I started Boost in 2019, and from day one we built on Webflow. The travel websites in our portfolio, from Africa Born to Ker & Downey Safaris, run on it. For years, if a travel business asked what they should build their new site on, I had the answer ready before they'd finished asking.
Recently I advised a safari operator not to use it. In the same few weeks, I recommended Webflow to another travel company without hesitating. This article explains how I'm making that call now, because if you're about to start a travel website design project, you'll have to make it too.
What's changed?
Two years ago I wouldn't have written this. What's shifted is how websites get built now that AI is part of the process.
AI development tools work directly in code. A website built in code is something an AI can read, edit and extend without anything in the way. A Webflow site lives inside Webflow's platform, so an AI has to work through Webflow's connector to reach it. That works, and we use it, but it's a less direct route. The practical effect is that custom-built websites, which used to need a development budget only large companies could justify, are now within reach of much smaller travel businesses.
Webflow seems to agree on the direction. At its conference on 2 September, it unveiled Source, a new platform that gives AI agents direct access to a site's code instead of routing everything through the visual editor. It's in a limited research preview, with no pricing or release date yet, so it isn't something you can plan around today. But when the company with the most invested in visual building says the future is closer to the code, I listen.
When is Webflow still the right choice?
My rule of thumb: Webflow fits when your site stays within what the platform does natively.
For a lot of travel businesses, it does. If your content is a set of trips, a set of destinations, a journal and some supporting pages, Webflow handles that comfortably. Your marketing team can edit pages visually, publish a new itinerary or update a price without calling a developer. The team at Ker & Downey Safaris manage their site themselves, which was the whole point of building it that way.
It also gives a designer real freedom. On ROAM, for example, we gave individual destinations their own visual treatment, and none of that needed anything beyond Webflow's own interactions.
The travel company I recommended Webflow to recently has a straightforward content structure and a small team who want to look after the site themselves. Nothing about their project pushes against the platform, so there's no reason to make it more complicated.
When would I look at a custom build instead?
Three things tip the decision for me.
The first is custom code. You can add your own code to a Webflow site, and we often do. But when the custom code starts to outweigh the native build, you're fighting the platform and paying for it twice.
The second is speed. The custom builds I've been looking at load noticeably faster than we can get from Webflow, and for an image-heavy travel site that matters to both visitors and search rankings.
The third, and probably the biggest, is how complicated your content is. The safari operator I mentioned is a small business, but every journey on their site needs to connect to destinations, camps, experiences and seasons, each with its own details. That's a demanding content structure, and a dedicated CMS such as Sanity is built for exactly that, where Webflow's CMS starts to feel restrictive. Compare that with a much larger company whose only real CMS need is a blog. Size of business tells you very little. The shape of your content tells you most of what you need to know.
Custom doesn't mean your team ends up editing code. The editing experience gets designed around how your team wants to work. I think we're heading towards simply asking an AI to update a page or tidy up your meta descriptions. But we're not there yet, and I wouldn't choose a platform today on that promise alone.
Custom also has more moving parts, and it depends on being built well in the first place. If your site is fifteen pages and a journal, it's the wrong choice.
What about WordPress, Squarespace and Wix?
We don't build on them, so I'll keep this short. WordPress still runs a huge share of the web and can work for a content-heavy travel business that already has the expertise in-house. Squarespace and Wix suit a guide, guesthouse or new operator who needs something simple and live quickly. In my experience, the templates get restrictive once you want your site to behave differently from everyone else's, and changing anything beyond the template means getting into code that isn't easy to work with.
If your site is already on Webflow
You don't need to do anything. Webflow is still a very good platform, it's easy for your team to manage, and with Source it's clearly working on the same shift I've described. The sensible time to look at your options is when you next redesign, which is true whatever your site is built on.
Choose the platform last
The biggest mistake I see in travel website design is picking the technology first. We start every project by mapping what a traveller needs to do on the site and how they'll move through it, then work out the content those journeys need. Content leads the design, because it decides how long each page is and how the site fits together.
Sometimes that process changes the whole structure. When we redesigned Africa Born's website, the old site was organised by destination. We rebuilt it around experiences instead: Safari by Land, Safari by Air and Safari by Water, because that was what set them apart from every other operator selling the same countries. We took a similar approach with Explorer, building around journeys so they could add new regions as they grew beyond Africa.
Only once you know the journeys and the content can you sensibly ask which platform delivers them. The questions that settle it are how your trips, destinations and experiences relate to each other, who will manage the site after launch, whether travellers book online or enquire first, and what it needs to connect to, such as a booking engine or CRM.
We recommend what's right, not what's on the shelf
Some agencies sell what they have on the shelf. I've never wanted Boost to work that way. If Webflow is right for your project, we'll build it in Webflow. If something else will serve you better, I'll say so, and we'll bring in the right specialists to deliver it.
If you're planning a new travel website, or wondering whether your current platform is holding you back, talk to us and we'll give you a straight answer.
FAQs
Is Webflow good for travel websites?
Yes, for many of them. It suits travel businesses with a straightforward content structure and a team that wants to manage the site without a developer. It becomes limiting when the site needs a lot of custom code, top-end performance or a complex CMS.
Is a custom-built travel website more expensive than Webflow?
Less than it used to be. AI-assisted development has brought build costs down considerably. Running costs differ too: Webflow charges platform fees, while a custom site has hosting and CMS costs.
Can a travel website connect to a booking system?
Yes, through existing integrations, APIs or custom development. Identify your booking requirements before choosing the platform, because they can rule options in or out.
