Creating a travel blog is a great way to keep your friends and family updated with your travels. I previously created a list of free travel blog hosts. Those are all good basic solutions, but if you want more features and control, such as your own custom domain name, I recommend using Wordpress software hosted on your own domain name, like www.your-custom-domain-name.com. Site5 also offers automatic installation of photo gallery software like Coppermine, Gallery2, and 4images, as well as mailing list software like PHPlist, and much more...

It's easy! Here are the steps:

Get cheap Web site hosting plan like Site5. I recommend Site5 because they have 1-click-installations, which makes the process a lot easier. This site is hosted on Site5, and in the examples below I am using Site5.

(You can also register your custom domain name through Site5.)

After you have set up your account, login to your new control panel and look for the link that says "CGI and PHP Scripts", which is highlighted below. Clicking on that will show the link below it called "Fantastico":

After clicking on the "Fantastico" link, you should see a page something like the following. Note the section called "Blogs" in the left sidebar. Click on the WordPress link as shown below:

Then follow the instructions on the screen, entering your blog username and password information into the section highlighted below:

After that your WordPress blog will be installed on your own domain name! If you have any questions, please leave a comment below or in the forums and I will try to answer them.