I recently purchased this premium theme called GoExplore because this is the theme that I believe would best fit my online travel agency startup. It has most of the features I need without having to start from scratch or do it all in php. I think it is also cheaper to buy a premium theme already with some special plugins than to hire a very expensive web developer that I couldn't afford. It would also be cheaper and faster to just hire a freelancer who could customize my wordpress theme to suit my business needs.
This is what has been keeping me busy all day. Forgive me, I'm not so technical and I only have some intermediate knowledge of CSS, Html, Photoshop, and MySQL, so I can still edit some parts or elements of the site. But there would be some advanced designs and forms that I would need to hire a designer on Fiverr for those. I could also buy a Woocommerce plugin as well, so travelers can easily add tours to the cart and easily design custom itineraries themselves. Well, that would cost me some money again so I'll just buy it later. Anyway, I also don't have all the time in the world to learn how to do some advanced customizations.
I really like the theme and it's super responsive and has a modern layout, so please don't tell me to change the theme because I already spent $80 for it. And please don't make me regret, ha! But I welcome any design inputs to this theme. My friend just sent me some money so I could purchase it finally. Unlike other entrepreneurs or startup founders out there, I don't have parents, a garage, free place to stay, access to wealth, rich relatives, connection with the banks and even a job to fund it all, so in reality, I'm financially incapable of doing this all on my own. I just have the guts and nothing more - so please, give chance to others.
What I like about this theme is the 'destinations' plugin, as you can see above, this is the Section 2 on the homepage, there is this thing called 'accordion' where you can feature the places in each destination. This is super cool and easy to edit. You can also easily add directories and subcategories.
There's also the typical slider and articles below which are all neatly arranged. My purpose is not to crowd the website too much but I also don't want it to be too minimalist. It's about traveling to colorful places so it's normal for the page to have bright colors on it, but I still want to have a touch of dark gray or black for elegance. Besides, I love black and dark gray so I'm keeping those colors. I want my website to have my personality on it.
Tadaaaaa here's a preview of my nice and sleek website which I'm editing on a localhost. When you scroll down, the navigation bar also changed from transparent to dark gray. I really like that transition effect.
That is the actual place and I might need to beg for HD photos from travelers passing through or sit and wait for some charity donation of a 2nd hand proper camera, or at least any point & shoot digicams with zoom would do. At the moment I only have an action cam for underwater photos. I also chose those colors for my logo because emerald is the color of the waters and green is for the lush mountains. I want to keep the theme in those colors because those clearly represent the island.
On the Featured Tours on the homepage, I want to replace the destination name with a number of days instead. I even created some catchy tour itinerary names that would have some specific activities (scuba diving, island-hopping, snorkeling) and places (lagoons, hidden beaches, and coves). Probably some summary or overview too with 'read more'. I also need to have an enquiry/booking form below that section which is not part of this theme.
While it's still rainy, I would be focusing on the website for now. Hopefully, I would be able to explore other unexplored places that I would like to offer too, and also be able to capture nice photos with a bright blue sky.
Those who are experts in web design or have some experience in travel agency websites, I would appreciate your feedback and suggestions. Thank you!