In this guide, you’ll learn how to make money as a travel blogger. We’ll dive into what travel blogging is and how exactly you can earn from it so you can not just have a side hustle that you love, but actually make a living from it. Let’s get started.
Blogging is my favorite business model. It’s what I’ve been doing full-time for many years now and it never gets boring. But it’s important to love creating content and choose topics you’re passionate about.
So if you’re into traveling and want to help other aspiring travelers experience similars adventures, then starting a travel blog is the best next move for you. One of the best things that you can do when you are travelling around to blog about places or people or landmarks, is to make sure that you can send money to yourself as you go.
Whether you need to send money to Pakistan or you send it to Fiji, sending to yourself from your home account keeps you on track. This will help you to pay as you go. It can start as a hobby and you can make money from it slowly over time once you have an engaged audience. Or, you can monetize from the very beginning and even create passive income streams while growing your traffic and email list. How awesome is that!
What is Travel Blogging?
Travel blogging is all about creating and sharing content related to travel experiences, tips, recommendations, and insights through an online platform. In this case – a blog.
You can also be a travel vlogger if making and editing videos is your thing. Then YouTube can be your main platform.
In addition, you can build a following on a social platform like Instagram and monetize that. And while all these can be combined and the main difference is the content format, for the purpose of this article, we’ll stick to running a travel blog.
Like any other blogging business, that involves writing articles your audience is interested in, optimizing them for search engines, ranking them high with the goal of getting traffic to your blog, growing your email list, and earning from your content in different ways (you’ll learn how to make money as a travel blogger below).
Basically, you’ll become a travel influencer and will leverage your platform by documenting your travel experiences, sharing photos of them, and creating educational and inspirational content.
How to Start a Travel Blog
Starting the blog itself is easy. Here’s a step by step guide you can follow.
There are important steps to consider before that, though. That’s picking your niche, deciding on your blog categories, creating your reader persona (deciding exactly who you’re targeting), and just having a vision for your blog before you even start it.
It’s clear that you’ll start a travel blog, but how about being more specific with your niche? There are different things you can focus on, such as:
- writing about a particular area or destination;
- combining travel and lifestyle (such as blogging about traveling on a budget, family travel, traveling after retirement, etc.)
- specializing in a specific type of travel (it could be a blog about RV or road trip travel and you can cover all aspects of it and turn into an authority in the niche);
- focusing on general travel tips for different locations;
- only creating content about the best travel deals;
- reviewing hotels, hostels, restaurants, travel services, etc. (this can influence the travel decisions of your audience and may lead to collaborations with businesses.)
And more.
You can narrow things down even more by creating a blog on solo traveling on a budget for women in their 30s, for example. Being that specific will help you find the right people and really connect with them and provide value. They are also the ones who will spread the word about your blog, gladly click your affiliate links, buy your products, and just become loyal readers.
So, which direction will you go in as a travel blogger?
Once you’ve decided that, you can define your blog categories. If you write about activities in different travel destinations, your categories can be ‘Scuba Diving’, ‘Climbing’ ‘Yoga’, etc.
If your blog is about travel deals, the categories can include ‘Credit Cards’, ‘Points & Miles’, ‘Hotels’, ‘Travel Gear’, etc.
You get the point. Now, let’s find out how to make money as a travel blogger.
How to Make Money as a Travel Blogger
1. Affiliate marketing
For a start, you can partner with travel-related companies, such as booking platforms, travel gear providers, or tour operators and earn a commission for every sale generated through your affiliate links.
To succeed with affiliate marketing, you need to build trust with your audience and create helpful content (which also ranks well). When that’s done right, people will make purchases through your dedicated links and you can earn passive income. Strategic blog posts that you create now can bring you affiliate income for years to come.
You can also use your affiliate links inside emails, on socials, and on almost any other platform where you have an audience and can share links.
Also read: How Kieran Turned His Ibiza Blog into a Successful Affiliate Business
2. Travelpayouts
While this is still technically affiliate marketing, I wanted to share it in a separate point in the list as it’s an all-in-one travel monetization platform. Travelpayouts empowers goal-oriented travel bloggers to spend less time scaling their blog revenue, turning their blog into a rewarding business they enjoy.
It’s trusted by 100+ leading travel brands, including Bооking.com, Viator and GetYourGuide. And in 2022 alone, Travelpayouts paid $12M worth of affiliate rewards to content creators.
They provide no-code tools, such as deep links (with a built-in link shortener), banners, and widgets, so getting started is easy.
On average, Travelpayouts’ partners earn $15 per accommodation booking, about $6 per flight bought on WayAway, $23 per car rental booked on Discover Cars, etc. Your potential earnings depend on the partner program, its category, and how many sales you make.
To get started, head to Travelpayouts, sign up for free, and integrate the tools the platform offers onto your site (and add the affiliate links to your content).
3. Sponsored content
Next, you can collaborate with brands to create sponsored blog posts, social media content, or reviews. In such partnerships, brands pay you for featuring their products or destinations.
As a travel blogger, that usually means you include links to their website with the goal of referring people to it. If your site has a good domain authority, it also boosts their backlink profile and helps their website in search engines.
Over time, you can form lasting relationships with some brands, increase your rates, and have brands reach out to you instead of doing the outreach yourself. That’s why growing your blog’s traffic and publishing content consistently is totally worth it.
4. Place ads on your site
This is another one of the main blog monetization methods, and it’s directly related to how much traffic you get. Once you grow it, you can apply to a quality ad network such as Mediavine, AdThrive or Media.net.
Their requirements are strict, though, and they only accept bloggers who have many page views per month (50K-100K). Before you get there, you can try working with AdSense or Ezoic.
5. Digital products
Another great way to monetize your travel blog is to create your own digital product, such as an eBook, course, workshop, membership site, printables, or else.
You can write and sell eBooks that provide in-depth guides on specific travel destinations, travel tips, or niche topics related to travel. Create online courses that cover various aspects of travel, such as travel planning, budgeting, solo travel, photography tips, or language learning.
As for printables, you can create Excel or Google Sheets templates for travel budgeting, or design and sell customizable travel planners, itineraries, or packing checklists to help travelers organize and plan their trips effectively.
Once you have the product, it turns into yet another income stream for your travel blog. You can sell it through your email list, inside blog posts, on socials, and anywhere else.
6. Utilize other platforms
Learning how to make money as a travel blogger also involves experimenting with other platforms and making money from your content and online presence outside of your blog. That could be through:
- a podcast – eventually you can make money from it through sponsorships;
- YouTube channel – monetize it with ads, sponsorships, and affiliate marketing. YouTube’s Partner Program allows you to earn revenue based on ad views and clicks;
- Pinterest – the platform lets bloggers get a lot of traffic to their blog, but you can also share Pins that lead to affiliate links. That increases your chances of making sales;
- Instagram – travel content does really well there as long as you create plenty of visuals from your travels and love sharing real-life updates with people. You can then work with brands but also sell your digital products there.
7. Become a paid travel writer
Another option is to pitch your travel stories to other publications or websites. Guest posting and freelance writing can be additional sources of income while increasing your exposure.
One great platform that welcomes any writer is Medium.com. You can build a following there and get paid based on the engagement of the readers.
Here are some good reasons to become a Medium writer, and here are 5 ways to get paid there.
Now you know how to make money as a travel blogger. Which of the content monetization ideas above do you like the most? And are you ready to become a travel blogger and increase the earnings from your travel blog right now?
