Phil Strats: Travel Blog Showcase
A demo travel blog I built to show the kind of blog platform I make for clients: searchable guides, a newsletter, analytics, and SEO built in from day one.
- Role
- Showcase project: design, development, and deployment
- Stack
- Next.js
- React
- Tailwind CSS
- Markdown
- EmailJS
- Buttondown
- Google Analytics
- Google Tag Manager
- Netlify
- Links
- Visit siteCode
The problem
The blog I built for a freelance client isn't mine to share publicly, so I built Phil Strats to show the same skills in the open: a blog that's easy to keep publishing to, easy for readers to browse, and easy for Google to find.
My approach
I built it with Next.js and Tailwind CSS, with guides written in Markdown so a new destination is just a new file. Readers can search guides and filter them by experience (beaches, nature, heritage) or island group (Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, Palawan). Every guide follows the same structure: quick facts, a table of contents, top attractions, how to get there, where to stay, and a suggested itinerary.
Highlights
- Search plus experience and region filters across 9 destination guides
- Article pages with table of contents, reading time, and author byline
- Structured data (Article, FAQ, Breadcrumb), Open Graph cards, canonical URLs, sitemap
- Weekly newsletter signup through Buttondown
- Contact form powered by EmailJS, with no backend needed
- Traffic tracking with Google Analytics via Tag Manager
The outcome
A live, public example of my blog work: fast, SEO-ready, and deployed on Netlify, with analytics and a newsletter wired up the way I'd ship them for a client.
