The hidden challenge behind great visual content

Here's the thing about travel blogging: visuals are everything. But behind every stunning photo is something most creators dread—writing alt text.

Skip it, and you're missing out on SEO juice and leaving screen reader users in the dark. Write it manually for 20-30 images per post? That's 5+ hours you could spend creating actual content.

This exact challenge nearly burned out Amanda, co-founder of Simply Awesome Trips—until she discovered AltText.ai, an AI-powered alt text generator that cut her workflow from hours to minutes.

Meet Amanda: storytelling through images

Amanda Luhn and her business partner Amy Ragsdale run two complementary travel blogs:

• Simply Awesome Trips - Their global family travel site with complete itineraries
• Backyard Knoxville - Their hyper-local East Tennessee travel guide

They go way beyond "here's what to see"—they actually tell you stuff like where to park, which entrance to use with a stroller, and whether that "family-friendly" restaurant actually has high chairs.

"You know how you look at a photo and instantly think 'nope, my toddler would face-plant on those rocks'? That's what we're showing parents," Amanda explains. "Is that path actually stroller-friendly? Are there guard rails? Parents need those details."

Picture this: 20-30 photos per post. Now write a description for each one. Yeah, exactly—it was killing their productivity.

The alt text struggle: essential but exhausting

Before AltText.ai, Amanda manually wrote alt text for every single image. While she knew it was necessary for accessibility, the process was draining.

"I do know there are people who use screen readers. I want my descriptions to be helpful. But after image 15, you're basically typing 'another freaking waterfall' and calling it a day."

We're talking 5 hours of mind-numbing typing. Hours she could've spent, you know, actually running her business. Or sleeping.

Platform shift: from Squarespace to WordPress

Amanda's journey to alt text automation started with a major platform change. Back in the day, she and Amy went with Squarespace because, well, it looked easy enough.

"Look, neither Amy nor I could code our way out of a paper bag. Squarespace seemed perfect—drag, drop, done. We had no idea what we were missing."

Then reality hit. Their photo-heavy posts were loading like it was 1999. No real plugin options. Customization? Forget it. WordPress was calling their name.

The migration? Total nightmare—you basically have to rebuild everything from scratch. But once they got to WordPress, a whole world opened up, including this one plugin that changed everything.

Discovering AltText.ai: "This can't be for real"

One day, a blogger group chat lit up with excitement: AltText.ai was back on AppSumo. Amanda figured, why not?

"I downloaded it thinking, 'No way this actually works for $49.' But then I tried it. Amy and I literally high-fived over Zoom."

She'd tried other AI tools before—total garbage. But this one actually got it right.

"Some AI tools would spit out something like, 'Majestic waters embrace the golden dawn' or some poetic nonsense. Cool story, but blind users need to know what's actually in the photo. AltText.ai was different—it described exactly what was in the picture."

Automation with a human touch

By enabling Instant Alt in the WordPress plugin, Amanda could set and forget alt text generation. Every new image uploaded to WordPress gets automatically tagged with accurate descriptions.

"Maybe 1 out of 20 times I'll tweak something. Like if it says 'canyon' but doesn't mention it's THE Grand Canyon, I'll add that. But 95% of the time? Nailed it."

Now she could actually publish more posts instead of spending entire afternoons describing photos.

The results: doubled traffic and saved sanity

Look, they changed a bunch of stuff at once, so who knows what did what. But here's what Amanda does know: proper alt text makes Google happy.

"Our traffic literally doubled—shot from 50K to 110K monthly visitors in about 8 months. Was it all the alt text? Who knows. But I'm sure AltText.ai played a part in that climb."

Thousands of images, all properly tagged. Google Images loves that stuff. Screen readers work better. Everyone wins.

Why AltText.ai works for bloggers

Amanda points to three reasons why AltText.ai has been a game-changer:

1. Time savings: We're talking hours back in your week—not minutes, hours.
2. Accuracy: It actually describes what's in the photo (revolutionary, right?).
3. Scalability: It just works with WordPress—upload, done.

"This is what AI should be doing—the boring stuff we all hate. Let the robots write 'family walking on beach path' so I can focus on actually helping families plan trips."

Real talk for other bloggers

Amanda's pretty blunt about this: "If you're still typing alt text by hand in 2025, what are you even doing?"

"Your photos ARE your content in travel blogging. So why are you torturing yourself with manual descriptions when a tool exists that does it better and faster?"

Do the math: 4 posts a month × 5 hours = 20 hours. That's literally half a work week. You could write 4 more posts in that time. Or, you know, have a life.

Ready to save 5 hours per post?

Amanda puts it this way: "I'd cancel Netflix before I'd cancel AltText.ai." Now she can actually focus on what matters—finding cool places families will love and telling them about it.

"It solved a huge problem we had, for a great price. I'll happily sing its praises because it's saved us so much time."

Related Resources for Travel Bloggers

• Best Practices for Writing Effective Alt Text
• Bulk Fix Old Alt Text with Our WordPress Plugin
• How AltText.ai Pricing & Credits Work
• Enhancing ADA Compliance with Alt Text