So, you’re looking for a WordPress travel theme. We’ve got your back on this!

We did the heavy-lifting for you and covered the research. Now, there are two types of themes that we’ve chosen:

• Dedicated WordPress travel themes,
• Multipurpose WordPress themes that include travel templates (aka starter sites or demo sites).

Now, let me clear out these terms a bit: themes and templates. Themes are the backbone of any WordPress website. They control the layout of a website. Website templates are ready-made website designs. They don’t come with extra functionalities. These templates affect the layout of specific pages of a site. They can be catered to specific niches: travel, food, restaurant, health, sports, church, ebook themes, etc. When you use a template you will most probably notice that it has some specific pages such as: front-page, about, contact, gallery, blog, etc. It all depends on the particularities of the niche.

Now, here goes or WordPress travel themes shortlist:

1. Pathway

Pathway is a recently-launched multipurpose WordPress theme. It was created to work perfectly with Kubio builder. Kubio is a new generation WordPress website builder that levels up the Block Editor.

The Pathway – Kubio combo is very powerful, allowing you to design any site by drag and drop, starting from a demo site, or from scratch. Pathway has 30+ free and paid ready-made starter sites. The travel starter site is included in the Kubio paid plan.

Here’s what we like about Pathway and Kubio combo:

• Full site editing features, meaning that you can create your whole site in a single interface. In the previous WordPress experience, you would need to go back and forth from the Admin area to the Editor, to create a page.
• Drag and drop editor,
• 50+ Gutenberg blocks that you can customize however you see fit,
• Full control over fonts and color,
• Predesigned content sections for a variety of purposes: gallery, testimonials, contact us, etc.
• Sections can be saved and reused later,
• Mobile responsive design, 
• Great customer support,
• Kubio also has a gorgeous demo site for hotel websites,
• The free Kubio plan gives you a lot of design freedom.

Price: starts at $0.

2. Bridge

Bridge is another multipurpose WordPress theme that gives you full creative control over the design of your site.It has 612 demo sites, among which you will find 6 travel-dedicated ones: for tours, agency, blog, and more.

Why we like Bridge:

• It has full page builder functionality,
• 200+ fully customizable elements,
• Beautiful single posts and blog listing layouts,
• Transition animations,
• Infographic elements,
• Prompt support, 
• Detailed documentation.

Price: starts at $69.

3. Sitka

Sitka is a versatile theme that makes it a good fit for a food blog, lifestyle, fashion, or travel website. No matter if you are a WordPress aficionado or not, Stika is intuitive and easy to customize. Sitka comes packed with several templates, and a travel one is among them.

Here’s what we like about Sitka:

• Beautiful post layouts,
• 5 attractive blog feed layouts, many which offer further alternative styles,
• Full control over color and typography,
• Gutenberg-ready,
• Responsive design,
• Great customer support.

Price: $59.

4. TravelTour

As the name points out, this is a WordPress theme that is suitable for travel tour agencies.

Let’s take a look at the theme’s features:

• Several travel demo sites included,
• Tour booking system,
• Hotel booking system,
• Multi-currency options,
• Tour and hotel layouts,
• Customizable booking fields,
• Custom tour filters,
• Flexible pricing options,
• Powerful page builder included,
• Lots of header styles,
• Multiple layouts for portfolio, blog, gallery, etc.
• Easy color management,
• You can upload your own fonts,

Price: starts at $44.

5. Astra

Astra is a very popular multipurpose theme with a beautiful design. Among its demo sites it includes 6 travel-related ones. Here are their topics: tours, travel agency, outdoor adventure services, blog, and hotel.

What we like about Astra:

• Gutenberg-ready,
• Several site layouts available,
• Several blog layouts available,
• Custom fonts options,
• Full control over colors and typography,
• Compatibility with the most popular page builders out there,
• Powerful styling options inside the Customizer,
• Optimized for speed.

Price: starts at $0.

6. CityTours

Let me introduce you to CityTours: a flexible hotel & tour booking WordPress theme.

Here are the features that caught our eye:

• Flexible page layouts,
• Theme optimized for speed,
• Tons of customization options,
• Wishlist page,
• User dashboard page,
• Ability to set the hotel room prices based on days of the week,
• Car transfer feature.

Price: $59

7. Kadence

Kadence is a versatile theme that is highly optimized for performance. Its templates are easy to customize. Yes, Kadence is a multipurpose WordPress theme, but it also has a travel template available.

Here’s what we like about Kadence:

• Drag and drop header interface,
• Gutenberg-ready theme,
• Ready-made sections, 
• Great layout customization options,
• Typography control options,
• Sticky header,
• Responsive controls.

Price: starts at $59.

8. Blocksy

Blocksy is a popular multipurpose WordPress theme that also includes a travel starter site in its packages.

Here’s what you will like about the Blocksy WordPress theme:

• Gutenberg-ready,
• Lighter than the vast majority of WordPress themes,
• Translation-ready,
• 100% responsive,
• Works with the most popular WordPress page builders,
• Hyper-intuitive customization options,
• Drag and drop header builder,
• Full control over colors and typography.

Price: starts at $49.

9. Tripster

Tripster is a stylish WordPressblog  theme that is suitable for travel and lifestyle projects. 

Here are the most important Tripster features:

• A large variety of blog layouts,
• 7+ website demos,
• Clean and minimalist design
• Mobile-friendly design,
• Highly customizable WordPress theme.

Price: N/A. You can access the theme via an Envato subscription.

10. Zakra

Zakra is a popular multipurpose WordPress theme. In its packages it includes a demo site for a travel agency, and one for a travel blog.

Let’s check a bit some of its most important features:

• Fast-loading WordPress theme,
• Mobile-responsive,
• Translation-ready,
• Thorough documentation,
• EAsy-to-customize.

Price: starts at $48.

How to choose the perfect WordPress travel theme for you?

There are 9.000+ WordPress themes available on wordpress.org only. Others are listed on Envato or ThemeForest.

Yeah, choosing the right theme can be frustrating. But, you already know that you want a travel WordPress theme. This will help you filter a bit the available themes. What else should you consider?

Here’s a tiny checklist:

• Ask yourself whether the theme’s visual look meets your business goals. Do you want to start a travel blog? Do you want to sell travel packages? Do you want to manage hotel bookings? Do you want users to be able to create accounts and login? This means that you kinda need to create a minimum wireframe for your site, before choosing a theme. Yes, this is on you. And you need to make sure that you can integrate certain plugins that can manage user registration, booking systems, pricing lists, etc.

• Is the theme customizable enough to suit your needs? Do you want to use overlays, the parallax effect, certain interactive elements? Do you want to use sliders, carousels, galleries with various options to display beautiful images and videos? Can you have full control over colors, typography, spacing, hover effects, etc? If you combine any WordPress theme with Kubio (the block-based WordPress builder), you will have complete design freedom in a drag and drop interface.  

• Do the theme creators offer support? This is really important, because you might encounter situations that you do not know how to fix and you will need a helping hand.

• Was it updated in the last six months? 

Updates are very important for WordPress themes because they can introduce new features and solve various problems and bugs. Updates can help with website security and performance. Also, by choosing the up-to-date theme, you’ll ensure that your website is 100% compatible with the latest WordPress releases, all the major plugins, and the newest browser and mobile devices updates.

• What do other theme users say about the theme? What do the reviews look like?

Both the update and reviews info can be found on wordpress.org in the description of each theme.

If the theme you want to acquire is listed on Theme Forest, they also have info on reviews, sales, and updates.

• Does the theme look well on any device? Nowadays most of the WordPress themes out there are responsive out of the box, but you should make sure that you can make certain tweaks here and there (when necessary). You might need to make some changes that show up only on a certain device. Kubio, for example, allows you to make styling changes per device. For example, you could shorten the font-size for mobile only, or you can hide certain sections on mobile devices.

FINAL TIP: if we were to choose a WordPress theme, we would definitely choose a block-based, Gutenberg-ready theme or a Block-based builder. 

Why so?

Because blocks are the future of WordPress. The other themes are either upgrading the Customizer (which will become obsolete) or have their own custom editors. So, if you don’t wanna get stuck inside an experience that belongs to the old WordPress experience, a block-based WordPress theme should be your choice as well. 

In the above-mentioned themes there are several Gutenberg-ready themes. But, clearly, the Pathway-Kubio combo is our winner.

Now, if you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and start designing your travel site, here’s a tutorial that will help you out:

And that’s a wrap, folks!

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PS: you might also like this article about best mouses for travel. Feel free to have a look.