Just going on vacation is not enough these days. No, the world needs to know that Aunt Inge stepped on a sea urchin on the island of Tenerife  or, where you can buy the cheapest vodka in Novosibirsk. Travel blogs are very much in trend – who still hasn’t an internet diary, is considering getting one.

Caution is warranted, because blogger aspirants underestimate the amount of work and need to know: it is not a thing, such as a real-life diary made of paper, but a virtual pet, and a very demanding one on top. Even before aquiring a travel blog, you need to create a habitat and find a suitable server space. This is the best time to settle the question, if your travel blog will have the size of a Chihuahua, a chronological one-pager or do you want the Great Dane with photo albums and videos?

Soon the future blogger realizes that he is a user and not a programmer. The beautiful layout that he had in mind, can impossibly be realized (by himself). None of the many free templates will fit. One begins to tear their hair. A tip for mental health: Who has concrete ideas, best to go straight to a web designer.

At this point, if you haven’t put down the project yet and gone on vacation instead, the real work starts now. “Feed me!” the little one shouts. Content is what he wants, and regularly, preferably daily, at least weekly, otherwise the readers will jump off like thirsty fleas. The travel blog thrives on attention and wants to catch the clicks of the deleterious network passersby.

Every now and then you forget an update, or you do not notice the pesky bugs in the source code. If your travel blog spits out the photo uploads, hides, or even displays the “white page of death”, immediately go to the “vet”.

Because people do not realize until afterwards how much work such a travel blog means, many of the comical websites end up on the curb of the information highway. The Internet does not forget and so they sit there forever, inevitably slipping down on the Google hit list. With big, sad eyes they are waiting on the return of their owner who probably has taken on new, less labor-intensive projects, for example, a Twitter. The little dicky needs way less food.