10 Inspiring Travel Blogs of Enthusiastic Travellers from Russia

Today in our blog, we will delve into one of the key online marketing trends in 2019 in more detail—this is promotion through bloggers. We have already discussed the importance of use of this channel to communicate with tourists in the Russia market several times.

It is bloggers who largely influence the perception of basically any tourism brand by modern tourists. However, there is a question: where and how do you find travel bloggers? We decided to make this task a bit easier for representatives of travel industry and made our selection of 10 amusing travel blogs of enthusiastic travellers from Russia.

Своим Ходом

Rus. ‘on one’s own’

A young couple from Saint Petersburg has been travelling across various countries for 8 years already and cheering their subscribers with wonderful content about travels and breathtaking stories from different places of the planet. There are motorbike travels, cycle travels, walking tours, and cruises. In their blog, the bloggers mostly tell how to travel across countries on one’s own and without extra expenses, which is extremely topical for the Russian market.

The blog is presented in all most popular social media of the Russian Internet:

• Youtube – 145K subscribers – main channel of travel bloggers
• Instagram – 269K subscribers
• VKontakte — 84K subscribers
• Facebook — 3K subscribers
• Odnoklassniki — 2K subscribers

Apart from that, the young couple maintains the website svoimxodom.ru where they also upload videos from their trips.

Похождения по жизн

Rus. ‘life journeys’

One more popular platform where you can find good blogs of travelers is the Russian LiveJournal.

One of such is a blog by Alexander Lapshin puerrtto.livejournal.com, a journal about numerous travels (nearly 140 states), which is divided by regions and continents for readers’ convenience. The blogger, journalist, and just travel lover shares not only his impressions, but also historic facts about venues that he visited. No matter whether it will be a story about a whole country or a separate district of a city—interesting facts combined with good pictures resonate with readers, and this is why his journal is in Top 100 LJ in Russia.

According to Google Analytics, from October 16, 2017 until October 16, 2018 the blog has been visited by 1.304 million unique guests, while the average monthly visitation is 122 thousand people. An average advertising post, therefore, will be read by 35-90 thousand people, depending on its theme. The readership comes mostly from Russia (nearly 60%).

All articles are published in the following author’s channels:

• LiveJournal (at the time of preparation of this article, Alexander’s journal is in the 98th place in the total LJ rating)
• Facebook — 21K subscribers
• Twitter — 2K subscribers

Ярко о путешествиях

Rus. ‘bright about travel’

One more interesting travel blog in all of LJ is alexcheban.livejournal.com maintained by Alexander Cheban, a media expert in aviation, traveling, and photography.

There are more than 70 countries visited by him on his list, whereof he told in his journal.

We would especially like to turn attention of air company owners to this blogger because Alexander Cheban is a real professional when presenting and reviewing air companies. However, other representatives of travel industry will also be interested in cooperation with an expert like him—just pictures made by this blogger make you lose your breath!

When publishing a post in his blog, he also announces it on his pages in social media, which notably increases the reach:

• LiveJournal — 200-300K views per month; every post has 20-40K views on average
• Facebook — 15K
• Instagram — 15K
• VKontakte — 2K

Другие путешествия

Rus. ‘different travels’

On the pages of his journal macos.livejournal.com, Alexander Belenkii shares his photo stories about places and countries, people and their lifestyle. The travel blogger has a numerous audience both in LJ and on social media pages, which can give excellent results of advertising placement as per reach of Russian-speaking audience when cross-posting.

In LiveJournal, there are 600-700K unique visitors per month and more than 2 million views.

• VKontakte — 6.9K subscribers
• Odnoklassniki — 63K subscribers
• Facebook — 17K subscribers
• Instagram — 35K subscribers
• Twitter — 3.8K subscribers

Другие путешествия Ольги Салий

Rus. ‘different travels by Olga Salii’

This is a blog with a name similar to the previous one, but it differs with its presentation technique and content, as well as its platform—this travel blog is on a separate website free-writer.ru.

The travel blog of the international photographer and journalist Olga Salii is characterized by vibrant pictures and a professional approach. Every new post is a real travel guide to a country, city, or region with facts and recommendations that are important for tourists. She does not only write about interesting landmarks, but also provides useful advice, for example, how to get a visa to one or another country or where to buy tickets cheaper.

As for advertising placement, she only writes about what can be checked by own experience and told about it on her blog pages or where she can get and write about what she saw or tested herself. More than 3,500 unique visitors come to her blog daily (published on the blogger’s website).

• VKontakte — 10K subscribers
• Facebook — nearly 3K friends and subscribers
• Instagram — 21K subscribers (here Olga mostly shares pictures from photo sessions without any details in descriptions)

Guides by Oleg Lazhechnikov

One more interesting travel blog Life-trip.ru is one by an experienced traveller who gives very many useful life hacks on organizing one’s own tour and staying in different countries and does not hide real daily routine of real life, as it often happens in blogs. He does not only travel across countries, but also strives for living there for a while or visits same countries several times to learn the region’s culture and peculiarities better and share his discoveries with readers.

In his travel blog, Oleg publishes (text, video) reviews of and reports on cities, hotels, restaurants, and other tourist spots, coming there. He mostly visits European countries, Thailand, and Russia.

On average, his blog is monthly visited by nearly 250 thousand people (as of January 2018).

• VKontakte — 7K subscribers
• Facebook — 2K subscribers
• Instagram — 45K subscribers (with the content mostly about travels and life with a child)

Blog by Mila Demenkova

Bptrip.ru is a blog on how to arrange a travel on your own, saving money as well (what is still very important for most Russian tourists). She writes a lot about neighboring countries (especially Georgia). She also writes about travels to Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

In her blog, she thoroughly describes countries where she was, provides prices and budget that will be needed for a flight to and stay in one or another country, and tells about places that are worth seeing.

• VKontakte — 4K subscribers
• Facebook — 3K subscribers
• Instagram — 4K subscribers

Diary.Travel

In the Russian Internet, there are a lot of travel blogs on independent travels alone or in pair, but this blog is different by the fact that a family travels with three children. In the blog, you can find stories about travels, interesting articles about countries, photos and videos from trips, life hacks, secrets of online earnings, useful tips for travelers and, what matters most, peculiarities of traveling with children. From the blog, you can find out how to make a trip with children by car, about a flight with a little child, about how to make a vacation with children unforgettable and interesting. Besides, bloggers prove by their own experience that a vacation with a kid under 3 years old is possible.

• The Diary.Travel blog has been maintained for more than 5 years, since 2013.
• Monthly blog audience is nearly 50,000 unique visitors.
• There are nearly 300 articles published in the website, and their number is constantly growing.
• The most popular articles of the Diary.Travel blog count up to 150,000 views per year.

By the way, note that many bloggers publish a list of countries that they are going to visit. This is one more opportunity, for instance, for hotels to get a review from a blogger without paying for his or her flight to the country.

Путешествия наедине с мечтой

Rus. ‘travels alone with a dream’

Olgakolos.ru is a blog by an independent traveler Olga Kolos, whose list, as of today, counts 95 visited countries (independent states, disputed territories, and dependent territories).

The traveler writes detailed stories where she shares interesting things that happened to her on her way, as well as important practical information about the route (prices for hotels, transport, entrance tickets, bus departure times, description of accommodation etc.).

Since 2016, Olga has been traveling with her child (her son’s first travel was when he was 2 months old), and since then, useful information for travelers with children has been appearing in the blog, like, what countries to go to and what to see to have an easy and wonderful trip.

Sunsurfers (Movement of Free Travelers)

This is an unusual travel blog sunsurfers.ru that transformed into a peculiar movement of sunsurfers, a community of soulmates who travel a lot, constantly develop, live a healthy lifestyle, and share accumulated knowledge via the Internet and events in various countries of the world.

The blog presents reports from the events held, interviews with experienced travelers, useful tips and life hacks, as well as videos from travels of the movement founder Marat Khasanov.

• VKontakte — 31K subscribers
• Facebook — 3.5K subscribers
• Instagram — 11.9K subscribers
• Youtube — 16.5K subscribers

If you decided to promote your travel brand via bloggers, RMAA Travel experts will help you elaborate and conduct various events and activities with opinion leaders, as well as select bloggers, relying on the specifics of your business.

Besides, we recommend you to read our article Brand Ambassador: How to Work with Opinion Leaders in the Russian Market that will help you understand what you should pay attention to when choosing a blogger for cooperation in the Russian market.