At no point in history have we as a species been sharing as much of our lives, with as big an audience than right now. By our very nature, we are social beings, sharing experiences, likes, and life experiences. From this need to share, the blogging industry has reached new heights.
In this article, we share the top free WordPress themes blog themes for 2017 – 2018. These are in no particular order, but have been grouped into the top 5 for the categories; General, travel, fashion, food/cooking, Fitness/Lifestyle.
Top 25 free WordPress blog themes for 2017 – 2018
- Best free WordPress blog themes
- Best free WordPress travel blog themes
- Best free WordPress fashion blog themes
- Best free WordPress food blog themes
- Best free WordPress fitness or lifestyle blog themes
Top free WordPress blog themes
There are many reasons why you would want to start a blog of your own. Maybe you want to bring greater attention to a certain issue, maybe you want to form a community, maybe you just want to share your experiences with the world. Blogging has become so popular that it is even possible to make a living off it or boost your website’s traffic. The following are excellent options for a general blog, but can easily be repurposed to suit your needs.
This theme is miles above most free themes by the number of features it offers. It has Woocommerce support and really cool image sliders. These features are usually only included once you upgrade to the pro version or with premium themes. Granted, the default design isn’t great, but that can be fixed with some work.
This theme’s design might leave you wondering if it is really free. Good news! It is. It has a really classy feel to it, and just like the demo would be perfect for a music, fashion or art blog. It also features some nice parallax effects and looks pretty good on most mobile devices.
TeslaThemes always seem to pull off very striking, though modern, designs. Tesla is no different and only falls a little short of their premium offerings. It has more than enough animations and hover states to feel alive and keep the viewers interest. It also feels fantastic on mobile phone, while there are just a few, very minute, spacing issues on tablet.
Like it’s sister theme, Amadeus, Hestia has an attractive design for a free theme. It has one over Amadeus because it comes with WooCommerce support, which is rare in free themes. Its look is also more contemporary. Expect more engaging use of parallax effects and hover states. Excellent mobile responsiveness.
MyThemeShop themes are mostly based on the same base architecture and then modified to fit different niches. SociallyViral does pretty much what the name suggest and is a nifty theme to use if you want to incorporate a lot of social media. All MyThemeShops themes have pretty robust mobile responsiveness.
Top free WordPress travel blog themes
Probably one of the best performing types of blogs nowadays is the travel blog. People want first-hand accounts of travel destinations, and like to see what others get up to outside of the usual travel brochures. Travel blogs may have some additional features like maps, weather widgets or anything else to help fellow travelers out.
Poseidon is one of the best themes for a balance between ease of use and attractiveness. The design may be simplistic but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any character. Padding, space, and placement of elements is perfected to a tee. The toned down, yet fun design seems to support colorful travel photos very well. It also features very readable fonts.
Unwind is not really a travel theme, but its design suits the travel topic so perfectly that we just had to include it here! Honestly, it could have gotten the top 5 spot in almost any category. The number of features and its quality, make it comparable to some premium themes. It features a shop and a clean design with plenty of hover states.
Writee has something different about its design, and we mean that in a good way. It makes use of clean, sans-serif fonts, separation lines, and a dash of color to bring some contrast to the mostly black and white layout. On top of that, it has one of the better alternative layout offerings of all the themes in this list. Mobile responsiveness is also handled in an interesting way.
Capri uses a nice combination of black and white with colourful images to create great contrasts. It is a minimalistic theme and extremely easy to use, without being boring. Like other Themeisle themes it supports an online shop and has solid mobile responsiveness.
Nisarg is easily one of the best-looking themes on this list. It also looks great on mobile and is one of those themes that pull off the minimal look on the smaller screen. The general design and use of turquoise suit the travel blog genre well.
Top free WordPress fashion blog themes
As you can expect, when it comes to fashion blogs it’s all about style! Fashion blogs don’t usually have many special or defining features, but focus on delivering a certain chic feel. Without an elegant and eye-catching design, it’s kinda like presenting your clothing range in the country instead of the catwalks of Milan.
Simple would be the one-page blog fashion store! Just be prepared to make extensive use of images as the theme’s layout is largely based on the use of images. It also contains large, readable, sans-serif fonts and makes for an easy and convenient browsing experience. You can make it dark and intense, or light and dreamy.
If you follow our theme analysis articles you should be familiar with Olsen’s pro version. It should come as no surprise then that the Lite version makes it in our top 25 list of free themes. It is just as stylish and beautiful as the premium offering and only comes with fewer features, layout options, and some of the nice to haves. Check out our free tutorial using this theme on our YouTube channel (How to Setup a WordPress Blog) or blog.
Silvia is one of the most minimalist themes in this fashion section, but pulls it off gorgeously. Yes, the demo does use some impressive photo’s to achieve this effect, but if you can do the same, your site will be just as dramatic and elegant. The hover state that colorizes black and white images looks fantastic.
With a name like that, it just had to be on this list. It’s a shame it doesn’t come with built-in WooCommerce support as a store would be the perfect fit. This theme strikes the perfect balance between modern design and chic. It does a good job of showcasing models and clothing.
Oblique is a theme with a twist, literally! Oblique has a unique, skewed design that is sure to capture viewers attention and presents an interesting way to display your content. In line with that trend, its navigation menu is a sidebar as opposed to a horizontal bar and makes use of an accordion style expanding structure.
Top free WordPress food themes
When it comes down to food, blogs need to make expert use of color! The right use of color wets the appetite and make produce feel fresh and inviting. For fine dining, it’s usually the darker colors that work best and for produce, bright reds and greens do the trick.
Wisteria works perfectly with health food or breakfasts. The lavender colors invoke thoughts of berries and herbs and the use of a lot of white space makes it feel light and refreshing. The design is really elegant and classy and it’s one of the themes with the most readable fonts.
Mama mia! The name should not leave you guessing what cuisine this theme is geared towards. The warm colors go flawlessly with the delicious and wholesome feel of Italian (especially pizza) cooking. It’s not hard to imagine this theme as a pizza delivery service, restaurant, or Italian food inspired blog.
Belise also has a pro version, but for those of us on a budget the lite version comes with enough punchy features to do the job. It has some nice graphical elements to use as operating hours or a menu for a commercial application, and has similarly effective features for use as a food blog.
You get hungry just looking at this theme! The design is modern, fancy and fun all at once and perfect for anything from a hobby food blog, to fine dining restaurant. It uses deep and strong colors for a sultry experience. The typing highlight reel at the top is a cool idea for promotions. It also has a paid pro version if you want to up your game.
After all that savory food, it’s finally time for dessert! SweeTella is definitely made for a sweet tooth community. The design fits the topic perfectly with fun, friendly colors and cute iconography. The mobile version doesn’t just realign but has made some sensible alterations that make the experience more tailored.
Top free WordPress fitness or lifestyle blogs
This one is a bit more tricky, the fitness industry is well defined and has a certain feel to it within which their are many variations for different disciplines like sports, yoga/pilates, and gym training. For lifestyle themes, we chose those that seem to fit a specific topic really well.
You really don’t need to add or tamper with the theme at all. As it stands it has all the necessary design elements for a yoga or pilates blog and could cater for many other niches! The elements cover testimonials, cards for exercise steps and so on. The default color scheme is pinkish which suits yoga/pilates but a switch to blue or red can dramatically change the effect.
This theme is also from Template Monster but has a slightly different focus. Supplements have become synonymous with the sports industry and it’s hard to imagine the one without the other. Drug Store has a slightly more masculine feel. It makes use of some neat animations and loading icons and also features big, easy to read fonts for an effortless experience.
Time for something completely different. Music is perfect for the music lovers out there and its design makes it perfect to present many album covers or posters with which to categorize music. It also comes with some nice layout variations and a shop. Oh, and it feels absolutely fantastic on mobile!
Sports fans unite! Admiral is perfect for a blog dedicated to sports of any kind. It replicates the sports news feel very well. The theme features some neat image/article sliders and makes good use of tabbed design to simplify the navigation between all the posts.
The ultimate gym theme! This article has a highly professional design and is very dynamic through all its animations and hover states, befitting of an exercise blog. The fading image slider on the main page is also something unique. The theme also comes with some really nice icons, something that is crucial for this kind of theme.
Free step-by-step WordPress tutorials
Want to learn how to create a WordPress blog using one of the above themes? Then check out one of our free How to Set Up a WordPress Blog tutorial, where we go through how to set up a WordPress blog step by step. We use bluehost as our hosting provider, and as part of the OHKLYN community you get access to discount hosting.
