Blogs were around for a long time before they had a name. I started mine in 1998. We just called them "personal websites".
As to Travel Blogging, I actually implemented the grandparent's idea back in 2005, right when the Google Maps API became available. We just passed the 10,000 blog mark last month. Check it out:
When you say blogs were around for a long time, I know there must have been people publishing journal type sites, but what I think was key with blogger was that anybody, not just webmasters, could post frequently and effortlessly.
"Blogs were around for a long time before they had a name."
Exactly. We simply called this concept 'Travel Journals'.
The main obstacle we faced in 1998 was that most people didn't have digital cameras yet and the scanning and uploading of photos was a serious timesuck.
