How Caz and Craig Travel (with Kids) and Blog Full-Time Since 2010

interview with caz and craig makepeace of ytravelblog

This is an interview with Caz Makepeace of Y Travel Blog.

Hey, Caz. Tell us a bit yourself and what you do.

G’day! We’re an Australian family who have been travel blogging since 2010.

Since my first backpacking experience around Indonesia in 97 as a 21-year-old – followed immediately by a nearly three years living in London and Dublin – I’ve set out to create a life with travel at the center of it.

For 26 years now I’ve made that a reality. First as a solo traveler, then as a couple with my husband Craig, followed by a life of travel with our two daughters (even though so many told us it was no longer possible), and now as top global travel blogger who gets paid to travel for a living.

We now live in Raleigh, North Carolina, where we first moved to in 2004 because of a work abroad experience. We both immediately felt like we had returned home. It took us over a decade to find a way to live here permanently.

In addition to travel blogging, we also now have a blog on Raleigh, which we started during the pandemic and have had incredible growth and success with.

We live a life in complete alignment with our values. I’ve never joined the cubicle and so had no need to escape. I’ve never listened to how anyone, or society, has told me I should be living.

I don’t care about the status quo, vanity metrics, or how much money I make. I’m not saying that is important or a valuable thing to strive for, it’s just not WHY I’m doing this.

I don’t know how, but for some reason, I’ve always just known, the true purpose in life is to experience joy. I think my parents are still wondering when I’m going to grow up!

What was life like before you became a travel blogger?

Full of travel. Just like it is now. But before travel blogging, I was a budget backpacker. If it meant I had to sleep in tents or cars or live off baked beans on jacket potatoes, to travel more, then I’d do it.

I used the working holiday strategy to fund my travels. That is, work in other countries – usually those that are expensive to travel to, on a short-term visa and use that as a base to explore that country and region on local currency.

After each work stint, I would travel for months at a time in cheaper destinations where my money could go further.

This meant I did not have to save as much money to travel in the first place, it helped me build my skill levels as I took on such a wide variety of jobs to earn money, and it gave me the most enriching travel experiences.

I still follow that strategy now; except I have my own business so am location independent. I also no longer sleep in tents and cars.

Travel blogging came for me once I had two children, so our travels aren’t as wild and free as they were before blogging.

Also, back then, postcards and calling cards were the norm, so life was very different. I miss those days where no one knew where I was, getting lost was an art form, and hostels were for conversations with strangers.

I am sad my girls (and all people after Gen X) will probably never know what that was like.

Now that I’m a travel blogger, I have more control over my life, as I set my own hours and earn a lot more money than I did as a teacher. It’s helped give me the permission to live in my soul home and offers me endless travel experiences.

Most importantly, it’s given me a platform to make a difference. I love that I get to help others to follow their bliss, travel more and create better memories. Because that’s all that matters.

When and why did you start the Y Travel Blog?

We wanted to continue the lifestyle we had living and traveling the world, but we no longer wanted to have to rely on jobs or temporary work visas.

We were actively looking for opportunities to have our own businesses, and had a ton of failures with network marketing, options trading, and real estate investing (thanks to the global financial crisis)

In 2010, we discovered travel blogs and saw immediately that it was something we could do and were passionate about. We had over ten years of travel experience between us and so started with a wealth of stories and tips to share.

We knew what an extraordinary life travel could give you and what a powerful transformative experience it was. We wanted to share that with others in the hope they too could experience a new way of living that helped them connect to what was most important to them. We know that can only create a positive ripple effect in our world.

I knew I didn’t have the brain power or skills to solve huge world problems like poverty or cancer, but if I could help lead people to joy and meaningful moments, what kind of a powerful difference could that make?

How long did it take you to get some traffic?

As we started strong with a lot of travel experience our site grew quite quickly. We were also very active on Facebook – which was only the social media platform around at the time.

We treated Facebook just like we would the hostel couch – a place to chat with strangers, share travel tips, and feel like you’re hanging out with friendly, warm like-minded people.

This also contributed to our growth. After only a few months, we saw enough traffic to feel confident this could be something we could take full time.

When and how did you make your first money as a blogger?

Our first income stream was through selling text links. We soon learned that was frowned upon by Google and could lead to penalties, so we turned to other ways. We made our first $70 after about 6 months.

Another relatively easy way to make money in the beginning was freelance writing. We could use our expertise to make income, gain credibility, and give our brand greater exposure.

Next came affiliate income and sponsored content through brand partnerships, which is still a major source of our income today.

At what point did you leave your jobs to travel full-time?

After about 18 months of blogging, I left my part time teaching work to work on the blog full time. I had a newborn and four-year-old, and our financial situation was not great. We were living with Craig’s parents while we recovered after a huge financial crisis.

We were at the point where I knew we could grow the blog if I gave it more time, so we took the risk.

Craig left his job about a year later to join me full time. Then in September 2013 (about three years into travel blogging) we decided it was time to ‘walk our talk” again and start traveling full time with the girls.

We decided the easiest way to do this with a two and six-year-old, while working on a growing blog full time and homeschooling, would be to travel around Australia.

We started by living out of a tent for three months as we did not have the financial means to invest in a trailer. We technically didn’t even own a car. The car we did have was given to us by Nissan (and later Ford) as part of a freelance writing campaign I had with an online parenting magazine.

They agreed to let us take the car on our journey around the country and write travel related content around it.

After about three months, we had the finances to get a loan for a small travel trailer.

Our Australia road trip lasted for 18 months, our blog growth exploded, as did the income opportunities.

We’ve been blogging full time since and have traveled with our girls to Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, Europe, the Caribbean, and the USA, where we now live.

In 2020, we were granted a green card for our extrabodily ability in the art of travel blogging, and we have worked with the biggest travel brands in the world and continue to earn multiple six figures through our blog.

We no longer travel full time, as we wanted a more settled life with the girls going to traditional school. But we still travel, fitting it in around our schedules. We love to show that travel can always evolve a