Whether you’re an avid traveler who likes to share your adventures, or the owner of a travel-related business, creating a travel blog has a lot of potential benefits. In fact, 80 percent of travel planning is done online. With such a large target audience, you’ll want to ensure that your travel blog stands out.
Fortunately, the WordPress theme development community has you covered. If you’re just getting started or you want to give your existing travel website a makeover, there are lots of free and premium themes to choose from.
In this article, we’ll take a look at five free and five premium themes. We’ll also highlight features they offer that might be helpful when creating an engaging travel blog. Grab your passport and let’s get going!
How to Choose a Theme to Display Your Adventures
Establishing your travel blog’s goals ahead of time can help you find a theme that offers the specific features you need. What you’re looking for will depend on your niche audience, but you may want to keep an eye out for
- Map functionality and other location-based features
- Enhanced photo galleries
- Ecommerce options, if you want to set up an associated online store
When choosing any WordPress theme, it’s also important to check out user reviews and ratings and make sure the developer provides frequent updates. Plus, you’ll want to consider your available budget. Fortunately, there are plenty of both free and premium options to pick from.
Best Free WordPress Themes for Travelers
If you’re not sure where to start, don’t worry. We’ll introduce ten of the best travel-related WordPress themes you can check out. First, we’ll look at five free options, and then we’ll explore five affordable premium themes.
1. MinimalistBlogger
MinimalistBlogger is a clean and elegant blogger theme, with a travel-specific child theme. This means that, if you choose to use the child theme, you’ll get all the same great features with a few tweaks that support travel-specific content. Whichever version you choose, however, the theme comes with plenty of features to help you attract readers and tell your stories.
Key Features:
- Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)-ready
- Offers easy sidebar widget features for affiliate links
- Includes highly customizable colors, logo options, titles, and more
- Features a responsive design for multiple screen sizes
Price: The lite version of this theme is free. Upgrades are available starting at $29, which gives you access to the travel child theme.
2. Matcha Blog
The Matcha Blog theme is a great choice for travel bloggers who want to showcase stunning images. While the free version of this theme has some limitations when it comes to customizing your home page and theme colors, it still includes many options that can make your job easier.
Key Features:
- Offers WooCommerce compatibility
- Is fully responsive
- Includes translation-ready templates
- Provides a user-friendly interface for customizations
Price: The base version of this theme is free. Single-site license upgrades are available for $29 and include travel-specific demo content to get you started.
3. Hello Elementor
If you use the Elementor page builder to create your WordPress travel blog, the Hello Elementor theme makes for a budget-friendly and highly functional companion. In fact, Elementor’s developers use this theme to test the page builder’s new features, so you know it will work flawlessly right out of the box.
Key Features:
- Is well-maintained and always up to date
- Easily integrates with most popular WordPress plugins
- Offers a light and fast design with minimal scripting
- Features developer-friendly code for easy customization
Price: This theme is free, and works best alongside the free Elementor page builder plugin.
4. Ashe
Ashe by WP-Royal is a theme that’s perfect for displaying your travel adventures. If you have multiple authors on your blog, Ashe is ready to support that as well. Plus, if you’re hoping to monetize your blog, you’ll have no problem integrating this theme with WooCommerce.
Key Features:
- Are retina and translation-ready
- Offers a well-documented codebase
- Boasts ease of use and customization
- Features a modern and responsive design
Price: This is a free theme, although you can upgrade to the pro version if you want more features for $29.
5. Kale
If your travel photos tell a story, Kale is a free theme that can help you share that tale with the world. This is a popular and highly-rated theme with clean designs and a unique front-page image slider feature. While it’s minimal in terms of design, your content will shine through thanks to the uncluttered page layouts.
Key Features:
- Includes custom navigation
- Offers multiple blog feed layouts
- Provides color overlay options for banners and sliders
- Boasts professional support from experienced developers
Price: Kale is free to use. You can upgrade for more features for $35, and receive updates and support for $7.99 per month.
Best Premium WordPress Themes for Travel Bloggers
Free themes have a lot to offer, but sometimes you need more options. Fortunately, there are also plenty of premium themes to pick from, so let’s explore a few top choices.
1. Roam
Roam is built to accommodate either a travel blog or a travel tour business website. You’ll get pre-loaded plugins that can help you get both types of websites up and running quickly. The theme is well-supported by its developer and is highly rated for customer support. If you’re looking to expand your travel blog into a site with booking options, Roam WP is an excellent choice.
Key Features:
- Provides booking functionality
- Offers customizable Google Maps
- Includes the WP Bakery Page Builder and Slider Revolution plugins
Price: This theme will cost you $79, which includes six months of support and future theme updates.
2. Insight
Insight is a magazine-style premium theme that’s WooCommerce-ready. Additionally, you’ll have dynamic image sliders and feature categories to help you build a unique home page. You’ll also be able to update the theme easily with just one click.
Key Features:
- Includes a theme-specific options panel
- Provides custom WPZOOM widgets for home page building
- Offers a visual customizer for easy branding of on-site elements
- Features various grid and list style choices
Price: This theme’s price is $69, which includes one year of support and automatic updates.
3. Travelista
Travelista was designed specifically for travel bloggers. You’ll have many post formats to choose from. including galleries, links, quotes, videos, and images. Plus, the theme offers a clean design that’s coded to respond well to multiple devices. If you’re looking for a wide variety of styles and formats to design your site with, Travelista is one of the most diverse options on our list.
Key Features:
- Offers nine different post formats
- Enables unlimited color choices
- Provides eight layout options
- Is widget-ready for flexible customizations
Price: A license for this theme is priced at $54, which includes six months of support and future theme updates.
4. Trawell
Trawell is a travel-specific theme with built-in tools for image customizations, which is useful for a photo-heavy website. Travel enables you to highlight certain widgets with custom color choices, and create unlimited sidebars that can be assigned to specific pages and posts. Additionally, this theme was created with speed in mind and boasts excellent performance.
Key Features:
- Offers Google maps integration
- Is easily branded, with unlimited font and color choices
- Provides various ad space options for monetization
- Integrates easily with most popular plugins
Price: This theme is priced at $69, which includes six months of support and future updates.
5. Essence Pro
Last but not least, Essence Pro is one of our own multipurpose premium themes, offered through StudioPress. Built to cater to the needs of lifestyle bloggers, Essence Pro is full of functionality that translates well for travel content. You’ll be able to showcase your travel blog with a clean and visually appealing design, which is built on the foundation of the Genesis Framework.
Key Features:
- Comes loaded with the Atomic Blocks and WPForms plugins
- Provides advanced support for the WordPress Block Editor
- Enables customizable headers
- Is Advanced Mobile Pages (AMP)-ready
Price: For $129, you can get the Genesis Framework Package, along with unlimited updates and support.
Share Your Adventures With WP Engine
Travel blogs can be a source of helpful information and advice for anyone planning a trip. If that’s the project you have in mind, choosing the right WordPress theme and applying the best developer resources can help you take your travel blog to new places.
Additionally, don’t forget to check out our fast and reliable hosting plans. That way, you can spend more time traveling and less time managing your website!
Hope this would help you,
Cheers 😃
