tight the moment you grow. And please, pick well the first time. Changing a blog’s name later is a lot of work. I have been through it.
Check the domain before you fall in love with a name. Look it up on Namecheap, where a .com is about $7 for the first year and roughly $16 a year after that, with privacy protection included free. Stick with .com. The clever new extensions look fun, but the world is still stuck in a .com mentality and anything else costs you trust and typed-in visits.
Step two15 minutes
Get hosting. This is the only confusing part.
“Hosting? What’s hosting?” If that is what you are thinking, you are normal. I felt exactly the same. Hosting is simply the place where your website is stored and served: the computer people reach when they open your blog in a browser. You rent a little space on it, and in exchange you fully own and control your site.
For a new blogger, hosting needs to be fast, secure, easy to use, and affordable. Below are the three companies I have personally paid for over thirteen years, in the order I would consider them today, with the renewal prices most guides conveniently leave out.
When I was building this blog, I called my host’s support line on a near-daily basis. Tons of questions, tons of problems, no idea what I was doing. I liked to experiment, and I would break my website and knock it offline over and over again. Every single time, support fixed it within minutes. So please do not worry. Whichever company you pick below, you can message a human at any hour and they will help you. It will be okay.
Managed cloud hosting. Fast, honest pricing, and the one I would choose if I were starting over.
No renewal jump. You pay the same price in year three as in month one. Billed monthly, cancel any time.
- 3-day free trial, no credit card needed
- Unlimited websites on one plan, free SSL, built-in caching
- Free migration if you ever move an existing blog here
- You buy your domain separately (Namecheap, about $7) and email is a $1 add-on
The host I moved to when the blog got popular. Excellent support and a free domain for year one.
Renews at $17.99/month. Year one is $36; year two is about $216. Still good value, just know it going in.
- Free domain for the first year
- WordPress pre-installed, one-click staging
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Read why I switched here from Bluehost
The cheapest way to get a real, self-hosted blog online. It is where I began and it did the job.
Renews at $9.99/month. The $1.99 rate needs three years paid up front (about $72). Untick the pre-checked extras at checkout.
- Free domain for the first year
- WordPress installed automatically
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Phone support that rescued me many, many times
The zero-tech option. WordPress.com hosts everything for you, and since 2026 every paid plan can install plugins, which used to be the big catch. Personal is $4 a month billed yearly, Premium $8, Business $25. Fine for a first blog; you can always migrate to self-hosting later with my free guide.
See plans ↗︎Signing up, step by stepCloudways shown; the others are similar
- Start the free trialClick the button above, create an account with your email, and verify it. No card is needed for the three-day trial.
- Choose “WordPress” as the applicationThen pick DigitalOcean as the cloud provider and the smallest server (1 GB). That is the $11 plan and it is plenty for years.
- Name your server and launchGive it any name, choose the location nearest most of your future readers (New York or London are safe bets), and click Launch. Go make a coffee; it takes a few minutes.
- Connect your domainIn Namecheap, point your domain’s A record at the server IP Cloudways shows you, then add the domain under Domain Management in Cloudways. Turn on the free SSL certificate while you are there.
- Open your dashboardUnder Access Details you will find your WordPress login. That is step 4. You are already ahead.
Step three0 minutes, seriously
Install WordPress. Free pass!
Back in 2016 this step involved a control panel, a database, and a small prayer. Not any more. Every host on this page installs WordPress for you: Bluehost and SiteGround do it automatically when your account is created, and Cloudways does it the moment you pick “WordPress” while launching your server.
WordPress is the free software your blog actually runs on. It powers something like four in ten websites on the internet, including this one, and the version you are getting in 2026 (WordPress 7.0, released in May) has a cleaner, redesigned dashboard than the one I learned on. You will be fine.
Make sure it is the software from wordpress.org that your host installs, not a site-builder of their own. It always is on the three hosts above, but if a signup flow ever asks “WordPress or our builder?”, pick WordPress. It is the one that lets you own, move, and monetise everything later.
- CloudwaysInstalled when you chose WordPress at launch. Find the login under
Access Details. - SiteGroundInstalled during signup. Open
WebsitesthenWordPress Adminin your client area. - BluehostInstalled when your account is created. Click
WebsitesthenEdit site.
Step four10 minutes
Log in and do the ten-minute setup.
Go to yourdomain.com/wp-admin, enter the username and password your host gave you, and boom. You’re in. This is your dashboard: the place you will write, design, and run everything from.
Before you touch the fun stuff, spend ten minutes on the five settings listed here. Every one of them is far easier to set now than to fix after you have published fifty posts. I learned most of these the hard way.
Already have a blog on WordPress.com, Blogger, or Substack? You do not have to start over. I wrote a free seven-step migration guide that brings your posts, images, and comments with you.
- Permalinks
SettingsthenPermalinks: choose Post name. Your links become yourdomain.com/your-post-title instead of ?p=123. Do this first; changing it later breaks every link you have shared. - Title and tagline
SettingsthenGeneral: set your blog name and a one-line tagline. Set your time zone while you are there so scheduled posts go out when you expect. - HTTPSMake sure both URLs on that same screen start with https://. Your host’s free SSL certificate does the rest. Browsers flag sites without it.
- Clean houseDelete the “Hello world!” post and the sample page. Under
Users, change your display name so posts do not show your login username. - Discussion
SettingsthenDiscussion: tick “Comment must be manually approved”. You will thank me the first time the spam arrives.
Step five30 minutes, then stop
Choose a theme. Now the fun part.
A theme is the design foundation of your blog: the layout, the fonts, the colours, the way posts are displayed. Go to Appearance then Themes then Add New, and you can preview and install thousands of them without leaving your dashboard.
Don’t worry about getting it perfect. It takes time to make a site look exactly the way you want, and I switched my theme five times before finding one I fell in love with. Remember, this is a process. In 2026 the modern themes are “block themes”, which means you can edit the header, footer, and every layout visually inside WordPress with no code at all.
Whether you go free or paid is up to your budget. My advice: start with one of the free ones below, live with it for a month, and only pay for the premium version once you know what you are missing.
Judge a theme by speed and readability on a phone, not by the demo’s stock photos. A fast, plain theme with your own photographs will always beat a flashy one that loads slowly. Speed is a ranking factor and a reader-patience factor.
Fast, flexible, and made for blogs. Beautiful starter templates you can install in one click and make your own.
Tiny and quick. If you want your site to load instantly on hostel Wi-Fi, this is the one.
Hundreds of templates including travel-blog layouts. Huge community, so every question is already answered somewhere.
WordPress’s own default theme. Clean, modern, fully block-based, and already installed. Zero decisions required.
Step six30 minutes, or $30
Make a logo. Simple beats clever.
You will want some kind of logo for your site. If you are artistic, draw something and photograph it. If you have design skills, open Illustrator. If you have neither, honestly, your blog’s name set in a nice font is a perfectly good logo for year one. Plenty of huge blogs never went further than that.
The free route is Canva: pick a logo template, type your name, change the colours, download. Twenty minutes. The paid route is Fiverr, where a decent custom logo runs about $20 to $50 in 2026 and the truly good designers charge more.
I will be honest: I have yet to have anything amazing come from a $5 Fiverr gig. I paid $35 for a design once and was happy with it. The $5 project, not so much. It is like they say: you get what you pay for. Fiverr is a great platform and I have friends who have had wonderful luck there. Just read the reviews, look at the portfolio, and pay for the tier above the cheapest.
Pick your two colours now and write the hex codes down. Use them on the logo, the theme, your Pinterest pins, and your Instagram highlights. Consistency is most of what “branding” actually is.
Step seven20 minutes
Add plugins. Just these eight.
Plugins make a world of difference in what your blog can do. Want an interactive map like the one on my home page? There’s a plugin for that. A contact form, a recipe card, a photo gallery, a “pin it” button? Plugins for all of it. New ones appear every day. Go to Plugins then Add New, search by name, click Install, then Activate.
Here is the catch: too many plugins slow your site down, and slow sites lose readers and rankings. Every one of them is a small program running on every page load. Start with the eight below, which cover everything a new blog genuinely needs, and add others only when you hit a real problem.
Tells you how to title and structure each post so Google understands it. Free plan is more than enough. (Yoast is the classic alternative.)
One click restores your whole site after a bad update or a hack. The plugin I am most grateful for.
A firewall and login protection. Bots start guessing your password within hours of launch; this shuts them out.
Breeze on Cloudways, Speed Optimizer on SiteGround, or WP Rocket anywhere. Caching is the single biggest speed win.
Shrinks every photo you upload without visible loss. Travel blogs live and die by image size.
A contact form in two minutes, so brands and readers can reach you. Mine is on the Say Hi page.
Connects Search Console and Analytics inside your dashboard so you can see what people search to find you.
Share buttons plus the plugin you will need when you apply for ad income later (see step 10). Install it early.
Step eight1 hour
Write your About page. Tell the world who you are.
Every blog begins somewhere, and the first thing you should write is not a post. It is your About page: who you are, what your blog is for, and why someone should stick around. It will be one of the most visited pages on your site for as long as it exists, so let your personality show. Be creative. Be specific. Be a person.
On my blog I have both an About Me page and a page about where the blog is headed. The first explains my background; the second is future-oriented. That split was a personal choice you do not need to copy. My suggestion: start simple and focus on one great “About Me”.
A structure that works: one sentence on who you are, one paragraph on the moment that started all this, three things a reader will get from your blog, one photo of your actual face, and a way to say hi. Then link to your three best posts once you have them. Readers who hit your About page are deciding whether to trust you; make it easy.
Step nine45 minutes
Build an audience you actually own.
In 2016 I told you to grab every social handle and set up Facebook and Twitter at the very least. Ten years on, the order has flipped. Start with email. An email list is the one audience no algorithm, platform sale, or AI summary can take away from you, and it is where nearly every blogger I know now makes most of their income.
I use Kit (formerly ConvertKit) for this blog. It is free for up to 10,000 subscribers, the forms drop into WordPress in minutes, and it lets you deliver a free download the moment someone subscribes. That is exactly how my Travel Field Guide reaches new readers. You are welcome to join my list and see the whole thing in action.
Then pick two social platforms, not six. For a travel blog I would choose Pinterest, which works like a search engine and keeps sending traffic to a pin for years, plus one place for short video, Instagram or YouTube. Grab your handles everywhere so nobody else can, but only show up regularly where your readers actually are.
Automate what you can so you can work smarter, not harder. I schedule my pins and posts with Tailwind, which has a free plan and covers Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. One afternoon a month fills the queue.
Free to 10,000 subscribers, then plans from $33 a month. Forms, landing pages, and free downloads for subscribers, all included.
Pins keep working for years. Make one vertical pin per post with your two brand colours and your post title on it.
Pick one. Fifteen seconds of a real place with a real voice-over outperforms any polished montage.
Free plan to start; Pro is about $15 a month billed yearly. Queue a month of pins and posts in one sitting.
Step tenThe rest of your life, happily
Write, write, write.
Of course, the most important step is the one that never ends: publish good writing, consistently. You are set up now. Everything from here is the work, and the work is the fun part. Dedicate yourself and you will succeed. I know you can do it.
What “good” means has changed, though. In 2026 the posts that get found and shared are the ones only you could have written: the hostel you actually slept in, the bird that actually landed on your hand, the border crossing that actually went wrong. Generic “top ten things to do” posts are what AI summarises. Your experience is what it cannot.
A rhythm that works: one post a week, written from a trip you took, with your own photographs. Answer a question a real person would type, tell the story, and end with what you would do differently. I still write about what I have learned after all these years, and lesson one remains: blogging is a marathon, not a sprint.
How blogs get found in 2026Four doors, not one
Google still sends the most readers, especially for specific questions AI answers badly: prices, routes, “is it open”, “is it safe”.
The quiet giant for travel. A pin from 2019 can still bring people to your post today.
The only door you own. Every post goes to your subscribers first, before any algorithm decides.
Original, first-hand pages get cited and surfaced. Write things that can only be true because you were there.
When does the money show up?A realistic timeline
Recommend the gear, hostels, and tools you genuinely use. Small at first, but it compounds with every post.
The entry-level ad programme. Requires the Grow plugin from step 7 and original content. Your first real cheque.
The premium ad networks. This is where a blog starts paying rent. Took me years; it can take you less.
A guide, a preset pack, an itinerary. Kit can sell it for you. This is where the real margins are.
What it costsYear one, all in
Less than a weekend almost anywhere.
Two honest budgets for your first twelve months. Both get you a real, self-hosted blog with your own domain, a good theme, and an email list. The difference is how much you pay for speed and simplicity.
Prices checked September 2026 and rounded to the dollar. The lean start rises to about $232 in year two when SiteGround renews at $17.99 a month and the domain at about $16; the Cloudways budget stays the same. Either way, one small affiliate sale a month covers it.
QuestionsThe ones I get most
Answers, before you ask.
Anything else? Say hi and ask me directly. Helping a new blogger get started is one of my favourite parts of doing this.
Do I need to know how to code?+
No. Not one line. Everything on this page is done by clicking through screens, and modern block themes let you design visually. I built my first version of this blog knowing nothing, and broke it plenty of times, and support always put it back together.
WordPress.com or WordPress.org? What’s the difference?+
WordPress.org is the free software; you install it on hosting you rent (steps 2 and 3) and you own everything. WordPress.com is a company that hosts that software for you on a subscription, with fewer decisions and fewer freedoms. Self-hosted is what this guide builds and what nearly every professional blog uses, but starting on WordPress.com and migrating later is completely fine.
Can I really do all this while travelling?+
Yes, and I would argue it is the best time. Every step here works from a laptop on hostel Wi-Fi, and steps 8 to 10 work from a phone. Nothing needs to download or install on your computer; it all happens in a browser. Write on the train, publish from the café.
Is blogging dead now that AI answers everything?+
Generic blogging is struggling, yes. Clicks on informational searches have dropped sharply where AI summaries appear. But the summaries have to come from somewhere, and first-hand, specific, personal pages are what gets cited and what people still click through to read. Build an email list from day one and you are not dependent on any of it. I have watched three “blogging is dead” cycles in thirteen years.
How long until I make money?+
Honestly: months to years, not weeks. Affiliate links can earn from your first post, entry-level ads start around 1,000 sessions a month, and the premium networks at roughly 25,000 pageviews. Most people quit before the curve bends. If you publish weekly for a year, you will be ahead of nearly everyone who started with you.
Should I start on Substack or Medium instead?+
They are wonderful for getting words out fast, and a terrible place to build a home. You cannot design them, you cannot fully own the audience, and they can change the rules at any time. Use them as extra doors if you like, but build the house on your own domain.
GoYour turn
Your first post is one afternoon away.
You have the name, the host, the steps, and the honest numbers. The only thing left is the part nobody can do for you. Start today, while it is still exciting. Then send me the link.
Originally published October 15, 2016Rebuilt September 2026All my blogging tools
