Voyager, start to finish

Start here

01Getting started

Voyager is a travel blog and travel guide theme. The theme handles the design. The bundled Voyager Core plugin adds trips, destinations, maps and 13 travel elements, and each one works in both Elementor and the block editor.

01.1Requirements

01.2What is in the download

01.3Install the theme

1. Go to Appearance›Themes›Add New Theme›Upload Theme.
2. Choose voyager.zip (not the whole download) and click Install Now.
3. Click Activate. A notice asks you to install the required plugins. The next topic covers it.

Setup

02Required plugins

Voyager asks for two plugins. It installs them for you through TGM Plugin Activation.

1. After you activate Voyager, click Begin installing plugins in the notice, or go to Appearance›Install Plugins.
2. Tick both plugins, choose Install from the bulk actions and click Apply.
3. Go back to the same screen, tick both again and choose Activate.

One click

03Import the demo

Go to Appearance›Voyager Demos. The importer can bring in the whole demo website, a single homepage, or one page. It can also remove all of it again.

03.1Full Website (recommended)

Imports all 6 homepages, every Elements page, 36 stories, 5 trips, 14 destinations, photos, menus, widgets, Theme Options and Elementor settings. Before you start, pick which homepage becomes your front page.

1. Install and activate Voyager Core and Elementor first (the importer checks for them).
2. Pick the Front page after import and click Import the full website.
3. Watch the progress bar. It works in short steps: checking requirements, adding authors, creating categories, continents and countries, copying photos, importing stories, trips, destinations and pages, linking everything together, building menus, placing widgets, applying theme options and elementor settings, setting the front page, finishing up.
4. Click View your site when it says All done!

03.2Choose your front page

Click Set as front page under any homepage. If that homepage is not on your site yet, the importer brings it in first, with its photos.

03.3Import a single demo page

Use this to borrow one layout, such as the About page or one Elements page. Its travel elements show your own trips and destinations.

03.4Running it again

Re-running an import never duplicates anything: each imported item is found again by its import key. Pages you have edited since the import are left alone, so a re-run cannot overwrite your work. Untouched items are refreshed.

03.5Remove imported demo content

This deletes only what the importer created: pages, stories, trips, destinations, photos and menus. It then restores your earlier Theme Options, menus, widgets and front page. Your own posts and pages are never touched.

Six looks

04The 6 homepages

Each homepage is an ordinary Elementor page, and you can edit any section. Five of them carry their own palette, font pair and traveler. These come from the Voyager page settings box, not from global settings.

04.1Page styles

A page style changes colors, roundness and fonts on one page only. Every font is bundled with the theme and served from your own site.

04.2Change a homepage

1. Go to Pages and open the homepage (for example “Home — Solo Traveler”) with Edit with Elementor.
2. Click any section to change its text, photos or settings. The travel elements are under Voyager Travel in the widget panel.
3. Click Publish. Your edited page is now protected from re-imports.

Per page

05Voyager page settings

Each page and post has a small Voyager page settings box in the editor sidebar. Anything you leave empty falls back to Theme Options.

Elementor + blocks

06The 13 travel elements

Maps, itineraries, budgets, packing lists and more, all built for travel writing. The settings tables below come straight from the plugin.

Every element is built once and shows up in both builders. The settings and the output are the same in each, so a page made in Elementor and one made with blocks look identical.

06.1Booking Box

Hotel, flight and tour recommendation cards with ratings, prices and sponsored links.

Links get rel=”sponsored noopener”. The disclosure line shows above the cards, as the FTC asks for affiliate links.

Blocks exampleElementor exampleBlock voyager/booking-boxWidget voyager-booking-box

06.2Destination Guide

Best time to visit, budget, visa, language, currency, local time and live weather for a destination.

Reads the Destination guide box of the chosen destination (or the current one on a destination page). Live weather comes from Open-Meteo and needs the destination’s coordinates.

Blocks exampleElementor exampleBlock voyager/destination-guideWidget voyager-destination-guide

06.3Where Should I Go? Quiz

Four quick questions that suggest one of your destinations.

Four questions matched against each destination’s Vibes, Budget level and Best months.

Blocks exampleElementor exampleBlock voyager/destination-quizWidget voyager-destination-quiz

06.4Destinations Grid

Destination cards with a continent and country filter.

Continent and country filters work instantly in the page and are built from your Continent and Country lists.

Blocks exampleElementor exampleBlock voyager/destinations-gridWidget voyager-destinations-grid

06.5Now / Next

Where you are now and where you are heading next, with dates and a mini map.

Use two destinations, or type places and coordinates. The mini map is optional.

Blocks exampleElementor exampleBlock voyager/now-nextWidget voyager-now-next

06.6Packing List

Grouped packing checklists readers can tick off and print.

Visitors’ ticks are saved in their own browser (the “Storage key” keeps two lists apart) and the list can be printed.

Blocks exampleElementor exampleBlock voyager/packing-listWidget voyager-packing-list

06.7Photo Story

A full-screen scroll story with big photos and short captions.

Blocks exampleElementor exampleBlock voyager/photo-storyWidget voyager-photo-story

06.8Post Grid & Slider

Travel story cards as a grid, list, photo overlay or slider.

Sources: latest stories, a category, a trip, or a destination. The slider script loads only for the slider layout.

Blocks exampleElementor exampleBlock voyager/post-gridWidget voyager-post-grid

06.9Travel Map

Every destination on a map, with visited countries shaded and the stories of each place.

Pins come from destinations with coordinates. Countries you have visited are shaded; a click opens the stories of that place. Choose all destinations, one continent, or one trip.

Blocks exampleElementor exampleBlock voyager/travel-mapWidget voyager-travel-map

06.10Travel Stats

Animated travel counters: countries, cities, miles or kilometers, days on the road.

Numbers count up once when they scroll into view (no motion for visitors who prefer reduced motion).

Blocks exampleElementor exampleBlock voyager/travel-statsWidget voyager-travel-stats

06.11Trip Budget

Where the money went: a donut or bar chart by category with totals, per day and per person.

Reads Budget by category, Travelers and the trip dates from a trip, or takes numbers typed in the element.

Blocks exampleElementor exampleBlock voyager/trip-budgetWidget voyager-trip-budget

06.12Trip Itinerary

A day-by-day plan with places, times, costs, notes and a mini map per day.

Fill it by hand, or set the source to a trip and it reads the trip’s Itinerary lines (see Trips & destinations).

Blocks exampleElementor exampleBlock voyager/trip-itineraryWidget voyager-trip-itinerary

06.13Trip Timeline

All trips on a timeline, filterable by year.

Lists your trips by start date with route and budget, with a year filter.

Blocks exampleElementor exampleBlock voyager/trip-timelineWidget voyager-trip-timeline

Content

07Trips & destinations

Voyager Core adds two content types: Trips and Destinations. Link your stories to them, and maps, itineraries, budgets and the timeline fill themselves in.

Three shared category lists group trips, destinations and stories: Continents</b>, <b>Countries</b>, <b>Cities.

07.1Destination boxes

Quiz vibes: Beaches & islands, Big cities, Mountains & wild nature, History & culture, Food & markets, Adventure.

07.2Trip boxes

Itinerary format: one day per line, with parts separated by a vertical bar. The last part (coordinates) is optional and adds a mini map for that day.

Title | Places | Time | Cost | Notes | lat,lng
Arrive in Puerto Natales | Puerto Natales | All day | 120 | Pick up rental gear | -51.7308,-72.4977
Base Torres hike | Las Torres viewpoint | 8 h | 0 | Start before 7 am | -50.9423,-72.9719

07.3Link a story

In a post, the Travel links box (sidebar) connects the story to a trip and to destinations. Linked stories then show up on the trip and destination pages, on the map, and in Post Grid with the source “Trip” or “Destination”.

Settings

08Theme Options

One screen with 9 tabs controls colors, fonts, header, footer, blog, single stories and dark mode. You don’t need the Customizer.

Go to Appearance›Theme Options. Changes show on the whole site and click Save changes keeps them. Reset to defaults restores the original values.

08.1Colors

08.2Typography

08.3Layout

08.4Header

08.5Social

08.6Footer

08.7Blog

08.8Single post

08.9Dark mode & motion

Layouts

09Header & footer

Choose a header and a footer layout in Appearance›Theme Options›Header and Footer. They all share the same menus, buttons and dark mode switch.

09.1Header layouts

The thin top bar shows where you are (Currently in) and where you go next (Next stop). Set it in Theme Options›Header›Top bar or per page in the Voyager page settings box.

09.2Footer layouts

09.3Menus and widget areas

09.4The “Pages” menu

Give a top-level menu item the CSS class vy-mega-pages and it opens a panel with an example story for each story layout, the site pages (About, Contact, Map, Trips, Destinations, Search, 404) and the archive views. On phones it becomes an accordion in the menu drawer.

Stories

10Story layouts

10 ways to open a story. Set the default in Theme Options›Single post, and change it for one story in its Voyager page settings box. The demo menu “Pages” links an example of each.

10.1Parts of every story

10.2Writing a long story

• Use H2 headings for sections: they become the table of contents.
• For a highlighted tip, add a Group block and pick the Tip box style; start it with a small heading.
• The Pullquote block is styled for one memorable line per story.
• Any travel block (itinerary, budget, packing list, booking box, destination guide) can sit inside a story.

Widgets

11Sidebar & widgets

Two widget areas sit beside your stories and lists, and 12 Voyager widgets fill them. The WordPress widgets and blocks (search, categories, archives, tag cloud, calendar, latest posts and comments, RSS, menus) are styled to match.

11.1Voyager widgets

Add them in Appearance›Widgets (in the block widget editor they are listed as “Voyager: …”).

Audience

12Newsletter

The footer sign-up form stores addresses on your own site, so no mail service is needed to start. Turn it on and change its wording in Theme Options›Footer›Newsletter.

The same Newsletter section shows how many people signed up and offers a Download CSV link (email and sign-up time in UTC) for importing into Mailchimp, Kit, MailerLite or any other service.

The form has spam protection: a security token, a hidden trap field and a limit on how often one visitor can try.

12.1Send sign-ups to a mail service

Developers can pass each new address on with the voyager_newsletter_subscribed action (in a child theme or a small plugin):

add_action( 'voyager_newsletter_subscribed', function ( $email ) {
	wp_remote_post( 'https://api.example-mail.com/v1/subscribers', [
		'headers' => [ 'Authorization' => 'Bearer ' . MY_MAIL_API_KEY ],
		'body'    => [ 'email' => $email ],
	] );
} );

Return false from the voyager_newsletter_store filter to stop storing addresses on your site.

Readers

13Contact form & shortcodes

Voyager Core includes a light contact form. Messages go to the site admin email and are also kept in Messages, so nothing is lost if an email bounces.

In Elementor, add a Shortcode widget and paste the shortcode; in the block editor, use the Shortcode block. The demo Contact page shows both.

Comfort

14Dark mode & motion

Visitors can switch to a deep-ocean dark scheme with the moon button in the header. Their choice is remembered and loads before the first paint, so the page never flashes white.

Languages

15RTL & translation

Voyager and Voyager Core support right-to-left languages such as Arabic, Hebrew and Persian. When WordPress runs in an RTL language, mirrored stylesheets load automatically.

Every stylesheet has an -rtl.css twin (theme, header, footer, single, editor, and each travel element). Maps keep left-to-right map controls, as map libraries expect.

15.1Translate

1. Install the free Loco Translate plugin (or use Poedit).
2. Create a translation for the theme from voyager/languages/voyager.pot and for the plugin from voyager-core/languages/voyager-core.pot.
3. Set your site language in Settings›General›Site Language.

Performance

16Speed

Voyager is built to score high on PageSpeed. On our demo every homepage scores 90+ on mobile and 98+ on desktop.

• Fonts are bundled and served from your site. Each page preloads only the fonts it uses.
• Travel elements load their CSS and JavaScript only on pages that use them. The Post Grid slider script loads only for the slider layout.
• Small first-screen stylesheets are printed inline, which saves round trips on mobile.
• The first photo of a homepage or story loads first. Photos further down load lazily.
• No jQuery on the front end of the theme.

16.1Recommended Elementor setting

1. Go to Elementor›Settings›Performance.
2. Set CSS Print Method to Internal Embedding and save.

16.2Caching

Use a page cache: your host’s, or a plugin such as WP Super Cache, LiteSpeed Cache or WP Rocket. Turn off any “combine CSS/JS” option if a page looks wrong, because Voyager already keeps its files small and split.

Developers

17Child theme

Put custom code in the Voyager Child theme so updates never erase it.

1. Install voyager-child.zip from Appearance›Themes›Add New Theme›Upload Theme. Keep Voyager installed.
2. Activate Voyager Child. Theme Options and menus stay as they were (WordPress stores them per theme, so copy them over or re-run the import if needed).
3. Add CSS to the child style.css and PHP to its functions.php.

/* voyager-child/functions.php: no sidebar on search results */
add_filter( 'voyager_sidebar', function ( $side ) {
	return is_search() ? 'none' : $side;
} );

Developers

18Hooks

Every action and filter in Voyager and Voyager Core, read from the code.

// Hide the Booking Box on stories older than two years.
add_filter( 'voyager_core_render_booking-box', function ( $html ) {
	return ( is_single() && get_the_date( 'U' ) < strtotime( '-2 years' ) ) ? '' : $html;
} );

Answers

19FAQ

Quick answers to common questions.

19.1Do I need Elementor Pro?

No. Everything in Voyager works with free Elementor. Pro adds its own extras, such as Theme Builder headers.

19.2Can I build pages without Elementor?

Yes. All 13 travel elements are also blocks with the same settings. Stories are written in the block editor.

19.3The map is empty.

Add Latitude and Longitude to your destinations (Map location box). The Travel Map shows destinations that have coordinates.

19.4Weather does not show in the Destination Guide.

Live weather needs the destination’s coordinates and comes from Open-Meteo (free, no key). It is cached for 30 minutes. Turn it off in the element if you prefer.

19.5Will updating the theme remove my changes?

No for content and settings. Code changes belong in the child theme.

19.6I imported the demo twice. Do I have duplicates?

No. The importer recognizes items it created and updates them. Pages you edited are skipped.

19.7How do I remove the demo content?

Appearance›Voyager Demos → Remove demo content. Only importer-created items are deleted.

19.8Does Voyager contact outside services?

Map tiles come from OpenStreetMap and the optional weather comes from Open-Meteo. Fonts and everything else are served from your own site, with no Google Fonts.

Help

20Support

Your purchase includes 6 months of support from the author. You can extend it on ThemeForest.

Open a ticket at https://fekbd.com/support/. Include your purchase code, your site address and what you see (a screenshot helps).

History

21Changelog & credits

What changed in each version, and the open-source work Voyager uses.

21.1Version 1.0.0 (October 12, 2026)

• Initial release: 6 homepages, 13 travel elements for Elementor and blocks, trips and destinations, 10 story layouts, 12 sidebar widgets, 5 headers, 3 footers, dark mode, RTL and a one-click demo importer.

21.2Credits