The Top 50 Travel Blogs Have Been Announced

Rick Steves: Blog Gone Europe, Hole in the Donut and Everything Everywhere have been named as three of the most influential Travel blogs. This is according to the Top Independent Travel Blogs and Bloggers report. The report is designed for Travel companies, PR agencies and Ad agencies that use blogs and social networks to promote their Travel brands.

Using blogs for brand promotion is extremely powerful. The total combined audience for the top 150 independent travel blogs is over three million visitors a month. 'That is a huge number of visitors, who read more than seven million pages a month' says Mathew Ryder, the Communications Manager at Konector. 'What is even better is these visitors have made an active decision to read the blogs. They have a genuine interest in the content and are often themselves seen as influencers, continuing to spread the word. Travel companies can position their brands in front of these targeted consumers, all 3.2 million of them. They can then monitor the conversations, gather all the feedback and measure the success of the campaign'.

Although the number of visitors is important, it is not the only requirement to make the Konector list. 'When ranking the blogs we focus on three main criteria - reach, frequency and interaction,' says Kingsley Maunder, a Director at Konector. 'We therefore use our proprietary Online Impact Factor to measure how many people visit a blog, how often they visit that blog, the time spent on the blog and how active they are once they get there.'

So what separates the top Travel blogs from the others?

Konector found many different types of travel blogs, ranging in style and content and identified that the more influential blogs focused on a particular element of the travel experience. Examples of such are Upgrade: Travel Better, aimed specifically at business and frequent flyers, GoBackpacking, which is the 'go to site' for budget travelers and students, and Travel Savvy Mom for the family friendly destinations and hotels. Alternatively Go Visit Hawaii, Knowing Rome and India Travel Blog focus on particular destinations.
'Permanent tourist style blogs such as Hole in the Donut and Heather on her travels also ranked highly in the report,' says Maunder. 'They connect on a personal level, both blogger and reader together in ways that glossy brochures and highly produced travel commercials can