how do travel bloggers earn money

How to Make Money With a Travel Blog: My 12 Top Tips in 2024

Wondering how to make money travel blogging?

As a multiple six-figure, profitable travel blogger — I made $327,270 from blogging in the first half of 202 3 🤯 — this article shows you how to make money with a travel blog, just like I do!

You’ll find 12 common ways to make money travel blogging in this article, but the top travel bloggers also think outside the box.

But, Isn’t blogging dead? That’s something I see come up a lot, and a question you may have as well.

I’m average about $55K+ per month , and I know plenty of other travel bloggers making way more — so if blogging is dead, we didn’t get the memo 🤷‍♀️ 

Now, plenty of travel bloggers don’t have a monetization plan for their blog, and therefore, don’t make money.

Unfortunately, this is the vast majority of travel bloggers.

In short, if you don’t have a plan to use proven strategies to make money blogging, you likely won’t. However, once you’re done reading this article, you will.

Ready to discover how to make money with a travel blog — just like I do!? Let’s get to it .

how to make money with a travel blog

How to make money with a travel blog: my top 12 tips.

If you’re wondering How to make money with a travel blog , there are really countless ways.

You will find some of the most common ways in this article, but there’s really no one size fits all strategy to make money blogging that will work for all bloggers.

Regardless of what income streams you pursue, know that multiple income streams are essential for success.

Below, I will show you 12 different ways to make money from a travel blog — but they by no means represent the only ways to make money blogging about travel.

How to Make Money With a Travel Blog

1. have ads on your site.

Did you notice the advertising on my site? Those ads account for about 35-45% of my income!

The coolest thing about them is they are completely passive income, meaning as I sleep, I still earn money from the ads simply being on my site.

That’s right: I do nothing, and still collect money. There’s basically no better feeling than this in the world!

🤔 How do I get ads on my site?

To put ads on your site, you need to sign on with an ad management company or ad network. With most companies, you’ll need to have enough traffic from search engines or social media platforms to qualify.

Keep in mind that getting traffic can take a lot of time — as blogging is a long game! If you want a get rich quick job, don’t pick blogging .

In your first year, you may not even show up in Google search results or get much traffic, but if you stick to it, you can make great money from ad networks.

Below, I will compare the six companies that can place ads on your site:

🏆 Best ad networks for travel bloggers

1. mediavine (my #1 choice).

Among bloggers, many consider Mediavine and AdThrive (#2 on the list) the best because they pay the most and have great customer service.

To apply for Mediavine , you need 50,000 sessions per month (50K people visiting your site in a 30 day period), which is a lot.

When you first start out travel blogging, 50,000 seems impossible. As a new blogger, I also thought it was impossible, but eventually, I got there!

Now, it was a lot of hard work, and I invested in travel blogging courses so I could get on Mediavine fast. (The best course I took was Scale Your Travel Blog to Six Figures — and yes, I have scaled to multiple six figures.)

On a personal note, before I was on Mediavine, I was with SHE Media, which is #3 on the list.

The month I switched, I nearly 6X’ed my ad income going from SHE Media to Mediavine . However, from what I hear, most bloggers usually double or triple their ad revenue doing the same.

🤑 How much I make on Mediavine: It varies from about $8,500-10,000 USD per month, with about 250,000 monthly page views and mostly U.S. traffic (U.S. traffic pays the most).

2. Raptive (Formerly AdThrive)

Besides Mediavine, other top-level travel blogs that make money are on AdThrive . (⚠️ Update: In 2023, AdThrive and CafeMedia merged to become Raptive .)

To apply, you’ll need 100,000 page views in a 30 day period. This means that in total, the visitors to your site have visited a total of 100,000 separate pages on your site.

Note: I have not personally used AdThrive/Raptive on any of my sites.

3. SHE Media

For bloggers with less traffic, there’s SHE Media . They say you need 20,000 monthly sessions to apply, though some bloggers get approved with less.

The thing many dislike about SHE is they require you sign a one-year contract, something no other company asks for.

🤑 How much I made on SHE Media: About $800 USD per month with 30,000 monthly page views and mostly U.S. traffic (U.S. traffic pays the most).

I was with SHE Media for about four months in late-2021.

If you read other reviews of SHE Media, you’ll see that many bloggers say their payments are pretty good, but their customer service is hit or miss.

I completely agree with the majority on this. From my personal experience, SHE wasn’t terrible, but wasn’t great either.

4. Monumetric

For bloggers with less traffic, Monumetric only requires 10,000 monthly sessions. The thing many dislike about Monumetric is they require a $100 USD set up fee to put the ads on your site, something no other company asks for.

Note: I have not personally used Monumetric on this site.

Before SHE Media, I was on Ezoic . At the time, they required 10,000 monthly sessions, but now have no traffic requirement — so you can join Ezoic with basically no traffic.

Now, the more traffic you get, the more you make, so don’t expect much of a payout with low traffic.

🤑 How much I made on Ezoic: About $185 USD per month with 10,000 monthly page views and mostly U.S. traffic (U.S. traffic pays the most).

While all ads on your site will slow down your website speed, Ezoic is known as the worst with this.

They have tried to make strides in this area with their Leap tool, but if you look through travel blogging forums, you’ll see a generally anti-Ezoic sentiment.

I was on Ezoic for about four months in early-2021, and have nothing good to say about this company. They offered basically nothing in the way of service, and it took me a few weeks to figure out (on my own) how to get ads set up.

🚨 Here’s Why I don’t recommend Ezoic

To be clear: I do not recommend Ezoic, and was happy to leave them.

I had a terrible experience during my two months with Ezoic, and was happy to part ways from them. Ask around in blogging forums and you’ll soon learn Ezoic has a horrible reputation. In my opinion, they lived up to it.

However, I also understand the need for income.

Because of that alone, the best I can say is try Ezoic out for yourself and make up your own mind. Just because myself and thousands of other bloggers had a negative experience, that doesn’t mean you will.

6. Google AdSense

Like Ezoic, there is no traffic requirement with Google AdSense . From what I understand, you make a few dollars a day, at most.

If you’re considering Ezoic vs AdSense, it seems you’d definitely make more with Ezoic — though I can’t in good conscious recommend them. As mentioned above, you can always try Ezoic out for yourself and make up your own mind.

Note: I have not personally used AdSense on any of my sites.

2. Join Affiliate Marketing Programs

First off, What is affiliate marketing?

If you’ve ever recommended a product, restaurant, great book, or anything to another person, you’ve actually done affiliate marketing without knowing it.

Affiliate marketing is when I recommend hotels, tours, rental car companies, travel gear, etc., on my website. I’ll then insert what are called affiliate links that go to these products, places or services.

When someone buys anything through my affiliate link, I make affiliate sales. With my blog, I earn a small commission from these referrals and sales — but those commissions can add up.

In fact, I made more than $160K from affiliate marketing in 2022 ($163,706 to be exact) — and I can show you exactly how in my How to Find Affiliate Marketing Keywords Class .

What are the best affiliate marketing networks for travel bloggers?

Most travel bloggers are signed up with affiliate networks that make sense for their niche. However, some general categories include hotels, tours, car rentals and travel insurance.

Since my blogs are in the Mexico travel niche, I affiliate with Mexico tour companies, Mexico hotels, Mexico rental cars, Mexico travel guide books, products for traveling to Mexico, etc.

Below, you will find some of the travel brands I have affiliate partnerships with and recommend.

• Best Car Rental Affiliate: Discover Cars (They pay the most)
• Best Travel Insurance Affiliates: SafetyWing (I used to recommend World Nomads, but no longer do)
• Best Affiliate Marketing Network: Travelpayouts
• Best Hotels Affiliate: Booking.com , Expedia and Hotels.com
• Best Home Rental Affiliate: VRBO (Airbnb doesn’t have an affiliate program)
• Best Tours Affiliate: Viator and Get Your Guide
• Best Affiliate for Physical Products: Amazon, Etsy, REI (via AvantLink)

Note: There are good companies, but also plenty of affiliate schemes out there, so it’s a good idea to do your homework about any company you work with.

🤔 How much do i make with affiliate marketing?

A lot — Using a combination of the companies listed above, my affiliate income in 2022 was $163,706 .

In 2021, I made $5,217 total from affiliate income all year, so 32X more money in just one year.

I attribute a lot of my current success to working one-on-one blog coaching with Laura of Scale Your Travel Blog to Six Figures . But make no mistake, I am successful because I worked hard, and I worked smart.

I also teach courses on this subject, including my most popular course, How to Find Affiliate Marketing Keywords . In it, I show you how to find the keywords that made me more than $160K from affiliate marketing in 2022.

3. Sell Your Own Digital Products

With affiliate marketing, you’ll only get a commission or a percentage of the sale. When you sell your own products, you get all the profits (minus some fees).

For this reason, many bloggers create digital products like eBooks, printable travel planners, travel guides and more.

You can list the products on your website, or work on building up your email list, so you have direct access to those who have an interest in your content.

Digital products are a great way to make money as a blogger because you create them once, and sell them forever!

Many bloggers will use a site like Canva to create a digital product. There is a free version, but the paid version is well worth the $13 USD per month.

To sell the products, sites like Gumroad or ThriveCart are both great options.

4. Land Paid Press Trips

On a press trip, you’re essentially paid to travel and your travel expenses are covered! How cool, right? For many people, yes.

Personally, I find them too time consuming to arrange, and when I travel, I don’t want to work. However, many travel bloggers make money while traveling with press trips.

To secure paid press trips, you’ll contact tourism boards (sometimes called a national tourism office) or local travel-related companies.

There’s often a lot of back and forth hammering out the details, and contracts everyone will sign, before the actual trip.

🤔 How do you get press trips for travel bloggers?

Let’s say you want to get paid to travel to Morocco. You’ll first contact the Morocco tourism board, and see if they’d pay you to come to Morocco and create content for them.

If so, you’ll both come to an agreement, then you’d take the trip and blog about it afterwards.

Is it really that easy? That depends.

If you have a large social media following, high-traffic blog, or blog with a completely focused niche (if you have a Morocco blog, the Morocco tourism board is more likely to say yes), getting paid press trips is actually easy.

With a Mexico niche site, I do get tour companies and hotels that contact me for free travel — so this is just one reason to have a niche blog , which is a travel blog with just one focus.

In truth, most bloggers just starting out will get a lot more no’s than yes’s for paid trips.

5. Write Sponsored Posts

Another way you can make money travel blogging is by writing a sponsored post.

This is when a company pays you to write a review of their tour company, or a hotel review, or maybe a review of a great travel product, or even just a write up about them.

They are basically just paying you to promote them on your site, but they want it in your voice — the one that resonates with your audience.

If you think about it, no one knows better how to speak to your audience than you, so companies usually give you creative control.

You can reach out to companies yourself and offer to write a post to promote their products or services.

In some cases, they will contact you, especially if you have a Contact page or Work With Me page on your website (like this one ) that connects to your email address.

6. Sell Sponsored Links

Some companies will also pay you to put a link to their site in one of your existing posts.

Say you have a post ranking in spot #1 on Page 1 of Google titled Best shoes for travel. A shoe company might see your post, and offer you money to link to their website.

As it only takes 30 seconds to insert a link in a post, these will earn you far less than a full blog post dedicated to one specific place or thing.

How much you charge depends on a lot of factors, but you can expect $50-100 USD for a link, though some bloggers charge more.

7. Network With Other Travel Bloggers

Another one of the best ways to make money blogging, is through leads from other bloggers about paid opportunities.

This might not be a direct payout at first, but the best travel bloggers have a large network of colleagues, who will send jobs their way from time to time.

👯‍♀️ Private Facebook Groups

One benefit to all the travel blog courses I’ve taken is access to a private Facebook group.

In these, you can both ask the teacher or mentor questions you have about the course material, and also network with your fellow classmates, who just so happen to be travel bloggers!

I am in a few, and can attest that the quality of information you get in private Facebook groups for travel bloggers is much better than what you get in public groups.

People also tend to be nicer since the teacher has a presence in the group, and no one wants to get in trouble.

👯‍♂️ Best Free Facebook Groups

If you want to check out some free blogging travel groups, there’s Affiliate Marketing for Travel Bloggers , which is my group, and SEO For Travel Bloggers , which is my friend Nina Clapperton’s group.

Looking for the best SEO course for travel bloggers? Check out Nina’s SEO Roadmap , which I can’t recommend enough.

There’s also Women Travel Bloggers , Women Travel Creators and Digital Nomad Wannabe , and all five of these are some of best and most active Facebook travel blogging groups out there.

As with most Facebook groups, you’ll want to take all the info you get with a grain of salt.

✈️ Best Travel Blogging Conferences

I started this travel blog during Covid in 2020, so all blogger conferences have been on hold.

Now that the world has opened back up, I’m attending travel blog conferences like Travel Blogging Summit (where I was a speaker in 2022), TBEX (where I was a speaker in 2023), Women In Travel Summit , and TravelCon .

⚠️ Update: Sadly, TravelCon from Nomadic Matt was canceled indefinitely after the May 2022 conference.

8. Sell Your Photos

If you’re a photographer, you’re likely taking a ton of photos for your blog anyway — so this might be the easiest way to integrate more revenue streams 🤑

One easy way to sell photos online is with the FREE Sell Media   plugin, which you’ll just add to your WordPress website.

Using social media channels is another great way to get eyes on your photos, and might lead to paid jobs and even long-term partnerships.

With apps like TikTok and Instagram now paying users for content creation, this is a great way to earn additional income.

9. Monetize Your YouTube Channel or TikTok

There are many travel vloggers (video bloggers), like Hey Nadine and The Bucket List Family , who make great money off their YouTube travel videos.

To apply for the YouTube Partner Program and monetize your channel, you’ll need at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year.

Note: I don’t have a YouTube channel.

10. Monetize Your Travel Podcast

This is a great option if you’re comfortable with public speaking. As someone who did have a podcast, I feel this is the biggest barrier to entry — not any technical know-how or fancy recording equipment.

I wrote a detailed guide, How to Start a Travel Podcast for Free (Like I Did) , so if you want a deep dive into this topic, you can check it out.

I had a podcast called Dream To Destination , for one year from 2020-2021. It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work. However, many travel podcasters make great money podcasting.

I only had the podcast as a hobby, and still made a bit of money from it.

11. Work as a VA for Other Travel Bloggers

VA stands for virtual assistant, and it means you can work virtually from anywhere.

This is a great entryway into the digital nomad lifestyle and location independence so many travel bloggers want, and add real value for you because you’re learning about blogging from a pro.

You can sign up to UpWork or Fiverr to find virtual assistant jobs with travel bloggers, or join some free Facebook blogging groups and offer your services.

As someone who’s in quite a few of these Facebook groups, I always see successful bloggers to hire a VA.

How much money you make as a VA will depend on your skillset.

If you have valuable skills other travel bloggers seek out — social media management, SEO-optimized travel writing , setting up affiliate partnerships , Google analytics, etc. — you can earn a lot of money.

12. Use Your Blog to Get Freelance Work

If you’re considering VA work or freelance writing work, your blog is a good way to showcase your unique travel writing style. This should only further motivate you to produce great content — because you can use your blog as a selling tool.

If you also make photos and videos, the blog will also seamlessly integrate your social media accounts.

A travel blogger who sees your blog, Instagram account, etc., and loves it is more likely to hire you over another candidate because they want you to do the exact same for them.

How to Make Money with a Travel Blog: FAQ

What’s the average travel blogging salary .

When it comes to making money travel blogging , there’s no average amount. It’s much like asking how much the average singer makes — obviously Adele makes much more than your local wedding singer.

Similarly, there’s no answer to how much does a travel blogger make?

There are some income reports and travel blogger salary articles out there, so we know The Blonde Abroad and One Step 4 Ward have $1 million+ per year blogs.

In 2017, Nomadic Matt was making multiple-six figures, but I assume he too has a $1 million+ travel blog these days.

By contrast, some bloggers make $0.

When I got serious about monetizing my blog, I decided I will absolutely hit seven figures one day, and I started taking steps to do so — like investing in the best travel blogging courses I could find.

I mean, if The Blonde Abroad can, so can I!

🏆 Here are My Blogging Stats

• I made $ 272,175 USD in 2022.
• I made $40,106 USD from blogging in December 2022 — $24,151 from affiliate marketing, $9,382 from ads on my site, and $6,572 selling my own products, like this Affiliate Marketing course .
• My main website (not this one) received 205,000+ page views in December 2022, and more than 2.6 million page views in 2022.
• Want to know how I did it? Join my email list where I share weekly tips on how I make such a crazy amount of money after just 2.5 years of blogging.

What’s the earning potential of travel bloggers?

This really is a better question to ask than How much do travel bloggers make? , or Do bloggers make good money?

I look at this blog (and my other blogs, Travel Mexico Solo , Travel To Merida , Travel To Oaxaca , Tulum Travel Secrets ) as small businesses, and with your own blog business, the sky’s the limit on how much you earn.

For me, I only want to work 20 hours a week. If I were working a full time 40 hour workweek, I could make a lot more money than I am right now.

In short, when you’re a small business owner (yes — bloggers are! ) you set your own ceiling on earnings.

What is a travel blog?

A travel blog is a website with information on traveling — like these, Travel Mexico Solo and Tulum Travel Secrets .

There are many niches, or sub-genres of travel blogs. Mine is focused on Mexico travel, while some travel blogs focus on Paris travel or, or camping travel, or cruises, or solo travel; the list goes on and on.

What is a travel blogger?

A travel blogger is the person who’s running the travel blog, or someone who writes travel blogs for other people’s blogs. I am actually a multiple six-figure travel blogger who makes a full time income from my blogs.

If you’re a woman, you’ll usually be called a female travel blogger; though the term male travel blogger is pretty much never used.

If you’re unsure how to be a travel blogger, it’s quite simple! In fact, all you need to do is start a travel blog website, then write some travel blog posts .

If you only want to document your travels, this will suffice; if you want to make money, consider these best travel blogging courses .

How to Start Travel Blogging

Wondering, how to become a travel blogger? The first question to consider is: Do you want to make money with your travel blog, or do you want a hobby blog?

No matter which you chose, there’s information for starting both types of blogs below.

✍️ How to start a hobby blog

You can do this by starting a new travel blog on Blogger for free right now!

All you’ll need is a travel blog name (you might also want to take the corresponding handles on any social media channels you use), and start sharing your best travel tips, epic stories and more.

Now, if you want to know How to start a travel blog and make money? , that’s a bit different.

💰 How to start a money-making blog

Like most things, there’s a right way, and a wrong way to start becoming a travel blogger .

If you want to make your own travel blog to start earning money, I highly suggest investing in a travel blogging course with step-by-step instructions, so you start it off right.

There is a system to travel blogging success, and either know the system, or you don’t.

You’re either writing SEO-optimized content with high volume, low competition keywords that will rank on Page 1 of Google, or no one will ever see your content. According to stats , only 25% of users even go to Page 2 of Google.

Through travel blogging courses , I learned that I need to write the articles you want to read, and not just the articles I want to write.

I learned how to get my content on Page 1 of Google with search engine optimization (SEO) — in fact, that’s likely how you found this article!

The way I see it, you can spend time, or you can spend money.

You can either spend your time trying to find good free content, which could take years and still not pan out, or you can pay a professional to learn what they’re doing, so you can simply replicate their success.

The best blogging course I’ve done is Scale Your Travel Blog to Six Figures — and I’ve been in quite a few courses .

Is it worth starting a travel blog in 2023?

As someone who makes a full-time income from my travel blog, works only about 20 hours per week, from any location on Earth I want to — FU+K YES it is!

However, setting up a WordPress blog and learning how to blog properly takes time. Blogging is a marathon, not a sprint.

My blog did nothing in year one; it was a place to hear crickets. In year two, I invested in the best travel blogging courses I could find, and made $7,762.22 dollars ($2,435.18 in December 2021).

In year three, I made $ 272,175 USD in 2022.

While my numbers may seem impressive if you’re making $0 from a blog, I’m still a small time blogger. (Ok, maybe I’m a “medium time blogger” now).

There are so many bloggers who make more than me, but since I know blogging is a marathon, not a sprint , it’s only a matter of time before I get there too.

How to start a travel blog without traveling

When we all lost the ability to travel freely in 2020, many travel bloggers still thrived. How? , you might be wondering — By blogging about where they live.

While the place you live is familiar to you, it’s a full-fledged travel destination for people who don’t live there. 

Final Thoughts: How to Make Money With a Travel Blog 2023

There are many ways to make money blogging, and the top travel bloggers are doing many of them in tandem.

The one thing to always keep in mind about travel blogging and any blogging is that it will take time to get there. 

The highest paid travel bloggers who make more than $1 million have been blogging for a decade or more before they saw numbers like that. To really make money as a travel blogger, you need to be in it for the long haul.

From my personal experience, I didn’t start seeing any income for more than one year. When money started finally coming in, it was not much — but I kept at it.

In 2022, my third year blogging, I made $ 272,175 USD . My goal for 2022 was $250,000 USD… and I surpassed it.

For the record: I’m not special! I think anyone can be a successful travel blogger, if you have a solid plan, and if you remember that blogging is a marathon; not a sprint.

Personally, I learned so much from the Scale Your Travel Blog to Six Figures course). 👩‍💻 Read my honest review of the course here .

Ready to invest in a travel blogging course? 👉 Sign up for the FREE live webinar to meet my coach Laura, who has helped me grow my blog fast!

Join my monthly email! Sign up

What’s the Average Travel Blogger Salary? (+ Income Reports)

How much do travel bloggers make? Let’s take a look shall we? I’ve used my experience and insider intel to work out the average travel blogger salary across the board…

I’m being nosy and have some rare time on my hands so I thought I’d try and work out the average travel blogger salary, just for… research .

To be a paid blogger is now one of the most popular career goals for kids (and adults) in these crazy online times, but how  much can you actually even earn as a travel blogger, really ?

How much does a travel blogger make?

– Be nice to have a strong enough travel blogger salary to get up to the mountains every year, hey?

It’s hard to guess by appearances – if you take Instagram accounts and blog posts as gospel. Sure, holidays, new clothes, cocktails and fancy dinners would usually mean a person was raking it in, but y’know travel bloggers get a lot of this stuff in return for coverage on their blog.

Many holidays are sponsored, clothes are gifted (or ‘borrowed’) and some travel bloggers don’t actually have homes to keep up while they go off gallivanting around the world. 

I’m talking like I’m not one of these travel bloggers, like I’m writing a study of them, but actually, I’m one too. Have been for over nine years now.

Wanna know how much I earn? 

In a minute. Let me guess at the other travel blogger salaries first.

Typical Travel Blogger Jobs

Aka, how does a travel blogger make money?

– I love nosing on travel blogger income reports!

The travel bloggers who make the most have many income streams , I can say that for certain. You can’t just write a travel blog about your thoughts and feelings in a destination and expect the cash to magically come rolling in.

You need to use every ounce of entrepreneurialism you have, every skill, and every bit of knowledge to make travel blogging make money for you. Here are some of the typical ways travel bloggers make money so they can travel the world and get paid for it. 

This is how travel bloggers get their income.

• – Translation
• – Affiliate income
• – Running tours
• – Selling products
• – Running courses
• – Writing courses
• – Presenting
• – Social media management
• – Freelance writing
• – Writing books
• – Marketing

Some of the best travel blogger income reports

One of the best ways to work out how much travel bloggers are earning, is to look at the open and honest income reports around the web. I love how people put this stuff online…

• It’s a Lovely Life March 2018 Income Report – $208,558.17
• Heleneinbetween October 2017 Income Report – $12,026.78
• Living the Dream April 2018 Income Report – $3,984
• WhereverWriter February 2018 Income Report – $3,575.05
• So between $3500 and $209k per month? Niiiice?!

Just to note though, a lot of travel bloggers have an invested interest in leading you to believe they earn more than they actually do. Whether that’s because they’re selling a travel blogging course, a lifestyle, a product or something else.

So just bear that in mind – definitely not saying the travel bloggers responsible for the income reports above do – just, y’know, some people .

Not all travel bloggers earn even close to that much though.

Let’s look at some of the top travel blogger salaries. 

Top earning travel bloggers

Like many industries, in travel blogging there are a few people at the top earning a small fortune, while there are many at the bottom earning just a few dollars a month.

If you’re a travel blogger with a successful course, with affiliates promoting it, a long standing blog, get to work with brands and have over 100k page views a month – the money could be rolling in. 

If you want to know which travel bloggers are earning the most money, check out my friend Kach’s guide over at Two Monkeys Travel.

They’ve compiled a list of the top earning travel bloggers as revealed by the travel bloggers themselves. They’ve listed the top travel bloggers’ income for all to see.

READ MORE: 30+ TRAVEL BLOGGERS EARNING OVER 5,000 USD / MONTH & HOW THEY MONETIZE THEIR BLOGS

– The travel blogger income of some of the top travel bloggers in the world

I think the only British person on that list is Monica from The Travel Hack, apart from the Monkeys, so well done her . She definitely should’ve bought the beers in Finland last month !

These are the kind of travel blogger salary figures you want to emulate hey?

Best travel bloggers earning money

If you want to read more about the top earning travel bloggers, all earning over six figures a year, you can read some of their secrets below.  I scoured some of the top travel blogs for evidence of their finances.

Let’s look at the travel bloggers income reports.

– Caz & Craig make over 6 figures a year over at the super popular family travel blog yTravelBlog.com. – Goats on the Road make over $100,000 / year.  – Johnny Ward is a travel blogger millionaire  and earns $30,000 A MONTH .  – Nomadic Matt makes over $750,000 PER YEAR .

* Just to note, the bloggers have above have entire teams behind them, so they have a lot of spends too. Here’s Matt’s Team for example.

My guesses at travel blogger salaries

So, how much does a travel blogger make per year?

First rule of getting a salary in England is that we don’t discuss the salary. I know what a few of my friends earn, the journalist ones-ish, but even some of my besties I wouldn’t have a clue.

None of my business apparently. 

– How much money can you make as a blogger?

These travel blogger salary guesstimates are based on my own experiences, an insider knowledge of the industry and from what I’ve heard.

1. Started travel blogging in the last three years, a few sources of income and some outside brand presence, at least 100 blog posts = £20,000 2. Travel blogging for a few years, focuses on blog for at least 5 sources of income, works with brands, does it full time = £40,000 3. Travel blogging for a few years, focuses on blog for at least 5 sources of income, plus some sort of successful course or product, does it full time and won’t do anything for free or in return = £60,000 4. Travel blogging since the start, super successful Instagram and / or YouTube presence, numerous sources of income, well known = £90,000 5. Travel blogging since the start, super successful Instagram and / or YouTube presence, numerous sources of income, well known, and American = £100,000+

Practical Wanderlust made $22,000 travel blogging in her first full year , although just $65.07 in her first six months. 

Travel blogger income

The ‘average blogger salary’ is kind of a ridiculous and unmeasurable calculation.. It’d be like saying ‘what does the average singer earn’?

In blogging you have the likes of Zoella reeling in the millions, and then the millions of bloggers worldwide not making a penny. The spectrum of salary has very different ends. 

As for me, with my delightful travel blog? In and around number 2, give or take 10%. I’m British, I can’t talk about my travel blogger salary – my fingertips literally won’t type to reveal the exact amount!

Earning potential of travel bloggers

Travel blogging isn’t like beauty blogging, food blogging or fitness blogging – for most people travel isn’t something they do daily. It’s something they may spend a year or two on, and then it’s back to the once to three times a year when families, jobs and finances get in the way.

This means that travel bloggers sell less through their blogs, but when they do, the value will be higher. They’re more of an information source than other types of bloggers, making it difficult to predict what they earn.

Many travel bloggers work on an affiliate basis, where they will get some sort of kickback if they manage to sell a product through their site, but travel bloggers are inspiration. Even if we do inspire or persuade someone to travel in our footsteps, it might be a year or two until they actually do it. And by then any reference to the fact that it was you who inspired them to go will be erased or forgotten.

Travel bloggers also have to invest a lot to start off, in our travels , before we start making any back. All things to consider if you’re looking at the finances of becoming a travel blogger as a career choice. A travel blogger salary is one thing, but travel blogger expenses are a whole other kettle of fish!

On the flipside though, the earning potential of a travel blogger is totally uncapped .

This excites me greatly.

How much do travel bloggers make?

The harder you work, the more creative you are, the more you think about it, the more you do – the more you can earn. 

Typical travel blogger rates

This is difficult to talk about without naming exact campaigns, bloggers, their audience sizes, and prices – but just to give you an idea…

– Travel blogger earnings totally vary from blogger to blogger

– A friend of mine with around 20k Instagram followers recently went to the launch of a new travel themed food item and was paid £800 to attend and to create an Instagram post on it.  – I’ve worked with different tourist boards for (on average) a week to create social media content, a video and multiple blog posts and been paid between £1000-£2000 a time.  – It’s normal for a travel blogger with an audience size of around 50,000 U/Vs to be paid £500 to do a product review on their blog and receive the product for free. – Travel bloggers can be paid upwards of £200 to takeover a company’s Instagram Stories for the day. – Many bloggers I know wouldn’t even consider going to a destination for a week unless they were paid at least £1000 in return for the content they produce.

But, also, they’re asked, expected and have done, loads of stuff for free.

EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. 

One of the most annoying aspects of trying to earn money as a travel blogger, is that you will constantly and repeatedly be asked to work for free. It really is infuriating. 

– Most travel bloggers will plough their earnings back into their travels

7 steps to earning a good travel blogger salary

Many bloggers earning good money from their travel blogs are in that lucky position because they started early, obviously . Their blogs and sites have gained traction from years of hard work and attention online. They deserve their place on the top earning travel bloggers score board.  When it comes to the question of how much do travel bloggers make, they’re making the top dollar.

Don’t let their rich history put you off though, there are still ways to make money as a travel blogger if you start your blog now…

1. Invest your time

You’ll need to be  willing to invest your time , for no financial return. For at least two years I ran my blog as a labour of love and to practice what I was learning at work.

2. Do a highly regarded course

Get ahead and learn as much as possible. It might seem silly to pay when you can get the information online for free, but at least this way it’ll be set out in an easy to follow way, and you can just do the steps.

3. Stand out

There are so many travel bloggers now that it’s no longer enough to just be ‘a travel blogger’, you need to have a niche and some sort of direction. Think of a way to stand out from the crowd to make you the go to person for that topic.

4. Skill up

Be reeeeally good at one thing – photography, writing, Facebook, videomaking etc – and then keep working on everything else. Back up there ^ somewhere, I said how the highest earning travel bloggers have multiple income streams – remember that.

You need to be always learning, always thinking and always executing.

5.  Do cool stuff

The world does not need another  guide to Barcelona , trust me. Have some sort of gimmick, or do cool things, or go to awesome places and do cool things in those places, that no one else does, to really try and stand out.

Do something to write home about. 

6.  Have a business mind

Many travel bloggers are creative, but to make money they need to be business minded too. If you’re serious about making a lot of money from travel blogging then every decision you make needs to be business minded, even if the decision you make for your business isn’t to be business minded to look like some carefree traveller.

Read books, read well written sites, and learn about the professional side of travel blogging to give yourself the best chance.

7. Celebrate the small wins

Congratulate yourself on the small wins. As a travel blogger every day you are working towards building something bigger. You cannot expect to be the highest earning travel blogger in a few months – Nomadic Matt has been working at it for over 13 years, me, nine.

As you slowly build your empire, remember to congratulate yourself when things go right and keep your eye on the bigger picture.

Is it easy to become a travel blogger?

I 100% believe that with hard work, knowledge and enthusiasm you can come and join us mid-earning travel bloggers , earning a decent salary, working from home and travelling for a career.

Once you’ve got that nailed, then you can start thinking about bringing in those glorious six figures. 

How soon will I start earning money from travel blogging?

Anybody else happily accepting that they’re NOT going to make an income from ‘travel blogging’? Regardless of all the inspirational memes you see saying otherwise! ? #traveltribe — Steve Biggs (@biggsytravels) February 17, 2020

I started earning money after about six months – we’re talking a few quid though, not much. It took about three years – could’ve been two but I was reluctant to give up my job – for me to start making a basic full time income of it. My travel blogger salary soon eclipsed what I was earning in my job, and I knew it was time to leave so I could reap the benefits of all the travel I was being offered.

Since then I’ve travelled the world for three years and managed to top up my savings to buy a house by myself through what I’ve earned from my travel blog.

I started my blog in February 2012, back when no one really knew what they were doing and we were just muddling through. Now there are so many courses on how to make money travel blogging, and so much information and many opportunities out there, that with some hard work and a bit of luck you could be earning quicker than I did.

Or, you could set it all up, all gung ho, and then slowly drift away from it once you realise how much hard work it is to maintain. Up to you.

“Most travel blogs will be lucky if they last longer than a year”. –  Expert Vagabond

It’s impossible to say how soon you’ll start earning money from travel blogging, it depends how much work you put in, how much you know and how lucky you are. A travel blogger jobs salary is difficult to pinpoint.

Questions about travel blogger income 

1. What is the salary of a travel blogger? 

A travel blogger income varies from a big fat zero, to over a million a year. The highest earning travel bloggers I know are Nomadic Matt, The Blonde Abroad and Two Monkeys Travel. They’re all earning a blummin fortune! 

2. How do travel bloggers get paid?

Travel bloggers get paid through affiliates, brand partnerships, freelancing in writing or photography and advertising. They can also charge appearance fees, social media fees, and develop courses and speaking fees too. 

3. Can you get paid for travelling? 

Yes, as a travel blogger you can get paid to travel. I am living proof.  

4. Can anybody be a travel blogger? 

No, unfortunately not. No matter what those ads on Facebook tell you. To be a paid travel blogger you need to be resilient, hard working, good at writing and SEO, and have some sort of funds to travel in the first place. 

It takes a lot of hard work to be a travel blogger. 

5. Can you believe travel blog income reports?

I love reading travel blog income reports, but that’s just because I’m super nosey. Seeing how much travel bloggers get paid is very interesting to me, and can also give ideas of how you yourself can earn more in different markets too. I do tend to take travel blog income reports with a pinch of salt though – years in the travel blogger business has taught me you can’t believe everything you read!

Travel blogger salary

Good luck with it all. I hope one day I’ll be writing about you as one of the highest paid travel bloggers in the world. Let me know if you have any questions, and how you get on!

Pin this post on travel blogger salaries for later

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Hi, I'm Vicky! I wrote this. You can find me on all the social media @VickyFlipFlop. I love a bit of adventure, will try anything once, and have a strong passion for the local food and drink, whatever it may be. I'm here to help inspire you to travel to places a little out of your comfort zone, or at least to explore the usual destinations in a different way. Stay, have a look around, and if you have any questions – let me know below.

18 Comments

very inspiring, I’m finally making some income after blog post number 47 YAY!

Really interesting post. I remember reading about a travel blogger once who claimed to be earning a certain figure, turns out she had like you said 5 different avenues and another blog which was getting more hits! I’d like to think that one day I’d be earning enough to make a living. I’ve just started it full time so the next year will tell.

Oh good luck! I hope you’ve been ok during this difficult time. To be honest, I take everything I read with a pinch of salt as there’s a lot of exaggeration! I think this year is difficult for us all.

Nice to read and gain more knowledge – no blog yet but thinking about it – and the information helps. Really great for all the pointers

Hi VickyFlipFlopTravels, this content is an encouragement to future bloggers. It is very informative. Thanks for this.

No worries. Interesting to see hey?! I’m happy to say my income has gone up since I wrote this post but it’s been a long road!

Hi Vicky, this article is an encouragement to future bloggers. It is very informative. Thanks

Oh I hope it’s helped inspire you! As we know travel blogging isn’t all about the money, but you’ve got to be able to pay for your flights somehow!

• Pingback: Ways to Earn Money Traveling - CleverLeverage.com

Thank you, very informative. Even though you don’t want to share exact numbers, maybe you could share a range of how much earning you’ve reached at Y+1, Y+2, … ?

You’ve done your research and posted huge amount of travel blogger contents. I’m really a fan of your writing these days. Would you mind if i share this article to my students?

Hello Michel, if it’s just IRL then yeah, sure, share away! If you’re sharing online it’d be great to know where exactly you were sharing it to. Thanks!

Sorry I hadn’t replied earlier Steve, don’t know how I missed that. Are you happy with what you’ve earned? I think there are a lot of people earning a little pocket money from their blogs, which is great. Helps with the costs. I guess it’s only if you plan to pursue it as a full time job that you need to start thinking about how to bring in the big bucks, if you’ve got your main job then there’s no need to put so much pressure on yourself to perform. Just enjoy it!

No worries, I’m glad you found it helpful. So interesting to see what people are actually earning from travel blogging isn’t it?

This is so insightful and pretty thought-provoking! It’s mad to think some bloggers are earning such huge amounts from their sites and videos etc. I think like you say, it’s good to remember they will have started small and done a lot for free!I’m starting to get lots of local attractions for free and glamping stay which I find super exciting!

Oh that IS exciting! I think it makes sense that people are earning so much, when they have such big audiences. Some bloggers’ audiences are bigger than magazines. I think as people have moved to getting their information online the blogger were ahead of the curve. It’s all interesting to watch and observe – I guess we’ll see!

This post is packed with some really fascinating insights. Thanks a lot for writing this!

Let’s start with a low bar 🙂 I’ve been travel blogging purely as an enjoyable sideline to my FT salaried digital analytics career job since the start of 2016. Blog earnings to date = £800. Directly £500 for a video I posted on Jukin Media and £75 for a sponsored blog post … & then indirectly £150 discount off a Stockholm hotel rate and a £75 free tour in Paris (both of which I was going to pay full price for anyway). £0 so far from my Amazon affiliate links.

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✈️ How To Start a Travel Blog That Makes Money In 2024

Starting a travel blog is an exciting way to share your travel experiences.

Not only do you get to explore the world, but you also have the opportunity to build a community of fellow travel enthusiasts — and make a substantial income while you’re at it.

At Authority Hacker, we’ve guided over 14,000 students in creating profitable blogs, many of whom are in the travel niche.

We’ve also found unlocked the secrets of turning blog visitors into cash – check out this sampling of affiliate commissions we’ve earned over the years.

To help you find similar success, we’ve distilled our expertise into this 10-step guide.

Why Start a Travel Blog

Whether you’re a seasoned traveler or just setting out on your first adventure, creating a travel blog can be a fulfilling path.

For starters, the travel industry is booming right now, and starting a travel blog lets you capitalize on that popularity. More than 90% of Americans plan to travel in 2024 , and the global travel industry was estimated to rake in a whopping 7 trillion  dollars .

Travel blogging also empowers you to make a positive impact   on aspiring travelers. By sharing your experiences and insights, you can help people achieve their travel goals.  

But the best part of starting a travel blog is getting paid to travel . With just a laptop and internet access, you could grow your travel site anywhere. And with affiliate marketers in the travel niche earning an average of $13,847 per month , there’s ample opportunity to make good money.

Successful Travel Site Examples

The best way to learn how to start a travel blog is by studying other accomplished travel bloggers. Here are a few great examples:

SANspotter documents Scott Leazenby’s travel adventures, with a particular focus on airlines, airport lounges, and specific flight routes.

The Hawaii vacation Guide

The Hawaii Vacation Guide helps people make the most out of their vacation to the Hawaiian islands. They share itineraries, recommendations, reviews, and more.

SV Delos teaches aspiring sailors how to travel the world on a sailboat. They share sailing videos, safety tips, and sell their own merchandise.

How To Start a Travel Blog in 10 Steps

Here is a foolproof guide to launching a successful travel site in ten easy steps:

1 Narrow Down Your Travel Blog’s Niche

A niche is a specific, focused area within a given topic. You can cover broad niches — in this case, the travel industry — and smaller sub-niches. For example, some sub-niches in the travel space could be:

• Family Travel: Tips on traveling with small children or a growing family.
• Voluntourism:  How to volunteer your time in exchange for lodging and experiences.
• Regional Food Tourism: Food or beverage guides across different regions.
• Van Life Travel: Tips for living and traveling in a van.

At first glance, you may think it’s a good idea to keep your niche broad, but there are two big reasons you should narrow down your niche:

• It’s much easier to be seen as an expert in a smaller sub-niche than in the broader “travel” niche. Being seen as an expert can help your branding and make it easier to grow a following.
• Google rewards sites that focus on small corners of larger niches with higher search rankings.

You can widen your niche as your site grows, but starting with a narrow focus will help you grow your audience and start making money faster.

Ready to find a sub-niche? Here’s how:

First, make a list of all the potential niches you’re considering within the travel space, as well as some competing websites within those niches.

There are a few ways to do this.  One method involves searching Google for keywords related to your topic (like “family travel tips”) to find blogs specializing in that niche.

👉 Check our list of Travel Blog Examples

You can also search through blog aggregators like Detailed to find high-traffic sites within your desired sub-niche.

One of our favorite tools for finding competitors and analyzing site traffic is Ahrefs . It lets you type in a competitor’s website and click on the Organic Competitors  tab on the left sidebar.

This conveniently brings up a list of that site’s top competitors; add any that seem relevant to your list.

Once you have a list of competitors, the next step is to check the traffic volume for each competing website in the niches you’re considering to get an idea of that niche’s traffic potential.

You can check a website’s organic traffic using the Competitive Research tool on SE Ranking , which offers a free trial.

You can further narrow down your selection by using Google Trends  to compare the search traffic of each potential niche.

Choosing your niche is a big decision, and it’s important to feel confident before moving forward. But don’t dwell too long on the decision-making process — chances are, you already know which niche is calling your name the loudest.

If you still need some guidance, check out our in-depth guide to choosing a successful niche:

2 Choose a Blogging Platform

The next step in becoming a successful travel blogger is choosing a blogging platform.

Free social blogging platforms like Blogger and Medium are great for casual bloggers, but they have some major downsides if you’re serious about building a successful travel blog. They severely restrict customization, limit the types of content you can post, and significantly reduce blog monetization options .  

Instead, I recommend building your own website. Here’s why:

• You’ll have full control over your site and won’t have to adhere to strict rules and lack of customization options.
• No one can delete your content or shut down your blog.
• You’ll have the flexibility to earn money through affiliate marketing, display ads, and other revenue sources.
• You can use search engine optimization (SEO) to target specific keywords and send traffic to your blog.
• It’s easy to integrate your blog with your social media accounts.
• You can build an email list to create another traffic source and protect your blog from negative Google algorithm changes.

To build your website, I recommend using WordPress.org   (not to be confused with WordPress.com) . It’s free to use and offers complete control over your site’s design and functionality with thousands of themes and plugins.

3 Choose Your Domain Name

Your domain name is essentially your website’s address on the internet. It includes your website’s name and a domain extension.  

A good domain name is important because it builds credibility with your audience and helps them remember you.

So, what should you look out for when choosing a domain name?

• Keep it short and simple . Short domain names are easier to remember. Aim for no more than three words.
• Keep it broad and relevant. You want a domain name that is relevant to your sub-niche but allows for expansion into other areas of your broad niche later on.
• Check social media availability. If you plan on using social media, make sure the name you want is available on all platforms. You can quickly check for username availability on the most popular platforms through Brandsnag .
• Research trademarks: Avoid legal issues by ensuring your domain name isn’t trademarked through the Trademark Electronic Search System .
• Choose a .com domain: A .com domain is familiar to users and provides higher trust than other extensions. If your domain is taken, you can consider using a .com alternative  like .org, io, or .net.
• Avoid confusion: Your domain name should be easy to spell and pronounce so users can share your site via word of mouth. Also, avoid using random numbers, underscores, and dashes.

If you’re having trouble brainstorming the perfect domain name, use the free Brandsnap  tool to get AI-generated domain suggestions.

Once you’ve found the perfect domain name for your travel site, it’s time to purchase it.

I recommend using Namecheap . They offer domain names for as little as $10 per year.

4 Buy Web Hosting

The next step in becoming a travel blogger is to find and purchase web hosting.

While your domain name points users to your site, a web host stores and makes your website’s content accessible online.

Bluehost is a popular option, as it’s quite inexpensive. However, if you’re aiming for speed, reliability, and top-notch performance, SiteGround  is our recommendation.

They offer a steep discount for first-year users, making the price difference between Bluehost and SiteGround negligible.

Here are 7 easy steps to setting up web hosting through SiteGround:

Step 1: Go to SiteGround’s WordPress hosting page

Step 2: Choose the cheapest hosting plan. The StartUp plan offers more than enough features to get you going on your travel site.

Step 3: Enter your domain name and click Proceed.

Step 4: Enter your account information.

Step 5: Add payment info and choose your package length. The 12-month option generally offers the best deal.

Step 6: Skip the extra services since they are unnecessary for a new site.

Step 7: Point your domain name to SiteGround . This is done through the DNS settings on Namecheap (or wherever you purchased your domain name). If you have any issues, just contact SiteGround’s support team.

Congratulations! This wraps up the more tedious side of starting a new site.

5 Choose a Theme for Your Travel Blog

Choosing a theme is the first step in curating your site’s aesthetic.

Your theme will affect almost every aspect of your site, including user experience, mobile responsiveness, functionality, and even security. You can always change it later, but we highly recommend choosing a great theme from the beginning.

I recommend choosing a free theme that offers a premium upgrade option . Free themes are fine for starting, but they have limitations that will hamper your blog’s growth.

A “freemium” theme lets you save money at the beginning and avoid the complexities of switching themes later on.

You’ll also want your theme to be visually interesting and convey the right message to your audience. However, most themes make it easy to change colors, branding, photos, and layout, so this isn’t a huge factor.

Therefore, you should prioritize features like speed, customer support, seamless plug-in integration, and easy customization.

Our favorite free themes for new sites are Astra, Kadence, and GeneratePress. They offer premium upgrades and are remarkably fast, easy to customize, and have great support teams.

Ultra-fast and compatible with all of the most popular no-code page builders.

Versatile and highly customizable design great for many use cases.

Boasts total design freedom through an easy-to-use drag-and-drop system.

Once you’ve decided on the perfect theme for your travel blog, it’s time to install it. There are four easy steps to have your theme up and running in just a few minutes:

Step 1: Go to the WordPress dashboard.

Step 2: Go to the left sidebar and select Appearance  > Themes

Step 3: Click “Add New”

Step 4: Search for the name of your chosen theme and click “Activate.”

6 Decide on Design & Branding

Design and branding will help your WordPress site stand out and provide a much-needed personal touch. This will include customizing a color palette, creating a logo, and ensuring your site has a cohesive design.

Your color palette should reflect the vibe of your travel sub-niche. For example, an eco-tourism travel blog can use earthy tones like forest green, deep brown, and muted clay to echo the natural environments that the content focuses on. Alternatively, a luxury travel blog might use a palette of rich gold, elegant black, and crisp white to evoke a sense of sophistication and opulence.

Our favorite tool for choosing harmonious and beautiful color palettes is Coolors .

Just tap the spacebar, and it’ll curate beautiful color palettes in seconds. You can save entire palettes or individual colors. Jot down the six-digit color code for each of the colors you choose.

Next, you’ll need a logo.

It’s important to create a logo that is professional, relevant to your niche, and sets the tone for what your audience can expect from your site.

Canva  makes creating a beautiful logo quick and easy. Their free tier has tons of great logo templates you can use.

From here, you can customize your logo with your site’s name, color palette, and any other necessary tweaks to reflect your brand’s image and unique personality.

7 Create Essential Pages

Next up, you’ll want to create the essential pages for your travel blog. This will help give your readers a way to contact you, learn more about you and your brand, and cover some important legal information.

Your homepage is the “home base” for your blog. It should help your audience easily navigate your site, and it’s a great place to showcase content, build trust, and reinforce your brand identity.

Your About page is where you’ll share your story and what prompted you to start a travel blog. The more personable and relatable you can make your about page, the better.

Share your background, photos, personal stories, and anything else that will instill trust in your readers.

This is one of the most important pages on any site, so it’s best to take your time to make it shine. Here are some killer about me page examples  for inspiration.

Contact Page

This is where readers and potential collaborators can directly contact you. At the least, this page should include either a contact form or your email address.

This is also a great place to include links to your social media accounts.

Privacy Policy + Terms and Conditions

Did you know that you’re legally required to outline how a website collects, uses, discloses, and manages the personal information of its users?

To comply with this, make a Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions page using PrivacyPolicies.com .

Creating a new page in WordPress only takes a couple of seconds. Just log in to your account and click Pages > Add new on the left-hand side of your dashboard .

8 Start Creating Content

Now that you’ve created your site, it’s time to start creating content.

The best way to do this is to create keyword-focused content  that people are searching for on Google. If you can rank well for search terms, you’ll get traffic that you can convert into revenue.

However, you can’t simply write about the highest-traffic keywords and expect to rank. The higher the traffic potential, the more competition from big websites. A new blog will have a hard time competing for the best terms.  

That’s why I recommend finding low-competition keywords  with decent search volume . You won’t get as much traffic as the biggest keywords, but your new travel blog actually stands a chance of ranking.

Tools like Ahrefs  make this super easy to do.

Let’s say you want to create a site that teaches people how to live in a van. If I type “van life” into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer tool, I get matching terms and topics like:

You can then use these keywords to develop article ideas that have a shot at ranking.

For example, based on the keywords above, some of your first article titles could be:

• “The 10 Best Vans For Vanlife”
• “50 Van Life Essentials You Don’t Want To Forget”
• “The Best Van Life Shower Ideas For Your Build”

Once you’ve come up with 10 article titles, it’s time to start writing the content. Here are a few tips to help you write engaging, search-optimized content for your travel blog:

• Know your audience. If you specialize in budget backpacking, you want to promote products and experiences that resonate with that purpose. You likely wouldn’t promote luxury hotel experiences or high-end gear.
• Share personal photos. You don’t need to be a professional photographer. Google loves original images, and your iPhone is more than capable of capturing quality images. Share your relevant photos that you’re proud of wherever you can.
• Stay on topic. Your readers will love to read about your adventures and stories, but remember that they clicked on your article to answer a question or find a solution. Make sure you give your readers the answers they’re looking for in an easy-to-digest way.
• Go the extra mile. People want the best tips, insider knowledge, and up-to-date information. Be sure you create quality content so your readers know they can look to you as an expert.
• Be conversational . Talk to your readers as if they’re a next-door neighbor.
• Make it scannable . Readers looking for specific answers tend to scan the page. Use headings and bold words to help your audience find information quickly, as they might click away if they can’t locate the information they need.
• Share stories. The beauty of having a travel blog is that your readers likely have a severe case of wanderlust, too. Personal stories are a great way to stoke that fire and keep your audience coming back for more.
• Travel. Visiting travel destinations allows you to share firsthand tips, photos, and insights.

Hopefully, this inspires you to create the most engaging and helpful content you can. Not only will Google reward you with front-page rankings, but it’ll keep your audience regularly coming back for more.  

9 Promote Your Travel Blog

There’s so much more to building an audience than clicking “post” and crossing your fingers. It’s important to start spreading the word about your site and getting eyes on your content.

Here are five actionable ways you can promote your site today:

• Collaborate with the community: If you’re writing in the van life niche, you can make a blog post sharing beautiful van builds or telling stories from other van lifers on social media. Be sure to send them an email and tag them in your post. They’ll likely be excited to share your article with their own followers.
• Engage in travel forums : Find Facebook groups and Reddit forums in your niche and share any of your content that can help answer a question someone may have.
• Leverage social media: Platforms like TikTok and Instagram push content to the people they think will benefit from a post. Share helpful tips and tricks, stories, and inspiration that lure readers to your site. Videos tend to outperform photos or text posts on these platforms.
• Build an email list: Offer incentives like a free travel guide or exclusive tips to prompt readers to sign up for your newsletter. Since you own your email list, it’s one of the best long-term growth strategies for any blog.
• Write guest posts: Find other websites in a similar niche and offer to write a guest post. This will encourage their audience to visit your travel blog, and backlinks can boost your SEO.

However you promote your blog, ensure you’re being helpful and not just posting your content to promote it. People don’t like spammy, unsolicited promotional tactics.

10 Monetize Your Travel Blog

There are a few ways to start making money with your blog. It will likely take several months of diligent posting, but you can make money on your WordPress blog if you stick with it.

Some of the most popular ways to monetize your travel blog are:

Affiliate Marketing

Promote other people’s products and earn a commission when someone makes a purchase.

Why It’s Great: You can earn from products your audience is interested in without having to deal with the complexity of selling your own product.

Get Started: One of the easiest ways to start affiliate marketing is through Amazon Associates , but there are plenty of travel affiliate programs  you can join to start earning money.  

Affiliate marketing is as easy as signing up, promoting products, and getting your audience to buy. Read our guide on how to start affiliate marketing  if you want to learn more.

Display Ads

Show advertisements on your blog and earn money every time your audience views or engages with an ad on your site.

Why It’s Great: As long as you drive traffic to your site, you’ll make money. Ads are a great supplement to other monetization methods and can earn a substantial amount on their own if you get enough visitors.

Get Started: The Ezoic  ad network is a good option for new blogs, as there’s no traffic minimum to sign up. However, you should switch to a better network like Mediavine (50,000 minimum monthly pageviews) or Raptive (100,000 minimum monthly pageviews) once you meet their traffic requirements.

Selling Your Own Products

Develop and sell digital or physical products your audience is interested in.

Why It’s Great: Selling products is usually much more profitable than other monetization methods. Once you’ve built up a base of income from ads and affiliate recommendations, launching a product is a great way to take your revenue to the next level.

Get Started: You can consider selling travel guides, printable maps, travel budgeting spreadsheets, photography prints, courses, and more. You can sell these directly on your website or through a third party like Etsy  or Teachable .

Sponsored Content

Partner with brands to promote their products in your blog posts or other content.

Why It’s Great: Sponsors will pay you upfront for the privilege of publishing a favorable post on your blog. They’ll often write the post for you as well, making it an easy way to earn extra cash.

Get Started: Make a “Work With Us” page on your blog that advertises you’re open to sponsored content. Share basic information about your readership, such as demographics and monthly traffic. Check out Pinch of Yum’s Sponsored Content page for more information.

Starting a travel blog is an exciting journey with real earning potential.

But let’s face it: the steps outlined in this article are just the beginning.

To truly excel and turn your blog into a profitable business, you’ll need to dive deeper.

That’s why we’ve created a free training packed with advanced strategies. You’ll learn seven key secrets that can boost your blog’s success rate by 83%.

Ready to level up your travel blogging game?

Join the free training now.

Do Travel Bloggers Get Paid?

Travel bloggers get paid quite a lot. In fact, the average travel blogger earns $13,847 per month . The most common ways to monetize your blog include affiliate marketing, display ads, and selling your own products.

How Much Does It Cost To Start a Travel Blog?

It can cost as little as $35 to start a travel blog. The only mandatory purchases are a domain name and web hosting, though expanding your blog’s functionality will add hundreds to the overall cost.  

How Do Travel Blogs Make Money?

A professional travel blogger can earn money through affiliate marketing, display ads, selling digital or physical products, and making courses for other travelers.

Who Is the Highest-Paid Travel Blogger?

Nomadic Matt is regarded as the highest-paid travel blogger, earning more than $750,000 per year . He is a New York Times best-selling author, affiliate marketer, course creator, and devout traveler.

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How To Monetize A Travel Blog: 10 Clever Strategies + Profit Plan [Ep. 45]

By Jessie Festa. This episode on how to monetize your passion for travel is sponsored by Travelpayouts and also contains affiliate links to trusted partners I think you’ll love!

Want to learn how to monetize a travel blog ?

Well, you’re in luck, as in this episode we’ll be talking about how to start a travel blog and make money!

By the end of this episode, you’ll understand:

• How to monetize your passion for travel through blogging
• How to start a travel blog with a profitable foundation
• How to create a profit plan for your blog (workflow included!)
• 10 creative ideas for making money blogging
• Important blog monetization rules that can help you see success quicker

On that note, let’s dive into the episode.

Table of Contents

How To Monetize A Travel Blog Step-By-Step [Podcast Episode Audio]

Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts/iTunes

Click here to listen on Spotify

Click here to listen on TuneIn

Prefer video? Check out:

Free Travel Blogger Resource Library

To help you really jumpstart your blogging success, I’ve added 55+ blogging resources like printables, video tutorials, and workbooks into a FREE resource library for travel bloggers.

These resources are meant to help you grow your traffic, community, and income faster and with less overwhelm!

Grow Your Blogging Income With Travelpayouts

This episode is sponsored by Travelpayouts, the largest affiliate platform designed for travel content creators.

Travelpayouts helps bloggers earn on all types of travel services including flight tickets, accommodation, tours and activities, car rentals, insurance, and many others by connecting over 100 trusted travel brands with over 300,000 content creators globally.

Bonus: You can click here and use code “JESSIE24” to get $50 added to your first payout!

Increase Your Traffic & Income These Helpful Tools

HeySummit (14-day free trial included). Create unlimited easy to run online events with all of the customization and flexibility you need to provide an exceptional experience for your audience.

Keysearch (get 30% off with code “jessieonajourney30”). This inexpensive tool allows you to kick your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) up a notch to more easily rank on Google’s first page and increase your traffic. We’ll be going over this tool in-depth as the course goes on.

Surfer SEO . This tool is like employing an SEO expert on your team (without the 4-figure monthly price tag). You’ll get specific recommendations tailored to your blog for how to optimize your blog posts for SEO and rank in organic search results. You can see my video tutorial here, too:

Teachable . This is my favorite platform for creating profitable online blogging courses . Their support is fantastic, too. My affiliate link gets you a 14-day free trial — no credit card required!

ConvertKit . A feature-rich yet user-friendly email marketing platform made by bloggers for bloggers. My affiliate link gets you a 30-day free trial — no credit card required!

Deadline Funnel . This powerful tool allows you to create real limited-time offers; as in, once the tripwire deadline is over there will be no way for a person to get back into the funnel to get it again.

Beaver Builder . I personally use both their theme and plugin. The plugin allows you to create beautiful landing pages using a user-friendly drag-and-drop page builder.

Interact Quiz Maker . This tool allows you to easily make beautiful and engaging quizzes that can engage your audience while growing your email list.

Ultimate Bundles . Become an Ultimate Bundles affiliate for high commissions. You can also apply to have your own digital products included their bundles for even more potential income!

Create A Blog Post From Scratch Template . This template will help you create an SEO-optimized blog post from start to finish – affiliate links and email opt-ins included!

How To Monetize Your Travel Blog [Episode Transcript]

Let’s be real. When you’re first starting out, waiting for your blog to start making money can feel like watching paint dry — if watching paint dry also entailed doing a ton of work.

But, here’s the thing:

Simply writing blog posts, even if you stay consistent, does not on its own lead to income or help you get to a point of full-time blogging .

In order to make money blogging — and truly see sustainable results when it comes to travel blog monetization — you need to have a profit plan.

Which is exactly what I’m going to help you create in this episode. In fact, I’ll first be sharing a plug-and-play workflow you can steal to map out your profit plan, followed by a list of powerful ideas for monetizing your blog, increasing your income, and taking your business full time.

But first, speaking of profit plan, I want to direct your attention to my free 4-day Profitable Travel Blog Makeover course .

The course takes you from setting up your profitable brand through growing your traffic and visibility all the way to monetization, so you’ll be able to better implement what you learn in this episode.

In fact, the free course comes with a printable workbook that will help you actually map out a profit plan for yourself. Feel free to even pause this episode to go grab your seat in the course.

Oh, and while we’re talking about freebies, make sure to join the Travelpayouts affiliate network for free and then use code “JESSIE24” to have $50 added to your first payout so you can start making money right away ! If you’re interested in seeing success with affiliate marketing for travel bloggers , joining this network is a smart move.

Grabbed your blogging freebies ? Then let’s dive in!

Creating Your Blogging Profit Plan

Okay, so when creating your profit plan, I find it really helpful to start by setting blogging goals . Think of your big goal for your blog and work backwards. For instance, if you want to earn $100,000 through your blog, what steps would you need to take to get there?

Well, for one, you’d probably want to create a product. From there, you’d want to map out a product launch plan to make sales, and then set up some evergreen strategies to consistently sell your product.

Or, maybe your goal is to empower 1,000 women to travel solo by the end of the year, so you create an online membership for solo female travelers.

Potentially, your goal is to get 100,000 pageviews per month to your blog to grow your Mediavine income and what you earn through banner ads. So, you work backward and say, Okay, I need to pinpoint a few powerful traffic-generating strategies.

Instead of writing whatever I feel like, I’m going to invest in a keyword research tool and focus on writing six SEO-optimized posts each month — and have two of them be focused on promoting affiliate links and increasing my affiliate income for additional revenue. Moreover, I’m going to learn how to promote blog content so that people truly click over and read it.

Or, maybe you want to sell a blog for profit . If this is the case, you’ll want to pinpoint what needs to be done to prep your site so that it fetches the highest price possible.

Basically, define your goal and then work backward to pinpoint the milestones you need to reach to complete it — including your next action step; as in, the one you will take today.

Now, it’s not enough to just think about this profit plan or declare your goal to yourself. You need to actually map it out in your planner or your project management software.

What I like to do is take a piece of blank paper and create a box for each month of the year.

In that box, I’ll input a major milestone or a profit-generating event like a product launch or promoting an affiliate offer.

This acts as a sort of reference key to pair with my paper planner, where each month during the second week of the month it says “Promo Planning” for the entire week. This is my reminder to grab my reference key and look at what I’ve listed as the focus for the following month to start creating the assets.

For instance, if it’s the 2nd week of March and I open my planner to the Promo Planning week, I can then look at the reference key and see that in April I’m speaking at a virtual summit. This tells me that I should use my time to plan, create, and schedule the promotional assets for the summit.

Again, if you need a bit more help mapping out your profit plan I’ve got my free 4-day Profitable Travel Blog Makeover course + workbook .

Okay, so maybe now you’re getting an idea of the blogging workflow you’ll use to create your profit plan. But, what are some milestones or action items you can focus on that actually work well — even for newer bloggers?

That’s what we’ll cover right now.

Idea #1: Create a profitable content plan.

Maybe you write posts based on how you’re feeling on a given day, or maybe you have an annual blog content plan mapped out in advance. But, my question to you is:

Is this content plan profitable? As in, does it lead to blogging income in some way?

There are many ways to make your content profitable, though one simple way is to add affiliate-optimized posts to your schedule. So, you might say that every fourth blog post you write is going to be one that is geared toward generating affiliate income.

I’ve got an entire episode on affiliate marketing for bloggers , but in short you want to choose an affiliate partner with a high payout and write a post focused on buyer-intent keywords — as in, keywords that attract people with their credit card in hand ready to purchase.

You can Google buyer-intent keyword examples, but here’s one right now:

Let’s say you’re promoting World Nomads Travel Insurance . Writing a post on “The Best Travel Insurance For Americans” would convert much better than a post on “My Favorite Cities In Europe” where you simply link to an insurance provider.

This is because, in the first example, the searcher is clearly looking to purchase travel insurance, whereas in the second example, the searcher is really looking for Italy travel planning help.

Another example could include promoting Amazon affiliate products in an article on the “best hiking backpacks for women”. In this instance, you know the searcher is looking to make a purchase.

Important note here:

Doing keyword research and optimizing your blog posts for Search Optimization — or SEO — is essential here. It can be difficult to rank in Google if you don’t do this research, meaning the content you’ve worked so hard on might not get seen.

My favorite tool for doing keyword research is Keysearch, which really provides all of the information you need to find niche keywords and get your posts ranking. Here is a quick video tutorial:

You can click here and use code “jessieonajourney30” for 30% off Keysearch!

Now, another tool that can help with optimizing your content to rank in organic search results is S urfer SEO .

Instead of simply giving you data about other sites that are ranking, Surfer SEO analyzes your website to make tailored recommendations for:

• specific keywords to target
• specific ways to optimize new content
• specific changes to make to old content to improve its chances of ranking
• specific missed opportunities for internal and external backlinks
• specific on-page SEO optimizations (such as optimal word count, title length, image count, etc)
• and much more

Did I mention the tool gets specific?

In short, you’ll get a step-by-step SEO workflow that can help you grow your traffic and increase your rankings – no guesswork required!

Here is a quick tutorial going over some of Surfer SEO’s powerful features:

While you’ll need a paid plan to get everything I showcase in the video, they do offer a fre e AI Article Outline Generator to give you a small taste of the platform. This tool can really help you write blog articles faster .

Now, as we discuss content planning and optimizing, remember that your content plan also includes your emails and your social media shares, so make sure to weave in promotion of products and affiliate offers there, too.

Quite often, I’ll write a strategy-focused email or a list of tips that promotes relevant affiliate partners.

And if you’re curious how travel bloggers make money on Instagram , this is one strategy.

As you’re thinking about how to niche down , possible travel blog niches, and what you want to focus on, remember that what is ultimately important is writing about the same topic consistently. This will help you rank for that topic (so your affiliate content gets seen) and will help you grow an audience around that topic (so people click your affiliate links).

Idea #2: Promote recurring revenue affiliate programs.

If you want to become the most successful and richest travel blogger out there, this tip can help set you on the right path.

Now I mentioned working with high-paying affiliates at the beginning of the video, but I want to expand on this here to discuss recurring commission affiliate programs.

Basically, through these programs you’ll continue to earn affiliate commission for as long as your referral stays a paying customer. To find these programs, you’ll want to think about recurring payment products and services — like VPNs.

From there, put the work into getting creative with how you promote these partners. Yes, blog posts, storytelling emails , and social posts are great — but why not reach out to the partner to see if there are ways you can work closer, such as co-hosting a webinar that puts your affiliate in front of your audience and promotes them with your affiliate link?

Or, maybe you have a product, and the partner can give you a free trial to share as a bonus for new customers using your affiliate link.

Or, you could utilize one of my favorite strategies for promoting affiliate partners…

Idea #3: Host a free challenge that promotes an affiliate partner.

I love this strategy!

You want to think about the problem that your affiliate solves. It should be a problem that your audience faces — so that your affiliate can be the solution.

For instance, if you help travelers explore the world with their family on a budget, you might create a free challenge focused on planning a budget trip and highlight Scott’s Cheap Flights , a company that has an affiliate program.

If the affiliate partner you want to promote doesn’t offer a free trial, reach out to them to see if they can create one for your challenge.

To sweeten the offer, consider adding your own bonuses to anyone who stays a paying member of the affiliate.

Idea #4: Take part in or create a product bundle.

If you love growing your blog quickly , this strategy is for you.

You’ve probably seen people promoting different themed product bundles before, where there are a variety of digital products created by different bloggers in one bundled product. The bundle is typically sold for a very limited time at a huge discount — like 98% cheaper than if you purchased each product individually.

Often how it works is the contributors promote the bundle as an affiliate with a high commission rate — typically about 70%.

But that’s not the only perk.

Because so many different bloggers are promoting the bundle, you then get in front of new audiences — especially since everyone who purchases the bundle will then grab your product and most likely join your email list.

If needed, I recommend creating a digital product to put into a relevant product bundle if you don’t have one already.

Ultimate Bundles is a good place to start with this, as they offer all sorts of bundles of various topics — from blogging to travel to photography to self-care and beyond (so if you also want to know how to make money from travel photography, this can help!). I’ll link their affiliate application in the show notes.

And remember, if you can’t find a bundle to be a part of, you can always organize one yourself by reaching out to other bloggers in your niche to collaborate.

Idea #5: Take part in or host a summit.

Another type of group event that can ramp up your visibility and revenue is taking part in virtual summits.

Similar to bundles, you’ll likely promote the summit as an affiliate with a high commission rate of about 50%-70%. If the summit is free, you’ll earn the money on the upsells promoted at checkout — such as a Pro Pass that snags the attendee lifetime access to the summit session replays.

Again, if you can’t find a summit to apply to speak at, you might consider creating your own. You can use a tool called HeySummit to set this up really easily and even onboard affiliates to help promote the event.

Remember, too, you can start small and have 10-12 sessions and then create a larger event as you get more comfortable.

Idea #6: Organize a collaborative event.

As mentioned above, these could include things like summits, blog giveaways , and bundles — but doesn’t have to be.

One thing I did last year was team up with other bloggers in my niche to each offer an opt-in freebie, which we promoted as a free bundle giveaway with limitless winners. Each contributor also promoted the giveaway to their audience — which meant everyone got in front of each other’s audience and grew their email list.

While this in itself doesn’t lead to income, keep in mind that a well-nurtured email list can convert really well, so growing your list can lead to increased income that goes beyond one-off sponsored posts!

Idea #7: Pre-sell an online course .

Looking for travel blogger jobs and projects that help you stay consistent in your business? Launching your own online course, or potentially your own online school, is a smart option.

So maybe you’ve been hearing about the power of creating an online course — but you’re not sure you want to do all of the work to make one just to have nobody purchase.

One solution is to pre-sell the course. This entails getting people to purchase before you create the entire thing so that you’re earning money prior to the course start date. In short, it’s one of the best ways to validate your business idea .

Yes, you will want to have an outline of the what the course will be so you can accurately promote it, but you can basically have a promo period that happens before the course start date and then drip out the content weekly. This also allows you to incorporate feedback from students into following lessons to better serve them.

If you’re not creating an online course, that’s okay, you can adapt the steps I just mentioned to fit your own product. I’m just a huge fan of online courses since they have the potential to earn you a lot of money and work well for bloggers of all niches.

By the way, I use Teachable for my courses. My affiliate link snags you a 14-day free trial of their Pro Plan, which is the one I use.

Idea #8: Host a webinar .

Now there are two ways to go about this. The first is to host a free webinar and pitch a paid product at the end. When executed correctly, free webinars can convert really high — since you’re giving people a taste of your teaching style and empowering them to take action.

Your other option is to host a paid webinar. Since people associate webinars with being free, you might call it a workshop instead, but the idea is you’re hosting a high-value live class where students leave having learned something, or better yet, having had some kind of transformation.

These smaller workshops can also help validate a larger course idea! In fact, you might even consider pitching a larger course at the end of the workshop, potentially with a limited-time discount and bonuses.

By the way, in the show notes I’ve shared a link to a past podcast episode on how to successfully host live webinars as well as my WebinarJam affiliate link , which snags you two weeks of their webinar software for $1.

Idea #9: Create and promote a compact product.

Compact products are smaller, budget-friendly products that are packed with value. For instance, you might create a workshop, a collection of high-value printables, or an ebook sharing your workflows for how to do something. It’s typically something you could sell for less than $50.

These can be an easier sell than a larger product but should still deliver the promised outcome.

You can promote these right on your site.

You could also take this idea a step further to create a tripwire funnel — which is a high-value, low-cost offer that is only available for a very limited time, like 15 minutes. You’d promote this product on the thank you page of your opt-in freebie.

The thing is, the product should a) solve the same problem as your opt-in freebie so that you’re serving the same audience and b) only be offered for a limited-time.

For instance, maybe the value of the product is $149; however, in the tripwire funnel people have 15 minutes to purchase it for just $24. You can use a tool like Deadline Funnel to make the offer truly limited time — adding a countdown timer and having it truly disappear after the time is up.

Bonus: Deadline Funnel comes with a 14-day free trial!

And finally, let’s chat about idea #10: Build out your backlinks.

While this isn’t necessarily a way to make money, it is truly one of the best ways to grow your traffic. In fact, if you haven’t been at least creating internal backlinks between your posts, I recommend you make that next month’s big focus.

Whenever you publish a new post or update your old content , you should be working to add links to old posts in it as well as links from old posts to it.

What I also like to do for my destinations and main topics is create Content Silo Pages. These are link-heavy resource pages that form a sort of tree with your content.

For instance, if the page is about Solo Female Travel you might then break that up into three sections — like Travel Safety, Solo Destinations, and Solo Travel Tips. Then from there you can break it down even further by adding posts that fit into that category.

Additionally, I’ll use Keysearch to research what questions people have about the topic and answer them on the page. Again, code “jessieonajourney30” gets you 30% off of Keysearch.

From there, I like to add these pages to my main menu, which gives them instant backlinks from all of my posts since the menu is at the top of every post. This can also help boost traffic , so I want to have my opt-in and some relevant affiliate links on these pages.

Of course, you also want to work to get backlinks from other travel blogs, too! These act as a vote of confidence and helps your site build trust in the eyes of Google.

Alright, now I hope you enjoyed this episode.

I hope you feel inspired and empowered to create a profit plan and add some income-generating events to your calendar.

Don’t forget to grab access to the free 4-day Profitable Travel Blog Makeover course that I’ve linked in the show notes, as it can help you monetize your blogging business faster and with less overwhelm.

I’d also like to thank our sponsor, Travelpayouts, for helping to make this episode possible. Remember, you can click here to join their affiliate network and use code JESSIE24 to get $50 on top of your first payout so you can start monetizing right away.

And of course, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes sharing these bite-sized strategies for bloggers who want to turn their blogs into profitable full-time businesses.

Happy blogging!

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Click here to subscribe on iTunes  to be notified when new episodes publish.

I’d also be extremely grateful if you’d leave a review right here and let me know your favorite part of the episode or a takeaway you walked away with. By leaving a review, you help the show be seen by more people, helping the episodes to have a greater impact.

Each month, I’ll be choosing one reviewer at random to win a FREE seat inside one of my masterclasses.

Winners can choose from:

• How To Grow Your Blogging Income Through Facebook Ads
• How To Land Paid Press Trips As A Travel Blogger
• How To Make Money (Fast) With Affiliate Marketing
• How To Start A Tour Company In Your Own Backyard
• How To Start A Blog, Grow An Audience & Make Money
• Build Your Blogging Profit Plan Masterclass

Winners will be chosen at random from the reviews and will be notified via email, so make sure to send me — jessie (at) jessieonajourney dot) com — your email address so I have it. 

Grow Your Blog With These Helpful Past Episodes:

13 Clever Ways To Grow Your Travel Blogging Income

How To Get Featured In The Media As A Blogger

Monetize Your Email List With 4 Smart Strategies

Create A Profitable Automated Email Sequence (With Template!)

Content Marketing 101: How To Create & Monetize A Blog Series

9 Clever Ways To Increase Your Blog Traffic

Making Money With Webinars: 10 Do’s + 3 Don’ts

How To Create A Profitable Blog Brand

Grow Your Blog Fast: 12 Quick Wins For More Traffic & Income

How To Create A Free Resource Library That Grows Your Email List

How One Woman Quit Her Job To Pursue Full-Time Blogging

How To Create Opt-In Freebies For Your Blog

How to Make Money From a Travel Blog

If you are looking for ideas on how to make money as a travel blogger, look no further. Earning online with a travel blog is not just a dream, it is possible for anyone who is ready to put in the time and effort. In this post, you will learn about all the travel website monetization opportunities from affiliate marketing and advertising to sponsored posts to selling your own products and more.

How Much Can You Earn From a Travel Blog?

Many beginner bloggers wonder about earning opportunities when they start a blog. The truth is, income depends on many factors. The most important of which are the amount and quality of traffic as well as the methods of content monetization. Needless to say, your niche plays a crucial role too, as does seasonality. For example, as many people travel in the summer, travel bloggers earn more during this time. In addition, proper SEO can be a game changer.

But let’s talk about some numbers. Nick Wharton from Goats on the Road believes that beginner bloggers can make $500 per month after just six months, if they dedicate time daily. After a year, you could be earning $1,000 to $1,500 per month. After two or three years of continuous efforts, you could be earning $5,000 per month or more. Nick himself is currently earning between $15,000 and $35,000 per month through affiliate marketing, ads, and press partnerships. You can find more income reports from renowned travel bloggers in our post .

There’s another case. After one year, We Seek Travel had about 10,000 monthly sessions and made under $800 per month, despite the blogger investing 40-50 hours of time per week. Five years later, the blog generates over $18,000 in passive income per month with around 250,000 sessions, primarily from search engines. This allows the blogger to enjoy activities like Himalayan climbing without working on their laptop, while still earning a substantial income.

Even though it may seem as if the market is full of blogs and competition, this is not true. The industry is saturated with opportunity. There is enough money and partnerships for everyone who is ready to work hard. The sky is your limit if you manage to grow authority in your niche, stand out from the competition, and diversify your income sources.

Who Can Make Money Travel Blogging?

Even if you have just started a travel blog, you can start earning from your website. You need patience, self-control and the mindset of an entrepreneur, not an employee.

To monetize your travel blog, you must attract an audience, join the appropriate partners, and perhaps create a product or provide a service. Meeting the reader’s needs and putting your project over the top must be your priority, not the money.

Affiliate Marketing and CPA Networks for a Travel Blog

The CPA model means you will earn when a visitor makes a purchase by clicking the affiliate link on your webpage, for example, buying a flight ticket, booking a hotel room, buying a backpack for travel and so on. In the affiliate market, these are called leads and partners get paid for generating them. To start, you must join an affiliate network. Several key players are on the market:

• Travelpayouts;
• Skyscanner;
• And others.

Travelpayouts Partnership Platform

If you register with Travelpayouts , you gain access to over 100 travel affiliate programs of well-known brands, such as Booking.com, TripAdvisor, Kiwi.com, and many more. To learn more about Travelpayouts tools and how you can use them to maximize your earnings, join Travelpayouts Academy .

The partnership platform doesn’t have any minimum requirements for new users and their projects, so you can join right now and start earning immediately.

To make sure that you can earn in affiliate marketing easier and faster, Travelpayouts shares how to make your project cool and earn money from it. For example, on the Travelpayouts Academy website, you will find free webinars and courses for beginners and advanced content creators. In addition, you can always chat with like-minded people in the Travelpayouts social networks or contact the 24/7 support team with any questions.

Join the Travelpayouts Partnership Platform

Access exclusive tools and the best travel partner programs, including flights, hotels, car rental, insurance, tours and activities, all in one place.

You can also sell various touristic services on your pages, such as cruises, car rentals, travel insurance, and so on. Learn more about affiliate programs’ offers in this article .

Other CPA Networks

You can work with CPA networks, such as CJ or Awin, to sell various travel products and make money with your travel blog. For example, you can join e-shops to sell clothes, power plugs, maps and so on. At this point, you should consider which products your visitors can use.

If your project is oriented toward a local market, research local players, even small ones. You may find unique opportunities for different destinations, for example, working with an exchange office and earning a commission for each traveller you attract.

Tips for Increasing Your Conversion Rate With Affiliate Networks

The best way to boost your conversion is to be creative about your ideas. Here are some tips to increase your conversion rate:

• Always try different colours and sizes of tools.

In some projects, different colours and sizes have different effects in terms of attracting visitors. For example, red can be attractive for routes to China while white is not.  Some colours attract more attention but can distract visitors from the site’s content. Find a balance between your audience’s attention and comfort.

• Track your visitors’ activities.

You must know your audience’s interests. For example, collect data about sales and searches of flight tickets to see which directions your visitors prefer.

Use this information to create a content plan that covers your audience’s interests . Adjust your offers according to your visitors’ needs, which you will understand by analysing the data. Of course, don’t forget to try new things. (If, for example, you have a website about Turkey and offer “abroad” tickets such as Istanbul – Berlin, maybe your audience also needs “internal” tickets such as Istanbul – Ankara or Istanbul – Trabzon.

If you can predict what your visitors need, you can fill in the form in advance so that your visitors won’t have to think as much. The fewer steps users have to take, the higher the chances they will actually purchase the goods or services.

However, if your prediction is wrong and your visitor is not interested in the service you propose, the result may be extra effort for the visitor, whom you may lose as a result. Don’t overthink for your visitor; find a balance.

• Place affiliate tools where users expect to see them.

Imagine that a visitor is reading your article about travel in Japan, in which you share suggestions about where to stay. The user wants to book, but … doesn’t see an option to do so. For example, you placed a search form at the bottom of the article, where the user can’t easily find it.

To avoid losing the sale, place affiliate tools where the user expects to see them. Think logically and, of course, don’t hide tools in hard-to-reach places.

In the affiliate marketing arena, many successful people make profits from travel websites. Look at their websites; analyse their advertisements, sales and placement/choice of tools. Use their successful ideas to increase your earnings.

One website that earns from affiliating is mauritaniaairlines.com. They share their ideas with us in this article . Also, an article is available about the 10 most famous travel bloggers; check it out here .

Contextual Advertising — Google AdSense

Contextual ads can be displayed related to the content of your webpage or to visitors’ interests. These advertisements can boost your earnings.

The main player in the international market is Google AdSense. If your project works with a local market in a language other than English, you can check local players such as sClick in Czech Republic, etc.

Conditions of Google Adsense:

• At least 50 visitors to be accepted;
• Average gain between 15 and 80 cents for each click outs;
• Payment is once per month;
• Minimum payout is around $100, it depends on the currency of your project.

The quality of your traffic and competition between advertisers in the area affect the click outs. Average earnings in Google AdSense per 1,000 page views from the USA is $3.38, while the average click out is $0.33.

Average gains in Google AdSense per thousand page views in Europe (Czech Republic) are $0.82, while the average click out is $0.16.

How to Increase Your Conversion Rate

A website’s traffic not only increases conversion but also has a huge impact on travel blog monetization. Let’s look at one situation. You have a blog with 1000 visitors daily. How much do you earn? Three to five dollars on a good day? If you increase the conversion rate, you could earn more from the same number of visitors.

In Google AdSense , you earn by clicks, so you must persuade your visitors to click the ads. Of course, openly persuading your visitors to do so is against AdSense’s rules. Instead, test various methods and choose the best one. Following are some ideas for improving your conversion in Google AdSense:

• Try different colours in advertisements;
• Use different types of advertisements;
• Put them in a better place.

After testing, some affiliates see that their income level decreases. If this happens, you can return to the default conditions, as they could already be the best ones. However, do not give up right away; if you start the test, wait at least 3-5 days to get the full picture.

Custom Ads for a Travel Website

Another way of getting advertisers is to work on your own without an intermediary. If you have high traffic or a well-known travel blog, you can attract custom advertisers. They deal directly with you, and you earn directly from the adverts without losing commission to a middleman.

There are two ways to search for advertisers: passive and active. In the passive way, you will create a contact page on your website and wait until advertisers contact you. In the active way, you will find advertisers by sending them offers.

If you create a media kit and an email with your domain and then send offers to companies, you can be more productive.

While sending the offers, you should individualize them for each company. It’s important to describe your website’s visitors and explain to the advertiser that your audience is right for their business. In addition, traffic statistics and your audience profile, including ages and locations, can clarify your offer to advertisers.

Alternatively, you can simply add a link Google Analytics or the service that you use for collecting data.

How much you can earn from these ads depends on many factors. However, the amount must be at least twice more than the ads on contextual advertising. You can sell not only banners but also sponsored posts. Advertisers buy them to promote their products or simply as one part of their search engine optimization strategy.

Selling Your Own Products

You can use your travel website to sell your own products, like guidelines, travel consultancy services or insurance. This will help you move from blogging to business. For example, if you have a travel website for Europe or the USA, you can offer consultancy services about getting a visa for those countries. Additionally, you can sell travel tours and maps, or offer a service that sends goods and souvenirs from the country.

To be successful in this area, you should carefully consider what problems your visitors experience and what you can offer as solutions. You can work with any types of products. Electronic products, like eBooks, are the easiest to sell but don’t limit your ideas to just this area. Be creative and sensitive to your visitors’ needs.

Ideas for Increasing Your Conversion

As mentioned above, it is important to consider and increase your conversion rate while trying to make money from travel sites. You may have great traffic but if you have a low conversion rate, you will not earn much income.

To earn on a travel website, selling your own product is mainly an issue of your visitors’ trust. To increase your conversion, you must increase your visitors’ trust in your brand. Following are some tips to raise your conversion.

To make your visitors trust your brand more:

• Provide correct information about your product;
• Offer quick support to help your customers;
• Include a section where people can comment on and rate your product. This provides more objective information to your visitors.

You can also use marketing tricks to increase your income:

• Make the offer time-limited; for example, ‘just for today’;
• Limit the number; for example, to only 100 people;
• To show that your product is valuable, make visitors work for a discount; for example, ask them to share their email addresses.

If you aren’t a professional marketer, don’t play with marketing tricks too much, as it is very easy to achieve the opposite result – people will buy less.

Writing Sponsored Posts

Publishing sponsored posts is a great way to make money online with a travel blog. Sponsored content can be quite diverse. For example, it can include product and service reviews, sharing your personal experience with a particular brand, publishing an interview with the brand’s representative, etc. In all these cases, the company will pay you to promote them on your website using your personal tone of voice. Nobody knows how to speak to your readers better than you, so brands tend to give creative freedom when it comes to sponsored posts.

How to land sponsored content partnerships? You can reach out to brands yourself and offer an opportunity to publish a sponsored post about them. Make sure to introduce your blog, describe your target audience, and explain how it is relevant to the brand. It is usually easier to get sponsored posts from niche-specific companies. For instance, if you write about traveling in a van, you could reach out to van rental brands. Bigger blogs with high domain authority tend to receive sponsored post opportunities in their mailbox, as brands reach out directly to these bloggers.

Ideas on How to Find Sponsorship Opportunities

• Make sure to create a Contact page or Work With Me page so that interested clients can easily contact you.
• Remember to grow your Domain Authority (DA) so that brands will want to get a backlink from your blog.
• Be careful about the links you share. Google requires that sponsored posts have no-follow links to the brand they advertise. You must also clearly disclose the partnership in your post. This is a good SEO practice that helps improve your search ratings while building trust with your audience.

Networking With Other Travel Bloggers

Networking allows you to target larger audiences, learn from other bloggers, and grow projects together. The key to success as a travel blogger is often dependent on the people you know or, in other words, your network. By simply reaching out and staying in contact, you will more likely learn about earning opportunities, new market trends, and so on.

Networking also helps grow your readership base through cross promotion, guest posts, etc. Reaching a broader audience is a surefire way to drive traffic faster and boost both your conversions and earnings.

If you are just starting out, don’t let feelings of insecurity prevent you from networking. Making contacts is possible even at the very beginning of your journey. Here are a few ideas:

• Start commenting on other blogs. This will allow you to introduce yourself, build connections with other bloggers, and encourage them to check out your content. It is important to bring value in each comment and not spam just to take up space.
• Reply to newsletters from other bloggers. Blogging can be a lonely job from time to time, so many bloggers value receiving feedback from their audiences.
• Link to other blogs on your website. When creating content, you can sparingly share links to other blogs so your readers can find more relevant information and learn about great bloggers in your niche. Not only will you not lose your current readers, you will likely get contacted by some of the bloggers you referred to, as many publishers regularly monitor their backlink profile.

Learn more networking best practices for travel bloggers in our post .

Selling Your Travel Photos

Another great way to make money with a travel blog is by selling your photos online. There are many photographers out there who are not earning enough money only because they have not learned how to make their work profitable. Good quality travel photos are always in high demand because there is a growing number of blogs and brands in the niche. If you know how to capture a memorable moment, you can start making money with your photography.

One of the options is to sell photos on your blog. If you already have an audience, start by marketing your photos to them. For instance, create a separate page with all the photos you want to sell and encourage your readers and partners to check it out.

Alternatively, you can share your work on special platforms designed to help photographers earn money. Usually, these are stock sites, such as Shutterstock , Adobe Stock , Unsplash , GettyImages , etc. The price depends on the license, quality of the photo, number of downloads, etc.

Working As a Virtual Assistant for Other Travel Bloggers

Working as a virtual assistant can require you to complete a variety of tasks, from writing content to setting up schedules to reaching out to your audience and more.

Helping out a fellow blogger will help you not only earn some revenue, but most importantly, acquire first-hand experience and understand how you can grow your own blog. Such opportunities are easier to find through personal networking, but there are also some platforms to look into:

• Browse virtual assistant jobs on Upwork
• Offer your services on Satiated Artists and similar platforms
• Check out Facebook groups, such as The Business of Blogging

You might be surprised by how many bloggers need help getting their business going, as they are swamped with to-do lists and are ready to outsource some routine tasks.

Using Your Travel Blog to Get Freelance Work

Freelance writing is one of the biggest sources of income for many bloggers. Having an established website helps enormously when it comes to showcasing your work, growing your name in the niche, and landing freelance gigs. You will get a chance to set your own rates and build beneficial partnerships. Among your readers, there might be other beginner bloggers or companies who enjoy your voice and want you to help grow their business. As a result, a travel blog can be a great promotional tool for your writing.

Furthermore, you can market your writing services on other platforms to increase your reach. For example, check out these 99 platforms on which you can earn as a travel writer .

Other Ways to Make a Profit

You can also make money with your travel blog by simply asking your readers to fund your work. If you have a loyal audience who enjoys your content, this can easily encourage them to donate a bit of money to keep their favorite blog going.

Established bloggers are often offered chances to go on paid trips. Usually, they receive flight tickets and/or hotel stays for free in exchange for writing a review on their blog or company website. Meanwhile, most bloggers try to take advantage of the trip and write as much content about the place as possible for their own blog.

Another option is to start a podcast. Podcasts are a growing niche, as more and more people prefer to learn new things, for example, on their way to work. You can invite guests, such as niche experts, and conduct interviews.

Travel blogging offers a limitless number of ideas for getting money from the travel niche; share your own ideas in the comments.

• Work with Mel!

How Travel Bloggers Earn Money: 7 Ways to Make Passive Income Online

How do travel bloggers make money?

Table of Contents

Have you ever wondered how travel bloggers make money ?

Especially when there are so many bloggers out there already – I always get asked questions like: how do you successfully generate some form of income every day?

The answer, of course, is… passive income .

Seeing how exciting and adventurous the lifestyles of some travel bloggers are, you could say being a successful travel blogger is a dream come true, especially if the explorer life aligns with your values.

But in reality, whilst passive income is definitely possible, it takes hard graft and time to learn how to make money as a travel blogger. The good news is: passive income can be yours with some work and patience!

Why is creating passive income so important for travel bloggers?

As a travel blogger and micro-influencer ( @illumelation ) I’ve been focused on earning money outside of my day-to-day work (passive income) over recent years.

It means that I can take more of a step back and plan strategically for the long-term, rather than exchanging all my time for money (active income).

Passive income is the #1 income-generating method that travel bloggers aspire to because it gives you the freedom to spend your days exploring, and you’re not always worried about your next job!

Why is passive income just as important as having a job, projects or partnerships?

Passive income lets you continually earn money with minimal input, which is perfect for travel bloggers – or any blogger, really.

It allows you to travel and do what you love while earning an income at the same time. You can “earn money while you sleep” and get rewarded for the content you post online, to your website or monetisable platforms like YouTube.

Best of all, the passive income you earn won’t be a once-off, but rather continually grow as you add more products and services as I describe below. The only thing it requires is patience.

So now I’m going to go ahead and share my 7 favourite ways for travel bloggers to create passive income.

Please note that the following post contains affiliate links (which contribute to my passive income) at no extra cost to you!

What are the best 5 ways to create passive income as a travel blogger?

Passive income has been a very successful model for many bloggers and creatives around the world. And with so many wonderful platforms and online tools available, you can now make money from virtually anywhere.

After thorough research from analysing some of the most successful travel bloggers out there – as well as my own trial and error – I’ll share seven great ways that you can make money as a travel blogger through passive income.

With patience and dedication, these can be a great way to boost your passive income and make money while you enjoy doing what you do: travelling! So… let’s dive into the top 5 ways to start making passive income on your travel blog.

1. Use Affiliate Links On Your Travel Blog

What’s affiliate marketing , you ask?

Let me clarify: affiliate marketing is quite simply the process of earning money (or making a commission) every time you promote a brand’s products or services and earn them a sale . With affiliate marketing, you only get paid when you’ve helped drive a sale — just like a sales rep who works on a commission basis .

Even in this very blog post I’ve used affiliate links — and although it can be a slow burn getting started with affiliate marketing, every little helps!

Some of the most popular affiliate links include Amazon – where you make a teeny tiny commission (I’m talking maybe 0.01p per purchase) every time someone buys something you recommend. The good news is, this can compound over time!

That’s why content is key . The more content you put out, the likelier the chances of your affiliate links being clicked, and the more money you can make.

Here’s an example of my Amazon influencer storefront :

• Check out my recommended travel blogging camera equipment list
• Check out my three top lenses for the Sony A7iii

An example of how I edit my RAW travel photos using my homemade Lightroom presets

2. Sell Presets Made on Adobe Lightroom (or any popular editing platform)

A great way to supplement your travel blogger income is by selling photo presets made on Adobe Lightroom. It can be a form of passive income that allows you to earn money by using your photo editing skills and creativity. Score!

As a travel blogger or content creator, you’re always taking photos. If you’re using software like Adobe Lightroom I’m sure you’ve put together a number of shortcuts and presets to help you speed things along. And guess what? Other people want to buy into those shortcuts and presets too!

So, what is a preset? It is essentially a set of edits that you can save and easily apply to another image. This means you don’t have to manually edit a bunch of photos as you can simply use the preset on multiple images.

Apart from saving photographers and marketers a lot of time, presets on Adobe Lightroom allow them to stylise their images in a very specific way. Beginner photographers can use presets to learn more about photo editing from someone they admire or an experienced photographer.

If you have a creative flair and a unique style, chances are you can sell presets on Adobe Lightroom easily and effectively. I’ve personally used Adobe products since I was a young teenager and to me they make the best creative software on earth.

If you’re a video editor, you could also sell LUTs for Final Cut Pro (essentially video filters or presets), or if you are a graphic designer, Photoshop templates!

• Check out my Lightroom Mobile Editing Course on Skillshare
• Ready to try out Lightroom or Photoshop? Head on over to Adobe to download both programs for only £9.98 a month and a 30-day free trial !

3. Sell Your Services On Platforms Like Fiverr

As a travel blogger, you can turn to freelance platforms like Fiverr or Upwork to offer your services to buyers around the world.

Personally, my main source of income is Fiverr.

You can do this in many ways; you can sign up as a blogger who specialises in travel articles as you have a ton of experience already, or you can double as an image editor, too. You can even offer TikTok dance videos. You can do anything!

Brands, businesses and marketers don’t always have the time – or the skillset – to churn out quality content for their niche company blogs and websites. This is where your writing services come in quite handy.

It’s also a great way to build up a portfolio that you can use to strengthen your skillset and get higher-paying jobs over time.

Check out the kind of freelancers you can hire or work as on Fiverr !

You can even sign up to Fiverr Affiliates and earn for recommending them – just like I am 🙂

4. Teach an Online/Digital Course on a platform like Skillshare , Udemy or Teachable

As a travel blogger, you can turn your expertise into an additional income stream, by putting your knowledge and experience into an actionable course on platforms such as Skillshare and Udemy.

Industries increasingly recognise travel bloggers and influencers as valuable members of a huge global online society and niche. People invite them to speak at conferences and host workshops, to name a few.

Brands and companies realise how valuable travel bloggers’ experiences and expertise are, and they are being invited to share their knowledge in a way that can help others. Each blogger also draws in their own unique audience.

More travel bloggers are creating case studies and ebooks to support their online courses and webinars. This also leads to more social followers and a growing audience, which is an added bonus for experienced travel bloggers.

Example: My Lightroom Mobile Editing Course on Skillshare !

If you fancy trying Skillshare, check out my Transform Your Travel Photos: Editing On Lightroom Mobile course and get 1 free month of premium!

5. Sell Your Unique Travel Photos As Prints

Apart from selling photo presets, you can consider selling your travel photos as prints. I’ve been selling my own prints since the start of 2022!

As an experienced traveller and content creator, you likely have plenty of beautiful and unique images, which you can easily sell as prints on platforms that offer fulfilment centres and basically everything you need to manage the process.

Siargao – Motorbike Trip (Framed Print)

Your photo prints can be used in many forms, including beautiful canvases. You simply upload your high-quality images and the platform will do the rest – people can download prints to use as decoration, marketing collateral, or more.

Best of all – your prints might just end up in a popular coffee shop or restaurant!

If you’re planning to go this route, I definitely recommend brushing up on photography print knowledge and making sure you always shoot in RAW, as JPEG images are compressed and can get pixellated when printed.

6. Sell Your Travel or Lifestyle Photos As Stock Images

Travel blogging is very focused on photography. Similar to selling your travel photos as prints, selling them as stock images is a great way for travel bloggers to make money.

As a travel content creator, you’re bound to have a backlog photos that can actually make you money by selling them as stock photos on popular platforms. Even casual iPhone snaps of you holding a gelato in front of the Sagrada Familia or a little flatlay of your coffee somewhere in Paris are very likely to be used by a blog or website who need ‘authentic’ looking content.

You can easily cash in on your photographs by selling them on platforms like Deposit Photos, Shutterstock, Dreamstime, and more. The amount you earn per photo might not seem that much, but they can quickly add up once your photos get downloaded multiple times.

Selling your photos as stock images is an ideal passive income stream for travel bloggers, especially since you’ll continually be creating new photos as you continue your travels and add to your collection!

Just bear in mind that selling as stock photos might be slow going, and the pennies will trickle in quite slowly unless you have epic drone footage or unique moments captured. But still, every penny counts!

7. Creating Content for Brand Collaborations

Once you’ve started blogging, it’s likely that you’ll have started building up a following of some sort – even if it’s only a bunch of best friends and your mother reading your blog, you’re still providing some form of influence or word-of-mouth marketing if they decide to take your advice.

This sort of direct influence and loyalty is exactly what brands look to capitalise on when working with bloggers and content creators. You can sign up to collaboration platforms that offer ways for you to get paid for writing a blog post, review or creating a social media post. I’ve found that even cold pitching companies or brands that feel like a good fit for your niche or website can be very successful, especially if you state your rates up front.

Writing a blog post with embedded affiliate links to a brand’s products or services is a great way to keep earning passive income, since you not only got paid to create the content, but you’ll keep getting paid whenever someone reads your blog post and decides to make a purchase!

Making Money as a Travel Blogger in 2022

These are just a few ways in which travel bloggers make passive income in 2022.

As you develop your skills and travel the globe, you can use them to be a social media influencer, professional blogger, online course creator, photo editor and more – the options are endless.

We’re incredibly lucky to live in a day and age where the entirety of our income can be generated online. It’s something I’m passionate about and I hope you take advantage of it too.

Although getting started on your passive income is a hard mountain to climb, even the tiniest step forward will set your passive income journey into motion. Just go and get started.

Good luck — and remember to share this post with travellers you know on a passive income journey!

Quick links:

• View my Amazon recommendations
• Check out my travel guides
• Find me on Instagram

Mel Legarda

Melissa Legarda is the founder of illumelation . She has worked as a travel blogger, creator and writer since 2015, and has collaborated with well-known brands worldwide. She has helped over 1,100+ students improve their travel photography skills since launching her creative courses. Her mission is to encourage and empower others to travel and create more. Find her on Instagram .

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30+ Travel Bloggers Earning Over 5,000 USD / Month & How They Monetize Their Blogs

There’s a big difference between having a ‘popular’ vs. a ‘profitable’ blog. You can be a very popular blogger but you might not be monetizing your site properly, or you may be a blogger who doesn’t have a huge audience but still earns a decent amount of money with a optimised, niche website.

There are still many out there who think travel blogging is just a hobby, rather than a ‘real job,’ or a ‘real business.’ This may be true for some, but there are many bloggers out there for whom their travel blogs are a serious business, entirely supporting themselves and even their families, not just their travels and a few beers!

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• How to Make Money from Travel Blogging (Monetize your Travel Blog)

To demonstrate this, we found 30 travel bloggers who were willing to share with us how much they earn and how they do it!

In this article, we’re going to talk about the various ways that travel bloggers make money, including the self-submitted Income Profiles of 30 travel bloggers earning more than $5000 USD per month, topics include:

• PART 1 – Surveyed Travel Bloggers and How Much They Earn
• PART 2 – Travel Blogging Expenses – What are we Paying For?
• PART 3 – How do Travel Bloggers Earn Money –  Travel Bloggers Income Reports!
• PART 4 –  Tips for Newbie Bloggers – What Should You Do To Monetize Your Travel Blog?

(Please note that this article does contain some links to affiliated companies)

Table of Contents

Surveyed Travel Bloggers and How Much They Earn

*All figures in USD. All income information is based on data supplied by each blogger excluding all travel expenses (unless stated otherwise). For a detailed breakdown of each bloggers income check the bottom of the post.

• Matt Kepnes of Nomadic Matt (more than 50,000 USD per month)
• Johnny Ward of  OneStep4Ward.com  ($20,000 to $25,000 p/m)
• Dave & Deb of  The Planet D  ($15,000 to $20,000 per month)
• Earl of  WanderingEarl.com  ($12,000 per month)
• Monica of  The Travel Hack  ($10,000 per month)
• Nick & Dariece  Goats On The Road  ($10,000 to $12,000 per month)
• Sharon of  Where’s Sharon Family Travel Blog  ($10,000 per month)
• Milou of Explorista.net  ($10,000 per month)
• Jon & Kach of Two Monkeys Travel Group  ($10,000 to $15,000 p/m)
• James of Mantripping  ($4000 to $6000 per month)
• Tim Leffel of Cheapest Destinations Blog ($6500 to $9000 p/m)
• Brett of  Green Global Travel   ($5000 to $7000 per month)
• Yoshke & Vins of  The Poor Traveler  ($4000 to $6000 per month)
• Kristin Addis of  Be My Travel Muse  ($4000 to $5000 per month)
• Jacob & Esther of  Local Adventurer  ($6000 per month)
• Stephanie of  TravelBreak  ($5000 to $15,000 per month)
• Christy of  Ordinary Traveler  ($5000 to $7000 per month)
• DJ Yabis of  Dream Euro Trip  ($7000 to $9000 per month)
• Samantha & Yeison of  Mytanfeet  ($5000 to $8000 per month)
• Bethaney of  Flashpacker Family  ($5000 to $10,000 per month)
• Jarryd & Alesha of NOMADasaurus  ($3500 to $6000 per month)
• Cory of  You Could Travel  ($5000 to $8000 per month)
• Flavio of  Guiajando.com  ($6000 to $14,000 per month)
• Bethany of  Flashpacker Family  ($5000 to $10,000 per month)
• Sher of SherSheGoes.com  ($7000 to $8000 per month)
• Amanda of  MarocMama.com  ($6000 to $10,000 per month)
• Brian of  The Travel Vlogger  ($5000 to $8000 per month)
• Rachel of  www.RachelTravels.com  ($5000 per month)
• Eileen of www.crookedflight.com  ($3000 to $6000 per month)
• Yulia of  Misstourist.com  ($4000 to $5500 per month)
• Nora of The Professional Hobo  ($3000 +)

If you’d like to add your income profile and share your pro travel blogging tips, feel free to fill out this form .

The Business of Travel Blogging – EXPENSES

It would be great if travel blogging were all about income, but as with any business, the reality is that there are expenses (and huge taxes!). And just like in any other business, growth and increased income often come with greater expenses! If you’re not a blogger and wanted to be one, here’s my article on how you can start a travel blog .

According to our travel blogger income survey, those travel bloggers who earn more, also invest more into their business.

Here are some examples of the kinds of expenses that travel bloggers pay out for:

1. virtual assistants + freelance writers.

Some bloggers have expanded and hired more people, like we have, to create great content for their websites. Hiring a writer is perfect for creating the type of content that doesn’t need to be personally written by you, but provides a different type of value to your readers.

As well as content writers, another way to grow your blogging business is to hire a team to support you with work that distracts you from what you do best. I have three full time, freelance virtual assistants working for me, focusing on graphic design, social media management, article submissions, and marketing. Outsourcing costs money, but done correctly it allows you to focus on what you do best (and the things that directly increase your income!)

2. Hosting, Domain, Plugins + Themes, Web Development, Security…

Any blogger at any level of income has to pay for at least some of these, and if you want to grow, then you’ll find that you definitely usually get what you pay for.  When you’re just getting started, it makes sense to start with cheaper packages, but i f your traffic is growing and you’re starting to earn money, then it pays to invest in a higher standard of hosting and technical support. 

We started Two Monkeys Travel with Bluehost (because it was the cheapest), then we moved to Siteground (amazing support team), before finally moving over to Performance Foundry when we realized we needed a fully managed service so we could focus on running and growing the business. This is a perfect example of investing in growth – pay experts to do what they do best so that you can do the same!

Budget Hosting Companies:

• Bluehost  – Mixed reviews, but from $3 per month you get what you pay for!
• Hostgator  – another cheap hosting and same owners as Bluehost

Hosting for higher traffic sites or simply more support:

• Performance Foundry  – Managed WordPress Hosting that we use for Two Monkeys Travel. As well as the hosting, they have a great technical support, they monitor the site, check plugins, improve site speed and keep it secure as well. Highly recommended!
• Siteground  – A good range of options. More expensive than the budget options and still self-managed, but they have an amazing support team 24 hours.  They won’t do it all for you, but they’re very good at hand holding!
• WPEngine – No personal experience, but we’ve heard good things about them

3. Automation & Management Tools 

Outsourcing is one way to take time-consuming tasks off your hands, but another option is automation. In blogging, especially when starting from the bottom, the list of repetitive tasks just seems to get longer and longer, sucking up your valuable time and draining your motivation to do what you loved about blogging in the first place. Social media is usually the biggest culprit! The good news is that for every new repetitive task, there is always someone who will design a program or an app to do it for you. Some are great, while many are utterly shit, so read reviews and take advice from blogger groups and forums!  Here are some automation tools that are popular with bloggers and which we use on Two Monkeys Travel.  This is only a limited selection; there are dozens out there!

• Tailwind – To automate Pinterest
• Convert a Kit – Newsletter management
• Grammarly – For automated proofreading/ grammar checking

4. Advertising

Blogging is the same as any other business – You need to tell people that you exist! Just because you build it, doesn’t mean they will come. The internet is a big place; it’s hard to get seen, and the big players like Facebook know it.  We all know how it feels when Facebook decides to suddenly stop showing your posts to you followers. Basically, they want you to pay to boost your posts, so they’ll show them to more people. This can be a very effective way to get traffic when done correctly, but done incorrectly is just a big fat waste of money! It seems that every platform wants us to pay these days – Instagram Promotions; Google Adwords; Twitter Ads; there are probably more. We can’t tell you how to do this, or even if you should bother. Do some research and expect lots of trial and error…Good luck! 

(Please note that travel expenses like hotels, flights, food and other things are not included in the listed expenses above! This can be where most of the expenses go, unless your trips are sponsored! For taxes, it depends on the country where the business is registered, on our case, we pay it in the United Kingdom.)

How do Travel Bloggers Earn Money from their Blogs?

According to our personal experience and from the blogger income survey, there are at least ten different ways you can earn money from travel blogging if you really want to dig into it. Here we’ll explain all the different ways our surveyed bloggers earn money with their blogs. (You can also read my article here on how we started monetizing our blog  during our first year blogging)

But first… How Long Will it Take to Start Earning Money from Travel Blogging?

Before we get into this next part, we know a lot of new bloggers are asking this question…

On average, most of our surveyed bloggers took 1 to 2 years before they started monetizing their website, but in reality, if you started blogging already knowing everything, then you could start earning a lot faster. But who starts out already knowing everything, right?! There are exceptions to this, however, like us – We had our first $1000+ month with Two Monkeys Travel after just three months, but that came out of working 12 to 16 hour days on the laptop for those first three months. We don’t have to do that now, but you definitely get out what you put in! 

1. Affiliate Marketing

This is the best passive income model you can use for yourself and your blog, so please start this right from day 1! In short, affiliate marketing is recommending a brand, product or service to your readers, so that when they go to that website and buy something you are rewarded with a small share of the profits. There’s a lot more to it than that; like a supermarket putting the powdered milk next to the beer, if you’re doing it wrong you’re not gonna sell much-powdered milk!

If you want to learn more about Affiliate marketing and how to do it right, I suggest enrolling in the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course . The creator is not a travel blogger, but a Finance blogger who is earning almost 100,000 USD per month! We make $5000 to $6000 USD per month through affiliate marketing, and this course taught me a lot (some of them I already knew!) ! 

Amazon Associates is a great affiliate program for selling products, but there are many brands that register with an affiliate marketing network to handle their affiliates for them. There are a few good ones, some bad ones and new ones popping all the time. It’s worth joining a few of these to cover a range of brands. Here are the ones we work with (and one we don’t!)

• Affiliate Window – One of the best and 1/3 of our Affiliate earnings are from here! You can also create a customized campaign with the advertisers listed on their platform. They do ask for a credit card when you sign up, so they can charge $5 as an anti-fraud measure, then it is immediately refunded. If you would like to try to avoid this, email me directly and I can try to assist with a referral, but this is at their discretion. Email at [email protected] with subject: Affiliate Window Invitation Code.
• CJ.com  – Marmite – some love it & some hate it! Lots of brands, clunky and time-consuming to use but they have a Content Certified group where you can get sponsored campaigns.
• Share a Sale – Lots of smaller brands and companies on here, also very good. I think we make around $1,000 to $ 2,000 USD per month from this platform.
• Rakuten  – Lots of options here, decent platform.

Other affiliate programs that are well worth joining for travel bloggers are anything to do with accommodation (Direct with Booking.com/ Agoda / Hostelworld/ Hotels.com and a lot more), tours, transportation, equipment. Just think about what you would spend money on to go traveling, find a company you would be happy to recommend to your grandmother, then check their website for a Partners or Affiliates section!

2. Brand Campaigns

When you have an audience and a following, companies will approach you to promote their products and services to them. If those products and services are appropriate to your audience and you would be happy to use them yourself, then you can promote them through sponsored posts, social media campaigns, ad banners on your website and more.  You can join these websites to help you find brands looking to work with bloggers:

• Webfluential
• Izea – you get sponsored post for your social media channels, some people earns $300 to $3000 per month from here!
• The Blogger Programme – if you are from the UK or Europe based!
• Tap Influence  – the sponsored campaigns that we get here are usually around $800 to $ 4,000 USD! We once run a campaign that paid us $3,000 for a blog article + Facebook post.

Again, more are popping up every day, so keep an eye on the blogging groups to see what’s being said about them.

3. Brand Ambassadorship

What’s the difference from Brand Campaigns vs. Brand Ambassadorship?

In a Brand Ambassadorship, you’ll be promoting brands in the same way as you would for a brand campaign, but longer-term basis. It’s far more beneficial to both parties to form a long-term brand partnership, providing greater exposure for their brand and demonstrating a higher level of trust in their products. Of course, this also means that you’re securing a longer term, more reliable income. You need to be picky here, though because you’re choosing to become a supporter and spokesperson for that brand. Make sure the brand, its practices, and its values are aligned with yours and those of your audience.

Remember when Dennis Rodman became a public supporter and practically a spokesperson for North Korea? Remember how bad that was? Don’t be a brand ambassador for North Korea!

4. Paid Press Trips

Ah, the mythical golden paid press trips at the end of the blogging rainbow! Not at all mythical, you just need to be able to prove you’re worth what you’re charging and be on the right PR lists! The latter is a question of time and networking; it takes practice.

When you have those two things pretty much sorted, then you need to be very clear what you will provide in exchange for your fee. Put a lot of effort into this and design something that looks great. If you just type it out as an email, it implies that you might just make up your fees and deliverables on the spot. Of course, there is nothing wrong with free press trips, they’re great to build up your portfolio and network.

5. Freelance Writing

This is not directly making money from your blog, but it is leveraging your blog to get paid work writing for other websites and publications who then link back to your blog to expand your audience, so it’s all connected. Prices vary massively but you can get more tips from Goats on the Road or The Professional Hobo who get a good chunk of their income from freelance writing.

6. Selling Own Products – Ebooks / Books / Tshirts

Selling products are a great way to add new income streams to your blogging business. Ebooks can be made from repurposed blog content and photography. Audiobooks can be made to up-sell the Ebooks. You can make themed merchandise like mugs and t-shirts using online companies. If you know a lot about a certain subject, including blogging, then you can design a course to teach others. You can check out Nomadic Matt who sells his book + blogging course while Wandering Earl has his best-selling e-book on cruise ship jobs.

7. Providing Services From Your Website

Some travel bloggers have built such an audience and become such an authority on a subject that people are willing to pay them for their expertise. Some of our surveyed bloggers offer food tours, trip planning, and even one-on-one travel and life coaching ! You can check DreamEuroTrip who provides travel planning in Europe and some other bloggers have their Media Agency who does social media management + content creation services.

8. Photography and Videography

Not the easiest way to make money, but if you have the skills, then there are many ways to sell your photos and videos. As well as the obvious method of selling photos through portals like Flickr, you could sell prints from your own site and sell your services directly to brands and hotel properties. The Travel Break , Nomadasaurus , and The Travel Vlogger all make the big chunk of their income from their photography/ videos.

9. Banner Advertising (Google Adsense + Ad networks)

There are not many bloggers who choose this route as a main means of income as the returns are low and the banners don’t look great on the site. Having said that, a limited number of Google Adsense or Ad Networks banners can be a nice supplemental income. Alternatively, some brands will pay directly to have banners on a website, but this is becoming less and less common.

10. SEO Sponsored Posts

Tips for newbie bloggers – what should you do to monetize your travel blog, 1. know your goals and have a business plan.

The fundamental difference between being a ‘hobby blogger’ and a professional blogger is that the aim of the blog is to make money. It sounds obvious, and it is, but so many bloggers have conflicting ideas about blogging and money, even to the point of feeling guilty about earning money from their website and audience. Unless you get over that, then every decision you make thereafter is going to be conflicted as well. Creating a business plan can help to focus your goals and help you keep direction and motivation.

2. Plan your Content and How you can Optimize and Monetize it

Once you have your business plan, you can use it to make decisions about the kind of content you want to include on your blog and how to monetize it. 

3. Attend Networking Events to be added on PR List

Networking events and travel trade shows are an important way to start getting your name out there in the industry, especially with tourism boards and PR companies. The events below are a great start:

• ITB Asia – http://www.itb-asia.com/
• New York Times Show – http://nyttravelshow.com/
• ITB Berlin, Germany – http://www.itb-berlin.de/en/
• WTM London – http://wtmlondon.com/

4. Get a coach! Enroll on Travel Blogging and Business Courses

If you do everything by trial and error, then you’re going to take a very long time to progress. It makes sense to learn from people who have already learned the hard way and made a success out of what they do. Here are some good ones to get you started:

• Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing   

5. Focus on What You’re Good At – Optimise What You Have!

Social Media is great but don’t put all your effort into growing your numbers for the sake of it! Some of the bloggers above are not huge on some platforms on social media, but they are earning a lot of money from campaigns and from the traffic they do have. They know where to focus their efforts, and they have a very engaged audience!

 Blogger Income Profile Infographic

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56 thoughts on “ 30+ Travel Bloggers Earning Over 5,000 USD / Month & How They Monetize Their Blogs ”

Hi, Congrats! Ka galing! Travelling while earning money!

I love reading your blog. They are very informative looking forward to read more from you

Great information.definately will get in touch asap for a headstart

I cannot click on the infographics for each blogger showing their individual details. Can you fix this? I see others posted about this problem too

great post for readers.

Really a good and complete full of information and motivation

This is great info, thanks for sharing. I am excited with my travel blogging. Hope one day my travel blog is also on your list 🙂

Thanks! For giving the information to the travel blog. Whenever you go to some another places you can see the historical places.

Marvelous work!. Blog is brilliantly written and provides all necessary information I really like this site. Thanks for sharing this useful post.Thanks for the effective information.

Waow…. great post with great ideas. Thanks so much for putting it all together. Sure that You will help so many people. =)

Really a good and complete full of information and motivation !

This is a good tip especially to those new to the blogosphere. Brief but very precise info… Thanks for sharing this one. A must read post!

Great post about travel bloggers earning 5,000 usd per month. The point you make about travel bloggers monetizing their content resonates well, because it details how bloggers capitalize their viewership into profits. Recently, we wrote something similar: https://www.museuly.com/blog/highest-paid-travel-bloggers/ .

Hey, great article. Thanks for all the useful information.

The infographic has all of the most interesting information (reason why I clicked the link), yet it is blurry, and cut off! I don’t understand why you don’t post that information directly on this post, or at least make it readable??

Monetizing something really challenging these days, It will surely help me in my blogging journey thanks for sharing such deep information. I would really appreciate if you can help me with my blogging.

Hi guys, the infografic is cut, can’t see the whole picture, especially the bottom part of each blogger, which highlights the monthly costs.

Thanks for putting this together and helping us join a few dots! I found the most reassuring part of this post was when you mentioned “On average, most of our surveyed bloggers took 1 to 2 years before they started monetizing their website, but in reality, if you started blogging already knowing everything, then you could start earning a lot faster. But who starts out already knowing everything, right?!”

I feel that is us! It’s taken us 12+ months to realize we can let go of a few things; e.g. Social media, to concentrate on other things more likely to lead to monetisation.

Also glad to see some bloggers are offering services as part of their income streams as we’re now seeing we have valuable skills, e.g. SEO, email automation, video editing etc, that many business owners don’t.

Good Luck to all but why do you think everyone has a “how to become a course” because there’s very little money actually producing travel content. 10 years ago it was a different story and making six to seven figures was possible. Now count yourself successful if your paying for your travels. Happy Travels, Destination360

What a great post! Very inspirational and I love the cold hard facts and numbers. I’ll return again and again for all the great links and resources too.

Kach, just saw this post. Full of information and bookmarking this. Dreams do come true!

Loved your article. I wanted to make sure you knew about influence.co. We are a free influencer discovery tool and we also publish lots of free data about the industry. Let me know if we can ever be useful and supply information for future articles you write.

Faith Marketing and Community at influence.co

It’s a great article 😉 It should have been hard to collect all the data. Thanks a lot!

Great information for expanding the blog and turning it into something important on an international level. Thank you for sharing! Good luck! 🙂

I started in blogging year 2015 from free hosted blog.Then purchased a domain year 2017 even though i don’t have huge audience but still earned big bucks of money.Its about hardwork like Kach Medina-a popular travel blogger na nakilala ko.Inaaway nga ako ng girlfriend ko dahil may time na ayaw ko matulog dahil sa pagsusulat ng blog infront of my laptop.Ha…ha…ha…

wondering how you earned money po?

Love this, So much great information to use for my new blog and journey 🙂

Glad to hear that The Sport Backpacker 🙂 Wish all the best 🙂

This is very useful information for someone just getting started. As for myself I wish I started this ages ago when I was actively traveling around Asia. Now I have blogs I can write and pictures to share. This gives me some inspiration and hope of something I can work my way up to

very informative. i’m not yet at that level but who knows what the future holds. ^_^

That’s the spirit grasya 🙂 Be positive and you’ll succeed 🙂

WOW! What a great topic! I appreciate the information and know it took a while to compile. This year I’m focusing on monetizing my blog so this is a timely post!!

This is an insane guide! As a newbie I am in the blogging world I am going to start to follow some of those tips. Pinning it for later. Thanks so much for sharing!

This is such a great post! So many useful ideas for a newbie like me. I think I’m going to look into this course!

Such an inspiring post! It’s great to see what can be done when you put your mind to it and work hard!

Thanks for sharing this. I always feel bloggers just dish out how much they make per month, but (not always) mention how much they need to invest to make that much money. For me, I know each month I get a certain amount in my bankaccount and it is all mine to use as I need to. Thanks for sharing some more details on expenses too!

This is very informative! I’ll definitely have to study this in detail. I definitely have a lot to learn!

So interesting!!!! I’m definitely bookmarking this to study more. I monetise a little but there’s so much to learn and so many different ways to do it!

A great post, I found all the information useful! I have noted down a few of the links. Thanks for sharing this.

This is such a great resource for taking a travel blog to the next level. I am still in the beginning stages of my blog but there’s a ton of great ideas in here to help me step it up a notch. I’ll definitely be bookmarking this for future reference- thank you!!

This is a handful helpful! Thanks for this =)

Fantastic resource! Thanks so much for taking the time to put this together. Inspires me to keep going 🙂

It’s an informative post. Thanks for sharing your findings and suggestions. Finding a good advertising network is something I’m working on at present and I’m looking for closer cooperation with fellow bloggers over the months ahead.

Great roundup! I was earning little bits of money from my sites for a year or so before things started to increase to the point where blogging is now my main source of income. I’m not at $5000 a month yet, but I’m working on it and hopefully I’ll get there soon! I’m actually starting to share income reports on one of my site as a way to show others that it can be done, and as a way to hold myself accountable for actually improving my sites. Certainly an interesting and ever-changing way to make a living!

Excellent post. Very informative with some great stats. It sort of confirms what i was expecting already, but it’s nice to see it put down so detailed and professional.

Thanks Claus! Appreciate the feedback and happy that some bloggers were happy to participate! I reached out to a lot of them but some are hesitant to share the details (maybe because of taxes or it’s just too personal etc). But I think having 30 bloggers is enough to make a personal analysis! =)

Such an extensive in-depth post! Kudos for curating all the info. The post and the effort that has gone behind it is highly motivating and inspiring 🙂

Thank you for taking the time to reach out to all the bloggers mentioned and for putting out such an in-depth article. This is priceless information and tips that my blog could use as well. I’ve been blogging for about a year now and only recently decided to be serious about it. Thanks for motivating me further.

YAY excited for you Talia! When you finally decided to take it seriously and have business plan in mind.. then you’ll reach there! =)

Great post! I also earn an income by speaking at conferences and summits. Travel bloggers have lots of insight that is VERY valuable for brands, tourism boards and other businesses.

Oh that’s true! No one on the bloggers surveyed mentioned that they earned from Public Speaking.. maybe other bloggers who didnt participated! But yes, I could update the article in the future about that one! Thank you!! <3

Wow, Kach, this is such a pool of information! I’m bookmarking this! Thanks so much for putting it all together, great role models to follow 🙂 And now off to work on the blog! 😉

Thanks Veronika! 2017 is the year!! I know you’ll do great! =)

whoa! what an in depth post. This must have taken you forever to do put together. Thanks for the wealth of information!

It took me 2 months – a lot of people wanted to be in it then backed out then I had to contact more people again! haha! <3

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: Many of the articles on Two Monkeys Travel Group are guest posts by a number of Approved Contributors and are hosted by Two Monkeys Travel Group. Approved Contributors control their own work and post freely to our site. This includes all text and images that they use within their own work. All contributors are instructed to follow internationally recognised copyright and intellectual property guidelines. Two Monkeys Travel Group takes its own responsibilities very seriously, so if you feel that any part of this work is abusive in any way, please send us an email so that we can investigate - [email protected]

DISCLOSURE: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links. So when you make a purchase we sometimes make a small commission, at no extra cost to you. The cost to you remains the same, sometimes even cheaper if we have negotiated a special deal for our readers.We use all of the companies we have listed here and that’s why they are in this list, but of course we need to keep Two Monkeys Travel Group running as well as it can, which is exactly what you’re helping with if you do decide to buy or book something through an affiliate link! If you have any more questions about the companies we use or any other companies you’re looking at, just email us and we’ll be happy to help. Please see our full disclaimer page for more information.

Written by Kach Umandap

Founder of Two Monkeys Travel Group. Since 2013, Kach has visited all the 7 continents (including Antarctica) and 151 countries using her Philippines Passport. In 2016, she bought a sailboat and went on sailing adventures with her two cats - Captain Ahab & Little Zissou in the Caribbean for 2 years. She now lives in Herceg Novi, Montenegro where she's enjoying her expat life and living on a gorgeous Stonehouse. She writes about her experiences traveling as a Filipina traveler with a PHL Passport. Also tips on backpacking trips, luxury hotel experiences, product reviews, sailing & adventure travel.

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BUSINESS STRATEGIES

How to make money as a travel blogger in 14 ways

• Rebecca Tomasis

The allure of turning a passion for travel into a sustainable livelihood has captivated many adventurous spirits. Making money as a travel blogger not only offers the opportunity to share your experiences with a global audience but also provides a potential income stream to fund further escapades.

The motivations for starting a travel blog and business are as varied as the destinations awaiting exploration, from the desire for a nomadic lifestyle and the love of storytelling to the pursuit of financial freedom and the need to build a personal brand.

Start a blog today.

How to make money as a travel blogger: getting started

There are things you can do to increase your chances success as a travel blogger:

Understanding your audience

A deep understanding of your readership is paramount. Identifying who your audience is, what they seek and how they engage with content will guide your blog's direction and the monetization strategies you adopt. Tailoring your content to meet their preferences, answering their questions and inspiring their travel dreams can foster a loyal following that is essential for generating a steady travel blogger income.

Create a travel blog with the Wix Blog Maker.

Quality content

The cornerstone of a successful travel blog is high-quality content that resonates with readers and ranks well on search engines. By optimizing your posts for SEO, you increase the visibility of your blog, attracting more visitors and potential revenue. Using AI to write your blog posts ? Make sure to always edit well for quality and originality.

Consistency and branding

Consistency in posting and maintaining a cohesive brand image helps in building trust and recognition among your audience. A consistent content schedule keeps readers returning, while a strong branding strategy ensures your travel blog stands out in a crowded online space. This can lead to increased opportunities for monetization through brand partnerships and other travel blog business ideas.

Diversifying income streams

Relying on a single source of income is risky, especially in the competitive world of travel blogging. Diversifying your income streams can provide financial stability and maximize your earning potential. From affiliate marketing to selling digital products, there are numerous ways to monetize a travel blog. By exploring different revenue channels, you can create a resilient business model that withstands the ebbs and flows of the travel industry.

14 ways to make money as a travel blogger

Creating a profitable travel blog requires a strategic approach to monetization. Here are fourteen diverse methods to generate income as a travel blogger, each with its own potential and approach.

Affiliate marketing

Sponsored posts

Digital products

Travel consulting

Online courses and workshops

Advertising

Freelance travel writing

Merchandise sales

Paid partnerships and collaborations

Travel tours

Crowdfunding

YouTube channel

Blog flipping

01. Affiliate marketing

Partner with companies by featuring their products or services on your travel blog and earn a commission for every sale made through the referral links you place in your content. Travel-related affiliate programs you can join can include bookings for accommodations, flights, gear and insurance.

For example, if you’re writing a blog guide to a specific city, you can partner with hotels, mention them in your article, encourage your reader to then click through to an affiliate link to book the hotel and earn a commission for completed bookings.

Affiliate marketing is a very popular way to make money as a travel blogger, just be sure to only endorse services that fit your readers' needs and ensure quality. They need to trust your suggestions and recommendations.

02. Sponsored posts

Collaborate with brands that align with your travel niche to create content that promotes their offerings. Sponsored posts must be disclosed to your audience but they can be a significant source of travel blogger income when done authentically.

Work with brands that align with your travel and business values, first and foremost. If you believe in a product or travel service and use it yourself, so even better.

You can create this content on your blog and share on social media.

Learn more:

How to make money on Instagram

How to make money on TikTok

03. Sell digital products

Make money as a travel blogger by creating and selling digital products such as e-books, travel guides or photography presets. These products can provide a passive income stream, as they require no inventory and can be sold indefinitely. You create once and sell forever, with updates along the way to make sure the travel content is relevant.

04. Travel consulting

Leverage your expertise to offer personalized travel planning and consulting services beyond just starting a blog . You can help others craft their dream trips for a fee, drawing on your extensive travel experience and use your blog to promote your consulting services . This is a great way to take a blog and turn it into a way to promote your travel business even further while diversifying the ways in which you can make money as a travel blogger.

05. Online courses and workshops

Develop and sell online courses or conduct workshops on topics like travel photography, blogging or destination-specific insights. This can attract an audience willing to invest in learning from a seasoned travel blogger. You can earn money from ticket sales, or use the events to promote your blog or other travel services. You could also look to be hired to speak at other people's workshops and to lead their courses on travel or blogging.

06. Advertising

A common and well-known way to make money as a blogger is by displaying ads on your blog through networks like Google AdSense or by securing direct ad placements with relevant brands. Advertising can provide a steady income, especially as your blog's traffic grows. Once set up it’s also relatively easy to manage and it makes for a good investment of time vs income ratio.

07. Freelance travel writing

Use your writing skills to contribute articles to other travel publications or blogs as another option for making money as a travel expert. Freelance writing can not only supplement your income but also increase your blog's exposure as you might be able to include links to it.

08. Selling merchandise

Make money as a travel blogger, on top of your blog, by designing and selling branded merchandise such as apparel, travel accessories or souvenirs. This can turn your brand's fans into customers and promote your blog offline as well as generate extra income.

To sell merchandise you’ll need to use an eCommerce website builder to make a site to sell.

Learn more: How to start an eCommerce business , best ecommerce platforms .

09. Paid partnerships and collaborations

Engage in paid partnerships with tourism boards, travel companies or other brands. You can offer to promote their services or products on your travel blog, either through sponsored content or guest blogging - where they write content for you to publish on your site. You can combine the sharing of blog posts, with social media posts and videos too in order to reach as many people as possible.

10. Host travel tours

Consider making money as a travel blogger cum travel guide by organizing and leading travel tours to your favorite destinations. This immersive experience can be lucrative and provide more content to write about and publish for your blog. It takes a lot of organization and time to host travel tours, so make sure you understand the investment and risk involved before initiating.

11. Crowdfunding

Consider crowdfunding, through platforms like Patreon to receive recurring financial support from your audience. You can then offer exclusive blog content or deals on travel services in return for their patronage. This can be a great way to bootstrap your travel blog in the beginning but is not necessarily a scalable way to make money as a travel blogger.

12. YouTube channel

Expand how you make money as a travel blogger by also planning video content and creating a YouTube channel. This can then be monetized in much the same way a travel blog can - ad revenue, sponsorships and affiliate links within your video content.

Learn more: How to make money on YouTube

Check out the following travel bloggers making an impact on YouTube:

Vaga brothers : 1.2 million followers

Viatravellers : 10.6K+ followers

13. Podcasting

Beyond making money with a travel blog you can consider starting a travel podcast to share stories, interviews and advice. Monetization of it can come from sponsorships, affiliate marketing or premium content for subscribers.

14. Blog flipping

If you grow a travel blog to a point where it's profitable it can then be sold for a profit. This requires a deep understanding of building and scaling online businesses, specifically a blog and it can take time and resources but can result in a significant one-time payout.

How to get started with making money as a travel blogger

Embarking on the journey of starting a travel business around a blog involves several key steps. From setting up the blog to building an audience and implementing monetization strategies, here's how to lay the groundwork for a successful venture.

Setting up your travel blog

Begin by choosing a memorable name that reflects your travel niche and registering a domain - website builders , like Wix, include a free domain name . Select a reliable hosting provider (Wix sites come with free, reliable web hosting ) and design your blog with a user-friendly interface. Ensure that the blog's aesthetics align with your branding and that it’s optimized for mobile users. Focus on your site’s SEO, website performance and website security .

Building an audience

Focus on creating valuable content that resonates with your target audience. Use social media platforms to promote your blog and engage with your followers. Network with other travel bloggers and participate in online communities to increase your visibility. Implement SEO best practices to drive organic traffic to your blog, utilizing keywords like "travel blogging business" and "travel blog business ideas." You might also consider writing blog posts in multiple languages based on your audience. Learn how to start a multilingual blog and exapnd your reach.

Implementing monetization strategies

Once you have a steady stream of traffic and an engaged audience, start implementing monetization strategies. Begin with methods that align with your audience's interests and your blog's strengths. For example, if you have compelling travel photography, consider selling prints or offering photography services . Monitor the performance of each income stream and adjust your strategies accordingly. Always be transparent with your audience about sponsored content and affiliate links to maintain trust.

By methodically setting up, growing and monetizing your travel blog, you can establish a robust online presence that not only shares your passion for travel but also supports your entrepreneurial aspirations and money-making goals.

How to make money as a travel blogger FAQ

How much can i realistically make as a travel blogger.

The income of a travel blogger can vary widely based on factors like niche, audience size, engagement and monetization methods. Some bloggers make a few hundred dollars a month, while others earn six-figure incomes. Success typically comes from diversifying income streams and steadily growing your audience.

Do I need a large blog following to start making money?

How long does it take to start earning money from a travel blog, how much does it cost to start a travel blog, is it better to focus on one monetization strategy or several, who is the highest paid travel blogger, is starting a travel blog worth it, what do you need to start a travel blog, how do i think of a name for my travel blog, do travel bloggers travel for free, is making money from a travel blog easy, how many hours do travel bloggers work, other ways to make money you might want to consider.

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How to Make Money as a Travel Blogger 2024: 15 Ways I Made $30k

Table of Contents

Itching to write about your next adventure but not sure how to make money as a travel blogger?

You’ve come to the right place!

If you have a passion for traveling and dream of exploring the world and cashing in on your adventures, travel blogging could be the perfect opportunity for you.

It’s important to confront this right off the bat: travel blogging is no cake walk.

If you want to make money (good money), you need to be willing to put the work in. Most travel blogs (and blogs in general) fail because people give in. They’re looking for an easy “passive” income that they can set and permanently forget. But travel blogging is an active career you need to be a participant in.

It took me 4 years before I made more than $100 from my blog! (But admittedly I made every mistake there is to make.) Now I’m a successful travel blogger with multiple passive income streams.

But if you’re passionate about travel and have a true entrepreneurial spirit, travel blogging might just be one of the best ways to carve a career of your own.

If you’re ready to get started, let’s take an in-depth look at how travel bloggers can end up making 5, 6, and even 7 figures (yes, it’s real)!

🤩 Learn how to make over $30k a month from your travel blog!

How to Make Money as a Travel Blogger: 15 Tips

1. make money from ad revenue.

Display ads account for a big chunk of most travel blogging income.

It’s one of the best passive ways to make money blogging because as long as traffic is coming in you can be earning.

It’s really the only set-it-and-forget-it earning method in travel blogging — but you need to continue to post and grow your site or the money will stop.

However, you don’t make boatloads of cash from ads right out of the gate. You need traffic for that. Lots of it, and preferably from the United States.

While you can theoretically make money with ads anywhere, blogs with audiences based in the United States tend to make more. Once you have a decent amount of traffic coming in, you need to join an advertising network.

Ads are a long term strategy – you won’t make $2k a month from day 1!

Each advertising networks has different requirements, so let’s take a quick look at the big ones:

AdThrive is a premium advertising network that requires applicants to have a minimum of 100,000 page views in a 30-day period. While there’s no official range provided by the companies, bloggers report RPMs of $11 to $33+ — that is they earn $11 to $33 per 1,000 visitors.

MediaVine is a premium ad network that requires you to have 50,000+ sessions in a 30-day period to apply and be (potentially) approved. Again, while there’s no official reports from the company bloggers often report up to $30+ RPMs.

My RPMs are about $30-40 depending on the month (I have a LOT of Canadians which bring down my $45-50 RPMs from the US with the $15 Canadian RPMs).

I got into Mediavine after 6 months using this strategy – and you can too!

SHE Media is an ad network that requires ideally 20,000 page views, with an audience that’s 80% or more US-based and 70% or more female. However, they have been known to be flexible on the requirements.

While you usually make more money on She Media then Google AdSense, many bloggers experience RPMs between $2 and $15. You are also required to sign a 1-year contract (which no other ad network requires).

I was with SHE Media pre-Mediavine. I found the ads really slowed down my site and I never made more than $600 a month, even when I had 30k pageviews one month.

Monumetric is another platform with better RPMs than Google AdSense but less than bigger platforms like AdThrive and MediaVine.

They require sites to have a minimum of 10,000 pageviews, and you can probably look forward to making an estimated amount of somewhere between $5 and $15 per day.

While you don’t need to sign a 1-year contract like with SHE Media, you do need to pay a $100 set-up fee — you don’t have to do this with other ad networks.

Opinions on Ezoic vary. While some bloggers say that they have issues related to speed and overall site functionality with their programs, others report RPMs higher than Mediavine and AdThrive — particularly those with non-US audiences. It’s not a favorite network, but it is one open to everyone as they have no traffic requirements.

I’m currently testing Ezoic on my test site OttawaThingsToDo.com. The set up process is EXHAUSTING. It’s been weeks and it’s still not working.

Google AdSense

Overall, Google AdSense is a general no. It slows down your site and most bloggers earn mere pennies with it. While the desire to make money blogging is legitimate, opt for Esoic instead of Google AdSense if you have limited traffic.

As a quick warning before you rush out to put ads on your blog: they will slow down your site. Make sure that your speed is top-notch before you do because it matters for SEO !

2. Join Affiliate Marketing Programs

Affiliate marketing allows you to make money with your blog without creating your own products. Instead you promote others’.

It’s a great way to talk about the products and services you use on a regular basis to make your travel smoother and more enjoyable — and get paid for it!

As an influencer with a travel blog, affiliate marketing allows you to enter an agreement with a business so that when you promote their product and someone in your audience buys from them, you make a small commission.

You’ll want to make sure you focus on promoting brands that align with your target audience, that way you have a better chance of earning income through them. The good news is there are a ton of companies out there with great affiliate programs that allow you to get paid to promote what you love. You can join an affiliate network and start applying today, some of the big ones include:

• TravelPayouts : Home to the affiliate programs for Booking.com, Viator and TripAdvisor
• ShareASale : Home to the affiliate programs for iTalki, Blue Bay Resorts and Bagallini
• Awin : Home to the affiliate programs fro Raddison Hotels, Brussels Airlines and Trip.com
• Impact : Home to the affiliate programs for Secret Escapes, TravelStart and Korean Air

You can also find programs that are independent of affiliate networks like SafetyWing’s travel insurance affiliate program and Wise’s online banking program.

All travel bloggers use affiliate income in some way, and many of the count on it for a decent chunk of revenue. However, how much it impacts their bottom line depends on the programs they’re promoting.

Some can bring in a large amount of change, whereas others only account for a few cents per purchase.

You’ll want to choose your travel programs wisely to ensure you actually earn from them!

The #1 travel blog affiliate marketer I know is Shelley Marmor of Travel Mexico Solo. She makes over $250k a year in affiliate revenue! Check out her courses here .

3. Selling Digital Products on Your Site

Digital products are a favorite income stream to use to make money travel blogging because they’re almost all profit.

With affiliate marketing, you make a percentage of the sale.

With ads you earn a little bit of money per day.

But with digital products , all the money (save for any transactional fees) goes right back to you. It’s the easiest way to make real money blogging with a small audience.

I made over $26.5k in two weeks during Black Friday on a site with under 10k pageviews, an email list of 500, an FB group of 250, and an Insta of 1k people. 90% of that income was from 3 digital products (the rest was affiliates).

While creating digital products does require an investment of time upfront, once it’s made all you have to do is sell it.

Maybe it takes you six hours to design your signature travel planner that you sell for $7, which seems like a crappy trade off.

But if 25 people purchase your planner each month for the next 12 months, you’ve just made $2,100 — suddenly that six hours turns into $350/hour in payoff.

Seems worth it, doesn’t it?

Planners aren’t the only thing you can sell, there’s a ton of ideas, including:

• Online courses
• Digital art
• Travel guides
• Paid newsletters or memberships

… and the list goes on!

The good news is that digital products are easy to create through Canva . Once you have something set-up and ready, you can make a one-time purchase of ThriveCart to sell them, or you can use a recurring subscription like SendOwl.

You can even cut a few corners and purchase PLR products that you can customize and make your own. That way you don’t have to build the bulk of the product, you take what someone else has created and turn it into something your audience will love — just make sure that you have the right licence!

You can find PLR products in Facebook groups, sold by PLR specialists, or even on Creative Market or Etsy.

4. Run a Live Masterclass

A live masterclass allows you to share your knowledge with your audience and get paid for it.

You can draw from your personal experience as a globetrotter, and use your platform to teach others how they can have their own amazing adventures. From destination guides and tips on budgeting to breaking down the logistics of traveling or talking about foreign visas — there are so many topics you can cover!

Not only will this help you open up new revenue streams, but it also provides potential customers with an immersive experience that they won’t find elsewhere.

You can take the earning potential one step further and box it up (virtually) when you’re done, and sell it as an on-demand masterclass.

This way it turns from something active to passive — so your single live seminar turns into something you can sell for months or years.

5. Score Paid Press Trips

Many travel bloggers start out wanting to go on paid press trips — while this is a feasible idea, these are a lot of hard work. While it depends on the trip and agreement, bloggers can receive free accommodations, meals, and activities.

But this isn’t an “I’ll post a picture and you give me a free ice cream” kind of deal.

Contracts are negotiated, deals are signed, and work has to be done on your part.

Press trips are great because you can experience a new place without spending your own money, build credibility as a travel blogger, and grow your relationships with brands and even local businesses. But you’ll need to offer the company funding a trip a good deal as well, which is why press trips usually require a solid following and reputation.

Press trips are arranged by tourism boards, hotels or other businesses in order to showcase their destination. If you’re ready to start making partnerships, you’re going to want to build yourself a media kit — which provides an overview of how you offer them value — and start contacting tourism boards and local companies.

You’re not going to get a “yes” from everyone, especially if you have no pre-existing relationships, so make sure you treat every email like a future opportunity.

6. Sell Your Photos

Both professional and budding photographers can make money with content creation through their travel photos. Whether you’re just starting out and want to make photography a big part of your business, or you simply like taking pictures and figure why not monetize your passion, there’s a way to do it.

Some great ways travel bloggers make money with their images include:

• Stock sites like Shutterstock or iStock
• To other travel bloggers looking for original images through Facebook groups
• Through your own site through something like the Sell Media Plugin
• On a third-party print-on-demand site like Society6
• Via your own stock photo membership

Photos are valuable visual assets that people love. Depending on the type of images you take and how you want to package them up you can make a little bit or a lot. The photo-selling world is your oyster!

7. Monetize Youtube

Before you can monetize a YouTube channel you need to build one — but assuming you have one, it can be another stream of revenue for your travel blog. Just like your traditional blog, your channel can be monetized with sponsored videos, advertising (via Google AdSense) and affiliate links.

Not just anyone can open up a YouTube channel and start monetizing it right away, you’ll need to meet the base requirements first. At the time of publishing, channels need at least 1,000 subscribers with 4,000 watch hours in the last 12 months to be eligible for monetization. But once you’re up and running, there’s limitless potential. From reviews to travel vlogs, you can use it as a secondary channel to generate a healthy stream of income.

Just like with blogging, it’s a good idea to curate an audience that’s interested in the products and services you’re talking about. You want to create engaging content that includes your honest opinion. And creating a consistent schedule for new content releases can be a great way to establish trust with your audience. Most importantly, remain authentic throughout the process!

8. Monetize Instagram

On a slightly smaller scale (workload wise) than YouTube, but still equally as lucrative, if you have an engaged and growing audience on Instagram, you can monetize it too. You don’t have to have millions of followers to make money with your audience, even a few thousand — so long as they’re active and engaged — can be utilized.

Creators on Instagram make money primarily though brand partnership via sponsored content. Instagram creators are typically paid a flat rate to create a piece of content specifically for a brand and share it on their social media channels. Not only can you earn money from this, but you often get a chance to test out to product or service for free, and try to negotiate getting an affiliate link so you continue to make money after you’ve posted.

You can also work in the promotion of affiliate links and the sale of digital products, and Instagram just implemented a subscription feature so you can sell directly to your audience. While I wouldn’t recommend relying solely on your Instagram account as your income, it can be a great revenue stream to draw from.

9. Monetize TikTok

TikTok is a growing social media platform, and so long as you’re interested in creating videos, there are plenty of opportunities for you to make money with your account. Monetization is similar to that of Instagram as well. While they have a creator fund people get paid from and ways to make a little ad money on your feed, sponsored content is going to be your best bet.

To break into the TikTok world you need creativity, time and dedication — and, honestly, dedication is the most important factor. Growing on TikTok takes a constant stream of engaging videos so you can attract and grow an audience. Once you have one, you can partner with brands that align with your lifestyle as well as those that create unique travel experiences that followers may pay for.

10. Monetize Your Podcast 

Just like your other content channels — blog, YouTube and social media accounts — your podcast can be monetized.

While starting a YouTube account means having to film and edit videos, podcasts have a considerably lower barrier of entry. While they are work, they tend to be a little bit easier to do than videos (especially because you can do the whole thing in your pyjamas). And any extra work you end up putting in can be seriously worth it, if you take the time to properly monetize it.

How do podcasts make money, you ask? With similar methods as blogs, with the primary ones being:

• Affiliate links
• Crowdfunding support
• Sponsorship deals
• Subscriptions/donations
• Merchandise sales

The best part is that if you’re running multiple content channels, you can even offer sponsors additional value (and get a higher rate) by selling combined advertising packages. This helps you move away from any low “standard” ad rates that might be hanging out on Google because you’re providing some seriously powerful value.

11. Write Sponsored Posts

Sponsored posts are exactly what they sound like — a brand pays you to create content about them or their product, and you charge them for it. These often come in the form of a product review, but you can also write sponsored posts in a different form — like a how to guide or a product or service comparison.

When working with sponsored content, you’ll need to make sure that you’re transparent about the terms of your arrangements. It’s not legal to take money and talk about a product without disclosing your relationship with the advertiser to your audience.

You also want to make sure that you don’t post sponsored content that’s just a commercial, you need to give your audience something of value in order to make the post worth their time. That means reviews should cover both the positive AND negative about anything you’re talking about.

Sponsored posts are a good deal for both you and the brand paying. It’s considerably easier to make sales by borrowing your audience than it would be to start selling cold. If you’re going to be selling to your blog readers, it’s important that you create engaging content that converts. You want content that entices your readers to click on the links and make purchases, and ideally they subscribe too!

To get started with sponsored content, you’ll want to build a media kit that tells prospective brands what you’re all about. Then also make sure to add a contact page to your website so potential sponsors can contact you.

12. Sell Email Advertising

Sponsored content isn’t limited to your public facing channels, your email list can be an incredibly valuable selling tool. Many creators earn a little extra cash selling sponsored spots in their email list.

This method of branded or sponsored content works the same way it does on your blog, only it’s usually shorter. You pen some great actionable content that entices your readers to check out the advertiser, and send it out to a dedicated and engaged group of followers. The best part is that just because it’s shorter doesn’t mean you have to charge less. Your email audience might be smaller but they’re considerably more engaged and interested in your stuff — so you can charge brands appropriately!

Your email list can be utilized to your monetary benefit in a few other ways too. Affiliate sales and direct digital products sales are both easily utilized with your email list. Just make sure you read the terms of your affiliate programs before you include links in emails, because programs like Amazon Associates does not let you.

Writing sponsored emails is a great way for anyone interested in travel blogging to make some extra income without having to spend too much time creating content from scratch.

13. Lead Tours

If you have a desire to actively engage and enjoy public speaking, then leading tours might be a great option for you. You can combine your passion for traveling with your entrepreneurial spirit, and help revolutionize the way people experience some of the most beautiful places in the world!

The standard practice of this is best used if you’re somewhere you lives in a place where tourists visit, and it’s particularly fun if you’re someone who likes to plan travel. You can run private tours that allow you to share your knowledge and experiences with others, but can also have the opportunity to offer packages tailored specifically to their needs and desires. With this type of business, it’s all about creating unique experiences that travelers won’t soon forget.

Not located somewhere you can regularly run tours? No problem!

You can package those tours up as a buy-on-demand experience.

Perhaps you can also utilize existing networks such as social media platforms or other online resources like TripAdvisor or Airbnb Experiences. This will help spread the word about your services and establish yourself as an expert tour leader.

Trova Trips seems to be the most popular company to help you start running tours, but you only get a % of the profits. To make the most money, set up a tour company. My friend Jessie Festa of Jessie on a Journey did this with her NYC Photo Journeys company.

14. Work as a VA for Other Bloggers

Working as a virtual assistant (VA) for other bloggers might not seem like the obvious choice but it’s a great way to get paid to learn. There are plenty of experienced bloggers looking for reliable help, and this can be your way in to the blogging lifestyle without putting too much on the line for yourself. Ideally, it’d be with a travel blogger — but honestly, you can learn from any kind of blogger no matter the niche.

As a virtual assistant, you will provide support services such as scheduling social media posts, moderating comments and other small tasks that help free up the blogger’s time. As a VA your job tasks could include:

• Laying out and schedule content
• Research and data entry
• Answering emails
• Schedule appointments

The best part about being a blogging VA is that it can be done from anywhere in the world, so long as you have an internet connection. It’s a great entry into the digital nomad lifestyle.

You don’t need any special skills or qualifications, but the following will help ensure you do well:

• Basic knowledge of blogging
• Ability to work within WordPress
• Starter SEO knowledge

If you’re ready to get started on this journey, I recommend joining Facebook groups, Upwork, Fiverr or even cold pitching directly!

15. Get Freelance Writing Work

Freelance writing can be a lucrative way to make money as a travel blogging. It’s also one of the easiest ways to start making money fast — depending on how much you’re willing to put into it.

There are a lot of reasons to love freelance writing:

• Easy to get into, just start pitching
• One of the fastest blogging-adjacent ways to get paid
• Helps you hone your own writing skills
• You can start building relationships with blogging colleagues

Not sure where to start? No problem. Getting started is considerably easier than you’d think:

• Prep some sample work — you can display it on your own blog!
• Start pitching articles and brands
• Complete amazing work
• Bill and get paid!

You don’t have to stick to only travel-related content either. You can write about arts, technology, social media or any other niche topic that you’re passionate about!

I wrote about plumbing and car accident law at one point to make money from freelance writing before my blog took off – you do what you gotta do when you’ve got an expensive puppy in need of all the toys!

How Much Do Travel Bloggers Make?: Average Travel Blogger Salary

The thought of making money blogging is both scary and exciting, but is it really possible?

The truth is there’s no guaranteed amount you’ll make while blogging, and you’ll probably have to wait at few years to really see it start to come in, but it is possible.

So, how much do travel bloggers actually make?

It really depends.

While there are A LOT of bloggers that make $0, there are a ton that pull in 5, 6 and 7 figures – or simply earn a reasonable full-time income.

Blogging is a long-term game, and it’s those that hang on that end up making a success out of it.

The best part is that once you’re up and running, you earn daily, and can make money while you sleep as a completely passive income.

It essentially breaks down to be the right skills, focus and dedication that make it possible (albeit still hard) to make an income blogging .

At the end of the day, the sky’s the limit and you’re truly the only one who can make sure it happens.

If you feel you need a little inspiration, here are some travel blogging income reports for you to check out:

• Practical Wanderlust – $22k in the first year
• Two Wandering Souls – $74k in Q4 2019
• Living The Dream – $9,750 in November 2022
• I made $31.5k in January 2023, which I shared with my email list

How Much Do I Make as a Travel Blogger

It wouldn’t be a post about making money blogging if I didn’t share my receipts, now would it?

I had my first $10k USD ACTIVE income month in December 2021 – which I didn’t enjoy tbh because active income isn’t ideal. $6k of that was from freelance writing, $300 was from SHE Media ads, $63 was from affiliates (not actually from December but amalgamated from months that finally got paid out), $500 from a speaking gig, and $3.2k was from SEO and blog client work that I was severely under charging for.

I had my first $10k PASSIVE income month in July 2022. This was about $1,500 USD from Mediavine, and the rest was from affiliates in my email list and on my blog.

This was the DREAM for me. The next month I hit $11k!

While my Mediavine income has grown to about $2,500 a month, my affiliate income does vary by month (thanks to no one wanting to take tours in Canada in -30C weather in winter).

In November 2022, I made $2,547 from Mediavine and $5,604 and change from affiliates. I also made about $84 from my first $7 mini course. I didn’t market it well since I was focussed on my SEO course sales, so we’ll see how it grows.

If I spent more time on the site and not on my SEO clients and this blog, I could easily have grabbed another $10k month in November, but I slacked on writing those winter affiliate posts to promote my SEO Roadmap course for Black Friday.

Income is pretty varied for bloggers.

Q4 has the highest ad income. Affiliate sales vary based on the type of site you have (or if you forget to write on winter tours like I did).

I don’t do social promotions, sponsored posts, or press trips because honestly I don’t enjoy them. I could probably double my income if I cared about social media but it takes WAY too long to grow and maintain.

I’m a passive income girlie!

FAQs about Travel Blogging

How much money can you make from a travel blog.

The amount of money you can make with a travel blog depends on several factors, including your strategy, focus, and even creativity! You can make anywhere from a few hundred dollars a year up to six figures if you commit yourself to blogging regularly and engaging with readers in meaningful ways.

Can you make money with a travel blog?

Yes, you can make money with a travel blog. However, it requires hard work, dedication and patience. I make most of my money via ads and affiliates from SEO optimized posts.

Is a travel blog profitable?

Yes, running a travel blog is profitable. Running a travel blog can net you a 5, 6, or even 7-figure income.

Is it worth starting a travel blog?

Yes it is worth starting a travel blog. You can work part time and make a full time income… but you need to be prepared to put in the work and learn. Most blogs do nothing in the first year or two, so patience is key!

Can you make money doing a travel blog?

Yes, you can make money running a travel blog . Travel bloggers primarily make money with ad revenue, affiliate links and digital products – but it can take time to get started.

How much does it cost to start a travel blog?

You can start a travel blog for less than $100 per year. The only two expenses you need to take care of right off the bat are a domain name and hosting . Don’t spend weeks picking the right travel blog name for your site. The best way to get stuck is to spend too much time on small things like this.

How do you start a travel blog and make money?

To start a travel blog and make money, you:

• Purchase a domain and buy hosting
• Create outstanding content with an SEO focus
• Add in affiliate links
• Create your own digital products
• Grow your traffic and connect with an ad network
• Consider sponsored post opportunities with brands
• Create a killer strategy and bring in that cash!

SEO Roadmap for Travel Bloggers

Ready to make thousands of dollars passively each month?

Get my SEO Roadmap course!

This one-stop-shop teaches bloggers in every niche how to scale their traffic and their passive income. I went from $0 a month to $30k/mo in 13 months with my techniques – and now I’m sharing them with you!

Wrap Up: How to Make Money as a Travel Blogger in 2022

Starting a travel blog can be immensely rewarding and lucrative, if done correctly.

But before you start dreaming big, make sure you’re ready to put in the work, dedicate the time, and be patient while your blog grows.

With the right strategies, including display ads and affiliate marketing, it is possible to make money with a travel blog. You can even run it while you travel the world!

💰 Want to get financial freedom to make money while sipping pina coladas in Mexico or summiting Kilimanjaro? Check out my exact SEO strategy that got me the audience for Mediavine & affiliate income while I sleep!

Read More About Travel Blogging!

• What is a Travel Blog: Definition & Examples from a 6-Figure Blogger
• 100+ Best Travel Blogs that Accept Guest Posts
• 60 Best Travel Affiliate Programs for Bloggers
• How to Make Money as a Travel Blogger: 15 Ways I Made $30k
• Travelpayouts Review: 6 Figure Travel Blogger Weighs In
• 19 Best Cameras for Travel Blogging & Vlogging
• Travel Blogging Summit Denver 2022 Review & Key Takeaways
• Basic SEO for Travel Bloggers: 19 SEO Tips to Scale to Full-Time Income
• Best Travel Blogging Courses: Which is Worth Your Money?
• 500+ Travel Blog Names: How to Choose a Unique & Memorable Name in Any Niche
• 69 Travel Blog Statistics You Need to Know
• 50+ Best Facebook Groups for Travel Bloggers to Engage and Grow
• 140+ Engaging Travel Blog Post Ideas for Every Niche
• How I Grew My Travel Blog by 45k Pageviews in 6 Weeks
• Niche Site Deep Dive: A DA 13 Travel Blog on Adthrive?
• Travel Blog Audit: Complete Tutorial To Improve Your Website
• This Travel Blogger Got Into Mediavine in 1 Year
• “How Is This Legal?” Travel Blogger Calls Out Google’s Knowledge Graph
• How This Travel Blog is Winning at SEO Post Helpful Content Update

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Nina Clapperton is a multi-6 figure travel blogger and the founder of She Knows SEO. After sharing her stories of living in over 12 countries in 10 years on all platforms and making $0, she learned SEO and scaled her blog to 50k sessions in 6 months. Within 13 months, she was making $30k/mo passively. Now Nina runs a portfolio of niche sites and helps over 3,500 students grow their blogs. She's on a mission to help bloggers achieve financial freedom via passive income from their hobby blogs.

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9 Ways to Become a Successful Travel Blogger

I generally don’t write articles about how to be successful at blogging because this is a consumer travel website — not a blogging website. But I’ve seen a lot of articles on travel blogging over the years and many of those articles offer a lot of just plain ole’ bad advice.

As someone who has been blogging – very successfully – for over fifteen years , I want to share my advice on what has worked for me to counterbalance what I see is bad strategy by others.

Travel blogging is a crowded field — and it gets more crowded by the day. After all, the idea of “getting paid to travel the world” seems like an amazing thing to try to do. You get to visit wonderful places around the world on someone else’s dime!

It’s a dream job, right?

Well, first, running a successful travel blog — or any blog in any industry — is hard work and time-consuming. Putting posts up is not going to result in money falling like rain (though judging by some of the people I’ve seen on paid trips, it can at least amount to a drizzle). You have to work for it.

Blogging takes persistence. It takes consistency.

Unless you hit the Internet “viral” lottery, you should expect to plug away for a least a year before you start to see income coming in. Usually longer.

Building a blog is like building any other business: success takes time, patience, and dedication.

Think of travel blogging like the restaurant business. Just because there are a lot of restaurants doesn’t mean that they are all good or that you shouldn’t open one of your own! Instead, people who open a restaurant or desire to be a world-class chef look around and say, “I can do this better .”

That’s the mindset you should have about your travel blog.

Take a look around and go, “I can do this better!”

Here are nine things you can do to succeed in travel blogging (or any blogging field, really). Doing them will make you far more successful than most of the bloggers out there. The stuff below is what I do to grow this website.  

1. Read a Lot of Books

I am always shocked at how few travel bloggers read. Very few read any marketing, strategy, business, or self-development books. Running a blog is like running a business, and if you don’t go to “school” and constantly learn, you’re going to fall behind. Every successful person I know is a voracious reader. They constantly try to improve their skills and knowledge.

You must always be a student. You must always learn. After all, why reinvent the wheel?

Read what experts have to say, learn what works, and apply the tips you pick up to your blog. If someone has been there and done that, why try to learn that through trial and constant error? Read the best way to do it… and then do it!

I read a lot besides travel books. I consume books on marketing, management, writing, history, and biographies. Even if you only get one idea from the book, that book was worth it. I read at least one book a week and am often reading multiple books at a time. Travel, history, business, fiction — I read it all.

If you only do one thing from this list, make it this one.

Some of my must-reads are:

• Influence , by Robert B. Cialdini
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People , by Stephen R. Covey
• What Got You Here Won’t Get You There , by Marshall Goldsmith
• The Psychology of Persuasion , by Kevin Hogan
• Start With Why , by Simon Sinek
• On Writing , by Stephen King
• Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Writing , by Don George
• Big Magic , by Elizabeth Gilbert

For more book suggestions, here is my complete list of must-read books for bloggers!  

2. Be Like Apple — Think Different

Whatever you are going to write about, try to present that subject in a way that hasn’t been done before.

If everyone is sharing sponsored content, don’t.

If everyone is writing text, make a video.

If everyone is serious, be funny.

If everyone has complex designs, go simple and visual.

If everyone is doing one-off blog posts, create a story through a series of posts that keep people coming back for more.

Always innovate — do something different and unique.

One thing we do here that makes us different is that we put a level of detail into our posts that no one else does. We make our posts the ultimate guides on destinations. We add photos, charts, and maps when we can. We add video. Contact information. We want you to come here over and over again because our resources are the best.

Many bloggers just provide a light dusting of information. We go deep.Whatever you decide to do, do it well and be unique.  

3. Invest in Your Blog

For a long time, I avoided spending any money on this website. I bootstrapped everything and viewed every expense negatively. “That designer would be nice but I can’t afford it. I’ll just create a crappier design myself.”

But I soon realized money spent wisely is an investment.

Now I pay for designers, SEO auditors, conferences, video and audio editors, copy editors, and much more. This allows me to improve the reader experience, develop useful products, work on other projects, and free up time to write. I focus on my core competencies and hire the rest out.

It’s easy to say, “Oh, that conference is too much. I don’t want to spend that much.” But if that conference results in one strong business connection that leads to new sales or a guest posting opportunity, then the conference is worth it. (See below for some good conferences to attend.)

Businesses invest in themselves. You need to do the same.

It can be easy for me to say now, but even when you start, spending a little bit of money can go a long way. I didn’t start out hiring lots of people. I hired one person, then another, then another. Even if you spend a few hundred dollars on a snazzier logo, that can go a long way to improving your readers’ experience.  

4. Be Niche

Back when I started blogging in 2008, it was easy to maintain a general budget travel website. You could cover a wide range of travel topics and face little competition. There was only a handful of bloggers. Now, there are too many long-established blogs and websites to do that. (And you’d also be way behind in Google search results.)

I recommend being as narrow and focused on your topic(s) as possible. Whether it’s RV travel , hiking and camping adventures, vegan travel , or focusing on a specific city or country, the power of search lets everyone define their niche and still be able to reach millions of potential readers. In fact, being niche now is better than trying to be a more general resource site like mine.

Moreover, focusing lets you become an expert. You can be the person to whom readers always turn for information on this subject or that destination, which allows you to cultivate a bigger presence online.

Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Go narrow. Go deep.  

5. Create Products

Businesses sell something — and so should you. Whether it’s a course, a book, t-shirts, tours, other people’s products via affiliate marketing, or by creating a Patreon, give your audience an opportunity to support your website.

Offering products for sale allows you to be independent from sponsors and brand deals and not compete with other travel bloggers for spots on press trips (see below). It allows you to scale your website and your revenue. Many products offer value to your readers by going more in-depth and in detail than a blog post usually allows.

There are very few travel bloggers that produce products. Most of the time, travel bloggers end up making money by creating sponsored content and getting paid to go on trips. That’s cool if that is something you want to do, but that is time-consuming and requires you to be constantly working (and it’s soul-sucking). You never have time to relax or do something for yourself. It’s not a hamster wheel you want to be tied to. It’s not sustainable.

Products allow you to create something once and earn revenue while sleeping, sightseeing, or getting a suntan on a beach! They give you ownership of your income and a chance for your readers to buy something from you and give back!

Trust me. Your readers want to support you. You just need to give them a way to do so.  

6. Don’t Only Do Press Trips or Sponsored Content

Why do people still buy guidebooks? Because they want an independent opinion on destinations. If everything you write is sponsored by someone, you’ll hit a limit to your number of readers.

Sure, some people won’t care and will follow your adventures no matter what, but a larger majority of people will feel that you can’t relate to their experience and will seek to find information elsewhere.

Consumers want relatable and independent travel content because they want to learn that they can make it happen too. If you’re in fashion, you can showcase all the makeup you want because a reader can look at that and think, “Yeah, I can do that too! To the mall I go!”

But when you’re talking travel, people can’t look at your free, multi-thousand-dollar trip to the Maldives and say, “Yeah, that’s realistic for me too! To Expedia I go!”

Think about it. When you see someone having a $10,000 holiday, how do you feel? Do you think “Wow! That’s pretty!” or “Wow! I can do that too! I’m going to book that!?”

Sponsored trips and one-off brand deals will help you travel and provide eye candy for your readers but it won’t create the expertise and relatable experiences that will have them coming back to you over and over for concrete advice or product purchases.

I’ve yet to see a pure travel blog get huge by only taking sponsored trips (though there are a number of fashion/travel hybrid blogs that are gigantic). The most successful bloggers in many niches avoid one-off partnerships and sponsored content because it dilutes their authenticity. (On the other hand, long-term partnerships are wonderful as they can bring value and unique deals to your readers.)

Avoid too many one-off trips paid by someone else, write about relatable experiences, and grow larger!

(And when you create products, you don’t need the money from these trips! Win-win!)  

7. Network Outside of Travel

Networking with other travel bloggers can help you become better known in the industry (which is a good thing), but by reaching outside  of the industry, you can be the travel person everyone else turns to for quotes, interviews, and advice.

And that is going to pay more dividends than just sticking to travel conferences. Yes, attend industry events (you’d be stupid not to!) but don’t attend only industry events.

Find where your expertise overlaps with other industries and meet the successful leaders in those industries. Then you can find people who know nothing about travel and be their travel expert on their websites. It’s how I’ve connected with so many finance, entrepreneurship, and tech experts. Here are some good conferences to attend:

• SxSW (Tech)
• FinCon (Finance)
• VidCon (Video/YouTube)
• Craft and Commerce (Entrepreneurship)

8. Stop Talking About Yourself

While running a blog means you are going to say “I” a lot more than in magazine or newspaper writing, that doesn’t mean you should write only about yourself. If your blog is solely a journal or trip down memory lane, write about anything you want. But if you’re looking to run a professional blog that creates a sustainable income, remember that it’s not all about you.

It is — and always will be — about the people reading your website.

Whether that is by providing practical advice, telling them a good story, or making them laugh, remember that it’s all about how you can be of service to them.

If you are going to write about yourself, do so sparingly or relate it to the bigger picture of travel on the road. Don’t write about your new shoes, what food you ate, your thoughts on whatever, or the mundane details about your life. Few people really care about that. We read writers because they connect with us on an emotional level, tell good stories, and allow us to visualize ourselves in the places they talk about it.

Far too many travel blogs are a glorified personal diary but the most successful ones tell stories of places and better their reader’s travel experience!  

9. Be Persistent

Rome wasn’t built in a day — and your blog won’t build itself overnight either. Maintain realistic expectations about your blog. Don’t expect anything but hard work for the first couple of years. Don’t rush. Build something that will last. The light is always at the end of the tunnel, but too many people give up right before the end.

Go back to my early posts from 2008 — they are horrible. I mean, really god-awful. There is a big difference between the content I produced then and the content I produce now. Sucking — at first — is part of the journey. You aren’t going to be great out of the gate.

And a lot of bloggers, expecting instant fame and success, give up. I have tons of people go “Hey, can I get a refund on my course? I just don’t have the time right now. I’ll come back to it later.”

They never do.

I see it all the time. The reason most bloggers fail is not because they have bad content but because they give up. They don’t want to put in the time to succeed. Part of success is just outlasting everyone else.

Be patient. Put in the time. And you’ll reach your goals!

Creating a travel blog is a time-consuming process. Writing about your trip to Paris is only a small part of the story. Successful blogs focus on content and are customer-centric and reader-centric. It’s easy to reach small or mid-tier status but if you want to stand out, focus on reader-centric content, being niche, creating products, and sticking to best practices.

If you follow these nine tips, I promise you’ll find success in the travel blogging industry. These are my nine guiding principles and they’ve served me well over the last decade!

And if you’re looking for more help and insight into creating a travel blog, check out my online masterclass . It’s the course I wish I had when I started blogging. It will show you how to get your website up and running, teach you how to build your brand, network, master SEO, crush it on social media, make money, and more!

If that sounds like something you’re interested in you can learn more at superstarblogging.com!

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner . It’s my favorite search engine because it searches websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is being left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld . If you want to stay somewhere other than a hostel, use Booking.com as it consistently returns the cheapest rates for guesthouses and hotels.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

• SafetyWing (best for everyone)
• Insure My Trip (for those 70 and over)
• Medjet (for additional evacuation coverage)

Want to Travel for Free? Travel credit cards allow you to earn points that can be redeemed for free flights and accommodation — all without any extra spending. Check out my guide to picking the right card and my current favorites to get started and see the latest best deals.

Need Help Finding Activities for Your Trip? Get Your Guide is a huge online marketplace where you can find cool walking tours, fun excursions, skip-the-line tickets, private guides, and more.

Ready to Book Your Trip? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel. I list all the ones I use when I travel. They are the best in class and you can’t go wrong using them on your trip.

Got a comment on this article? Join the conversation on Facebook , Instagram , or Twitter and share your thoughts!

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above may be affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I earn a commission if you make a purchase. I recommend only products and companies I use and the income goes to keeping the site community supported and ad free.

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15 Ways Travel Bloggers Make Money

This year marks ten years as a professional Travel Blogger and getting paid to travel. When I started back in May 2012 , my primary goal was to create a blog for family and friends to read about my family travel nomadic lifestyle . I had no idea there was a world out there where travel bloggers make money.

BREAKING NEWS: Paradise Pack is back. Everything you need to create an income-producing online lifestyle business from scratch… Even if you have NO CLUE. Over $4,000 Worth of Life-Changing Expert Education. Over 90% off, available for one week only! Click to get your Paradise Pack here.

How do beginner blogs make money?

It was only about 4 months into writing when I was recognized at a Malaysian street festival by a reader of my blog. During that same trip, I met the Bohemian Travelers who changed my world. A fellow traveling family who was monetizing a travel blog.

I was immediately intrigued and Mary and I started spending lots of time together discussing #10 on my list of her travel blogger income.  It seemed to me this was just the tip of the iceberg on how to become a travel blogger and make money. I had to find out more.

Can a travel blogger travel for free?

It’s 2019 in Penang . Mary and I are sipping coconuts on the beach, while the kids play with stray puppies. And I ask Mary if she has even been given something in return for featuring it on her blog. It’s a new idea for both of us and I try it. I have 6,000 readers on my blog at this time and write to a hotel offering them a feature on my blog and some social media . I never even considered a life as a travel influencer before this, but the email comes back with a resounding yes.

3 nights accommodation, tickets for my whole family to a theme park, and a hot stone massage just for me. The light switch turned on I think I just discovered how to write a travel blog and make money.

Learning how to become a travel blogger and earn money

I jumped headfirst into trying to make money from travel blogging. Soon I heard about different conferences that taught everything you need to know about how to become a travel blogger and get paid. So, I enrolled.

Conferences on how to be a travel blogger and make money

Conferences I have attended and loved:

TBEX – Travel Bloggers Exchange – Great for beginners who want to get paid to travel blog. Plus a fantastic introduction to #7 on my list of How do you make money as a travel blogger. While TBEX is US-based they do now have conferences in Europe and Asia. I’ll be at TBEX Thailand in 2022 .

TMS – Travel Media Showcase – This US conference is so much fun and a great way to network with travel bloggers and destination marketers.

TravelCon – Run by one of the most profitable travel blogs in the world, Nomadic Matt. This is more of an advanced conference on how travel bloggers earn money. I had a great time in Austin in 2018 catching up with all the brilliant travel bloggers like PlanetD, Glo, Oneika, and Honeytrek.

Problogger – Is Aussie-based. It’s not a travel blog, but a great place to learn about blogging if you’re not sure which niche you want to jump into yet.

Women In Travel Summit – This one is just for the ladies and is great for beginners to experienced. Panels are always my favorite so you can hear how multiple different travels bloggers make money.

How to start a travel blog and make money

I have a few articles on my site about ways to set up your travel blog and email list . Because the first thing you need as a travel blogger is a website. To get started,  visit the official Bluehost website . Once you have your website, set up your social media. And then start networking. You only need one mentor to lead you the way to the start of figuring out how to make money being a travel blogger.

If you are interested in how to make a living as a travel blogger, read on.

How do travel bloggers make money?

1. freelance writing.

After I started featuring on different news outlets, they also wanted me to write for them. And while at first, it might be free to feature on Lonely Planet or National Geographic. I was soon being paid to write for airline magazines , hotel aggregator sites like Hotels.com or Wotif. Freelance writing can pay different amounts depending on the location of the request. On a good day expect to get $1.00 a word, on a beginner salary consider $0.25 a word.

2. Ambassador

Once I had written a few times for one client, they might ask me to become a regular contributor. I was hired as only one of 12 people to become the first Gnational Gnomads with Travelocity . We contributed regular articles, promoted Travelocity on our travel blogs, and even took trips to destinations to promote them in what they call the ‘clap’. Numerous travel bloggers making noise about one destination is like a thunderclap it’s heard loud and clear and far.

3. Affiliate marketing

If there are products a travel blogger likes they can collect an affiliate income from them. Whether it’s from hotels , car rentals , travel insurance , tours , and more. Like those. Every time someone clicks on an affiliate link from your website you can earn a percentage of their sale. Affiliate marketing is a great passive income that can monetize a travel blog for life.

4. Advertising

Similar to affiliate marketing, but for advertising you use companies to place banner ads or in-text ads on your website. These are usually provided by Google Ads, Mediavine, Ezoic, and so forth. Every time someone clicks on an ad on your website your travel blog makes money. It costs you nothing but helps me continue writing free content. You probably see them on this page. Give the Adobe Ad Creator a try.

5. Investing

Once you’ve figured out how to set up a travel blog and make money you can use that money to make more money. I have invested in property and index funding to make sure I diversify my income. I know many other bloggers who use stock picking services for outperformance . or cryptocurrency. I just need to figure out how a crypto tax return  differs from the personal tax return I file each year.

Passive income is the dream income. It’s the best income to earn from any job and can lead to lifelong security.

6. Social Media

Many travel influencers do not even own a travel blog these days. So how do Instagram travel bloggers make money? They get paid to advertise on social media. With enough followers and plenty of engagement, you can figure out how do travel influencers make money. And it’s not only travel bloggers who get paid for social media, but beauty bloggers can earn money on Tik Tok and Instagram, lifestyle bloggers, tech bloggers, food bloggers can get paid, and so forth. At a lower end consider $50 for one Instagram post, and as your audience grows consider thousands.

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Erin 🌏Travel🥑Food👱‍♀️Lifestyle (@explorewitherin)

7. Press or Famil Trips

Not for everyone, but one of my favorite sources of income is a press trip, like this Disney VIP tour . A destination or brand invites you on a trip complimentary to showcase what the destination has to offer. Once you have worked out how to set up a travel blog and make money you will find that with an engaging audience these destinations will also pay for your time and content. I had one such trip in the US offer me a two-week road trip covering all expenses – travel, food, activities, accommodation and then pay USD 2,200 on top. And this is just the mid-level to travel blog money.

8. Develop your own products

Most travel bloggers will develop their own products. I have a course on how to get hosted hotel stays and work with destinations for your press trips. Others do guides or books. Whatever you’re strength, develop it and sell it. And if you want to try my course, send me an email !

9. Public Speaking

Another favorite of mine. I have spoken at the Women In Travel Summit, the New York Times Travel Show, Problogger, Dear Alyne, and more. Mostly on how to earn money as a travel blogger. Public speaking gives you a form of authority so that when you are requesting payment you have the expertise to do so. Check out my speaking page if you’d like to book me!

10. Sponsored links

Within a blog, a brand may wish to be mentioned. This helps that brand be seen. They might not require a whole article, merely a mention. This is known as sponsored links and is one of the most popular forms of how to make money as travel blogger. Most travel bloggers grow out of this as their passive income increases.

11. Sponsored posts/reviews

Some brands may require a full article on their product. Often paid reviews come with the knowledge that everything is reported – the good and the bad. And ethical travel bloggers will need to review something they don’t love or use themselves. I find that working with agencies where you can pick the products you want to review yourself is a great way to write travel blogs and get paid.

12. Sell photos

As you can imagine when you are traveling the world and making money as a travel blogger you take a lot of photos. All you need is a decent travel camera or top of the range smart phone to get started. Many travel bloggers find their true calling as photographers selling these images to brands, destination marketers, and even licensing them to be used as stock photography. Did you know I won BlogHer photography twice?!

13. Hosted trips

I’ve never done this, but I could be persuaded. This is the ultimate how to get paid to be a travel blogger. Take people with you. Many travel bloggers now host trips to different destinations taking a cut of the sales. Sounds like a dream job to me and I’ve always wanted to go on one of My Life As a Travel Movie’s trips.

14. Travel planning

I tried my hand at being a travel agent and gave up, but many travel bloggers are also traveling agents and can plan the perfect vacation for you since they’ve already taken it.

15. Consulting or mentoring

Another one of my favorite ways to make money as a travel blogger is to teach others how to make money as a travel blogger. Sessions can be done in person or in this day and age on zoom. It’s like meeting my friend Mary on a beach in Penang, but fast-tracking your learning. because you’re now networking with a travel blogger with ten years of experience. If you want a consult please email me at [email protected] I’d love to teach you how to make a travel blog and make money.

How do travel bloggers get paid?

Most travel bloggers invoice. It can get tricky as many travel bloggers are nomadic, but online payment sites like Paypal or Wise work perfectly.

Is travel blogging profitable?

In the simplest of terms yes. It can be. But it’s not as easy these days since an influx into the market. When I started back in 2012, it was a merging market. You’ll find 2022 has a lot more challenges than back in the beginning, but it is still possible.

How much money can you make from a travel blog?

In 2017 I gave up my nomadic lifestyle and started this new blog . Happy 5 years to Explore with Erin . Explore with Erin no longer runs as a full time blog, but it does continue to grow with each passing year.

The number one question I always get asked is how much money does a travel blogger make? Below is the first three years income of my brand new travel blog to help you understand how much do travel bloggers make a year .

2017 – $9,951.80

2018 – $17,610.80

2019 – $26,402.65

Who is the highest paid travel blogger ?

I’m not going to lie being in the US tripled my blog’s income. In 2016 my travel blog earned over USD$160,000. Are travel blogs profitable? For sure. My friend Kach interviewed several bloggers here to see how much money do travel bloggers make .

Matt Kepnes of Nomadic Matt – more than 50,000 USD per month

Johnny Ward of OneStep4Ward.com – $20,000 to $25,000 USD per month

Dave & Deb of The Planet D – $15,000 to $20,000 USD per month

My last travel blog would have been here. Also making $15,000 to $20,00 USD per month

Earl of WanderingEarl.com – $12,000 USD per month

Monica of The Travel Hack – $10,000 USD per month

Explore With Erin Wrap Up

What a mammoth post! I hope it helped you understand how to start a travel blog and get paid. Travel bloggers make money! What a concept. And like I said if you do need any help, I’m always here to guide you. So what say you? Is travel blogging going to be your new dream job?

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Thanks for sharing! Your info about travel blogging is cool and helpful. It shows how bloggers can make money doing what they love. The different ways you talked about are awesome and give new bloggers ideas to be successful. Your stories are inspiring and show that anyone can grow and do new things in travel blogging. This guide is super helpful for people starting in travel blogging!

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Here’s How To Become a Travel Agent and Earn $3,000 Monthly

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Trusted by Millions of Readers

No matter the type of travel you enjoy doing travel planning takes attention to detail mixed with a bit of the spirit of adventure. Every once in a while when the stars align you can take what you love to do and turn it into a living. It’s time to pack your go bag and explore the travel agency world .

See Also: 6 Unusual Ways To Make Extra Money (That Actually Work)

How To Become a Travel Agent

Just because someone has travel experience does not mean they can automatically become a travel agent. However, if you are interested in becoming a travel agent there are many programs you can take to help you become one, or even start your own business. Skills you will learn include how to organize travel arrangements, business ethics, customer service, itinerary planning and the ins and outs of travel insurance.

No matter your career goals, whether you want to focus on luxury travel or more of a local tour operation, the following programs and certifications, which can be done in person or remotely, can get you started on the right path.

• Departure Lounge: Learn how to navigate the hotel industry as an independent contractor as well as get tips on tour operating.
• Premier Cruise Lines: Many lines such as Virgin Voyages, Cunard or Ritz-Carlton Yachts provide training programs for travel agents to help them sell their products and services more efficiently.
• Get Certified: When your training and coursework are complete a certification helps distinguish you in the field with these designations. Some popular ones include the International Air Transport Association, Cruise Line International Association or Travel Industry Designator Service. Be sure to research which certification makes the most sense for you as it will imply different things for your business.

How Much Do Travel Agents Make?

The median pay for what travel agents get paid in the United States is estimated to be about $46,400 annually which is over $3,000 monthly. This may seem underwhelming, but this is an estimate by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics which means is only based on what full-time employees make and not self-employed people. In other words, you can make a lot more money as an independent travel advisor as opposed to working for a host agency. 

Travel agents make money by earning commissions on trips they book as well as charging fees such as booking or service fees. This is a great way to also set your own schedule and only choose the gigs you like. 

Final Take To GO: Love To Travel?

When it comes to starting as a travel agent, a good rule to follow is to try to sell and book trips you yourself would want to take. If you already love to travel this could be a natural next step in your career or a budding side business. 

A great way to sell yourself as a travel agent is to define your unique selling point. Essentially what is it about you that will make people want to book trips with you? It also helps to optimize your website, create high-quality content from trips you’ve booked or been on and leverage your social media platforms. Once you have your foundation firmly established, everything else is booking a day at the beach. 

• Full-time travel agents make roughly $46,400 a year which is over $3,000 a month. However, there is a chance to make more money than this estimate by starting your own travel agency and working for yourself. This way you can set your own schedule and don't have to worry about splitting your commissions.
• You don't need a specific degree to get started as a travel agent, but finding a training program and getting certified with varying destinations does help distinguish you as a trusted travel agent to your potential clients.
• Selling yourself as a travel agent, much like with any job or small business, starts with defining your unique selling point. Essentially what is it about you that will make people want to book trips with you? It also helps to optimize your website, create high-quality content from trips you've booked or been on and leverage your social media platforms.
• Get Certified: When your training and coursework are complete a certification helps distinguish you in the field with these designations. Some popular ones include the International Air Transport Association, Cruise Line International Association or Travel Industry Designator Service. Research which certification makes the most sense for you as it will imply different things for your business.

Our in-house research team and on-site financial experts work together to create content that’s accurate, impartial, and up to date. We fact-check every single statistic, quote and fact using trusted primary resources to make sure the information we provide is correct. You can learn more about GOBankingRates’ processes and standards in our editorial policy .

• Condé Nast Traveler. 2023. "How to Become a Travel Agent—Because, Believe It or Not, the Industry Is on the Rise."
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2024. "Travel Agents: Occupational Outlook Handbook."
• Host Agency Reviews®. 2024. "How Much Do Travel Agents Make? | 2024 Travel Agent Salary."

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How to Make Money Travel Blogging (From a Travel Blogger Who Does, 2024)

This post may contain affiliate links.

I’m asked all the time so here are my best tips on how to make money travel blogging. Blogging funded our life, 2 adults, 2 kids now almost grown, full-time travel. Travel blogging and running this travel blog allowed us to see the world. We’re 100% legitimate and the money comes from the blog, not selling courses. We genuinely love travel and sharing the world with our readers, we’re going to continue to be travel bloggers, not course sellers. So here are some pointers and tips to help you make an income from your blog or website. We’ve included information about the devastating Google update of March 2024 (HCU), its effects on the industry, and recovery from that update. This site is recovering, I’ll share how.

How much travel bloggers earn varies enormously. New travel bloggers will earn nothing.

In your first year you could make a useful amount of money, but you’d need another income to support you.

Once a travel blog is earning well, let’s say in two years plus, travel bloggers can earn a living wage.

My travel blog earns enough to support a family.

However, not all travel blogs will succeed. You have to blog the right way.

You can download our new bloggers’ checklist here.

There are many right ways and many more wrong ways to make money from a travel blog.

I don’t usually publish income reports, but in a good month my travel blog can make five figures.

The amount of money a travel blogger earns is affected by time of year, business model, the blogger’s expertise, and how hard they work.

Their audience will affect income too.

Travel bloggers generally make the most money from a US audience or the other rich western, English-speaking countries.

In Asia we earn most from Malaysia and Singapore, of course, Dubai. Having readers in wealthy nations earns us more in advertising revenue.

These tips aren’t in any particular order and not in huge detail because I’m not writing a book here, but I hope you find them useful.

Our story is simple, we travelled for 1 year on savings, tasted freedom, and didn’t want to go home, so we worked like crazy to make our family lifestyle financially sustainable.

It was a lot of work, but we got there.

You can read about it in our eBook, The Seven Year Ditch. (not available right now, sorry)

Throughout this period we kept travelling, with some longer stays (what they call slow travel ) to focus on work, kids and sports.

My husband is a competing Ironman triathlete, our children were home educated and are wonderful teenagers now completing the high school years in an online international school.

We’ve been to every continent bar Antarctica, spent months living in Vietnam, Romania, England, Wales, Australia, we’ve been to Everest Base Camp and to Tibet and it has all (with a very few exceptions) been wonderful.

But this website is the heart of our mission.

Our travels are often planned with the information we need to get on here in mind.

All of our spare time we sank into creating this travel resource, for you to use.

Welcome to our site, it’s the 5 th member of the family. Just like a new baby, it didn’t come with instructions. We had to figure out what worked through trial and error plus intense data analysis.

Luckily, I love looking at data.

You’ll find a video above, if you let more play, watch them, turn the sound on, get to know us and what we do.

We were on the road for almost 6 years without once going “home”. We will continue to travel and will eventually, we hope, buy homes in the UK, Romania and Australia. 

But this post is about the travel blog.

You’ll find more on how to make money travel blogging in the blogging section of this website.

Please remember that no two bloggers make a living in the same way, there are many ways.

I just know that my way works.

How Do Travel Bloggers Make Money?

I am so sick of reading that making money from a travel blog is hard, it’s not, it’s actually pretty easy if you know what you’re doing.

The problem is, a lot of people don’t have a clue how it’s done and repeatedly bash their heads against a brick wall before giving up in a huff.

It’s not about writing, it’s not about stories, it’s about understanding the internet and how it works.

I’m not saying it doesn’t take a lot of work, you will put hours and hours into creating your income, it’s just not difficult and almost anyone can do it if they have the dedication and the time.

You also have to be prepared to get the know-how.

I have been known to say that once you know how it’s done you can basically print your own money. I stand by that, even today, in 2023, but you will need to put a lot of time and effort in.

Travel blogging is no get rich quick scheme.

Be Genuine and Love What You Do

I hate fakes and I’m sure you do too. Don’t be one. They’re too easy to spot and you’ll turn people off.

You have to love this game, it’s fun, it’s exciting and it’s addictive. If you find it a chore you’ll never put the hours in.

Be an Expert on Travel

If you’re going to write a complete guide to a destination then you’d better have spent several months there.

Nothing is worse than bloggers who don’t know their topic.

People do write posts about places they’ve never been, it’s common and it’s easy, but who wants to read that?

Plan your travels to give you the knowledge you need to write your posts.

Specialise in a particular place, know your facts and be a reliable source of information. Add personal stories to keep people reading, the longer your readers stay on page, the more money your travel blog will make.

Write all the posts anybody could ever need on that destination and interlink them, be a respected source.

Specialising like this is good for your site’s SEO and Google ranking, not just good for your readers.

Forget Niche and Audience, They’re Dead

Let me qualify that because that’s a strange thing to say.

Niche isn’t dead, of course, just don’t worry quite so much about it.

My niche is travel. Not travel with kids. That’s a very broad niche.

I also cover blogging, worldschooling, food, and homeschooling on this site.

So long as everything hangs together and your site structure makes sense it all seems to work just fine. I rank well for all of those topics.

Know that general travel sites like mine are a huge amount of work, a narrow niche site is easier to get off the ground and better suited for SEO.

People talk about “their audience” this whole concept is rubbish.

Through the power of the internet and good SEO you can reach anyone, anywhere. It’s not about followers at all for us.

I don’t know of many people who make a living through followers, some do, I just don’t know even one blogger who works that way.

If our traffic was dependent on our existing audience, our followers, I’d never have made anything approaching a decent income.

We have at least 50,000 followers if you combine the platforms, maybe more and they make us a tiny fraction of our income.

Your Facebook audience or your subscriber list are another matter, they like you to be a bit consistent, but Google search allows you to reach anyone, anywhere with a connection.

If you do it right.

Facebook and followers probably account for less than 5% of my traffic.

A 40 year old single male Himalayan trekker is as likely to visit my site as a young mum wanting to go on holiday in Thailand with her kids.

Write the posts, be the authority, get the authority and they will come.

Obviously, Google likes you to be an expert on a particular topic, but if that topic is say, Sri Lanka, you can reach almost anybody with an interest in that destination.

I’d recommend focusing on one topic, covering it fully (multiple keywords, multiple posts), and then moving on to another to cover in-depth. Add more from time to time to that original “basket” of content and keep updating.

You must always update in travel, your content has to be up to date and accurate. Things change, so you have to go back to the destinations you cover and see what’s happening on the ground.

Be a serial specialist, not a forever generalist.

If you don’t have kids of course you shouldn’t be writing about family travel (although obviously, you could take guest posts from parent bloggers) but there’s nothing to stop you targeting any audience you like.

Of course, if you want to be niche you can be, no problem at all, but remember you’re limiting your audience. If you want to start a niche travel blog, specialising in one destination, pick somewhere in the US. RPMs are so much higher for the US than any other part of the world.

Super niche sites often gain recognition and work with brands within that narrow sector when they are still relatively small. This could be another way for you to make money with your travel blog.

Niche sites can also build great authority and therefore good rankings on their field of expertise, fast. You can do it that way but it’s not my way.

I want to cover the whole world and every style of travel. We have a few “niche” sites too, none of them do as well as this one.

Other bloggers report that their niche destination or topic sites do better than their general sites. Both outcomes are possible and are dependent on many factors.

I make my money from the website, not through brand promotions. Niche sales sites (but that’s not what I’m talking about here) were hit by the last Google update, I don’t have data, but that was partly its intent.

Plenty seem to still be doing well, I actually own a few niche sites but my travel niche site on Romania never took off.

I moved all that Romania content to this big site where it does much better.

To Make Money Blogging Multiple Income Streams are Essential

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, create multiple income streams and get them set up as early as possible.

Install Adsense or Ezoic, join all the affiliate schemes you need, get some Amazon sales pages set up, get stuck into earning, early!

Be aware of legal requirements. You will need certain disclaimers, disclosures, and accessibility features.

How you make money travel blogging largely depends on how you want to do it.

I rely on advertising and affiliate sales, other travel bloggers prefer to be paid to promote destinations, hotels, attractions, and so on.

If you have great photographic skills, sell images, other bloggers are paid for public speaking. Some make YouTube videos, some go into podcasting. This could be podcasts about travel, interviews and discussions, or informational podcasts for bloggers and aspiring bloggers. You really can monetise most channels and if you do it well, with consistency, there is money to be made.

There are many ways to make money blogging.

Some bloggers sell articles to magazines or other publications and some sell e-books and courses. The choice is yours but I prefer to earn the money to pay for the travel I want to do.

I find sponsored stays too much work and too much hassle.

I love my freedom, so I conjure my income out of pixels rather than by actually working for somebody else.

My income is what people call “passive”. It’s not truly passive, websites need maintenance, updating, and content adding frequently, but at least while we’re travelling I’m able to relax and not be on duty at all, sometimes.

Passive income means I’m earning all day Christmas Day, every holiday, every weekend, every night.

A 24 hour, 52 weeks a year passive income soon adds up.

In Travel Blogging Which Affiliate Schemes Make Money?

If you’re looking for a good travel affiliate platform to join, start with Travel Payouts, this platform covers most of the big travel companies in one dashboard and is very easy to use. Join Travel Payouts here .

In no particular order, these are some of the affiliate schemes that make us money:

• Amazon (books, travel gear and more)
• Affilimate (more on this game-changer below)
• Booking.com.
• Hotels Combined
• Travel Insurance . Affiliate payouts are huge in insurance. Sign up for SafetyWing here.
• Animoto , the tool I use to make highly lucrative videos on this site.
• Tattoo Package
• Get Your Guide
• Discover Cars (this is a really good one, sign up using our link )
• Longtail Pro and/ or Keysearch
• Board Booster and/or Tailwind
• Themes – Studiopress is the one we recommend , it’s now owned by WP Engine.

Airbnb used to have a very lucrative affiliate scheme but they cancelled it out of the blue. This is why you won’t find travel bloggers recommending Airbnb these days.

The best affiliate schemes to join are those with high value products and long cookies. The percentage payouts do vary, depending on which platform you become an affiliate through. Many companies offer direct affiliate partnerships, others work through a third party affiliate platform such as Share-a-Sale or Awin . You should join these and browse their advertisers.

If you don’t recommend or use a product genuinely, don’t try to sell it. You will not sell any of these things without understanding SEO and getting a targeted audience to your site.

I would strongly recommend not putting all of your eggs in the Amazon basket. They have slashed their affiliate payment rates recently and this could continue.

Be sure to check what percentage each type of product on Amazon will pay. In some product areas, affiliate commission has been reduced more than in others.

Diversify, and find other routes to affiliate revenue. We found joining Awin was very helpful in that they have so many companies and products on their books internationally. Share-a-Sale is another very good affiliate platform you should join.

Another way to monetize that we’re testing right now on two of our sites is Sovrn /VigLink .

What happens here is every outgoing link on your site can potentially be converted into an affiliate link through this third party. It looks promising, but take a good look at the setting on this one.

We’ll update you on this more once we’ve run it for a few months.

How to Make More Money Travel Blogging With Affiliate Sales

People will often tell you that its pointless to put affiliate links randomly in posts or to add affiliate sale widgets to your sidebar or footer. I’d strongly agree with the latter.

Affiliate sale widgets have been useless for me.

The best way to increase the money you make blogging through affiliate sales is to add more links. These are best to put on a dedicated affiliate sales page, a buying guide, and they work best toward the top of a page. Most people do not scroll through a whole page.

Tou can use a heatmap tool or Affilimate to check this ( get a free trial of Affilimate here .)

However, if you have a high traffic page that a lot of people read, relevant affiliate text links can make you money too.

Stay 22 ads booking popups to your site, this is also a good one to join, it ads revenue with zero effort from the blogger.

People also recommend using buttons, in my experience text links in content work better.

Make More Money on Affiliate Sales using Affilimate

Affiliate sales are very lucrative for travel bloggers. I’ve made over $1000 in a single affiliate sale several times, so one of the key ways to make money blogging is in really focussing on, and increasing affiliate sales.

Using Affilimate more than doubled my blogging affiliate income in a month or two, the difference was immense. You can get a 14 day free trial of Affilimate right here if you use our link. No credit card is required and in those 14 days you’ll really see how to improve your affiliate sales game. This tool is simply awesome!

I have a lot of different affiliate platforms that I use currently. Affilimate brings them all to one dashboard, I can see at a glance which pages of my websites generate the most sales, which individual links people click, and which pages are giving me the highest RPMs.

I have several pages with RPMs of $200-$700. Compare that with typical advertising RPMs. My Mediavine RPMs are down in the $20 range right now, we blame the recession!

If you’re new, RPM is rate per mile, how much money you make per 1000 visits to that page. It’s similar to Ezoic’s EPMV, but not the same.

Affiliate sales are booming though and Affilimate is showing me where my affiliate sales efforts should go. This tool also gives you heatmaps, and they’re gold. And did I mention it finds broken Amazon links? Sign up for a free trial of Affilimate and see for yourself.

I make a lot more money blogging from affiliate sales than I do from Mediavine ads. The two income streams used to be about equal.

Now my affiliate income is much higher than ad revenue and a lot of that is down to the insights Affilimate gave me.

Making Money Blogging Through Adsense v Mediavine v Ezoic

You will need some way of displaying ads on your site to make an ad revenue income on your blog. Adsense is where most people start off. I still have several sites on Adsense.

Optimising Adsense revenue is quite a skill. Consider your ad placements carefully. I usually put an ad every 3 paragraphs.

Two of my sites are with Ezoic. I’ve read that Ezoic makes more money than Adsense, but so far this hasn’t happened.

Those sites are still pretty much earning the same as they were on Adsense with RPMs actually worse than some of my Google Adsense sites.

That said, it’s early days. I’ll give it a few more weeks.

Both Adsense and Ezoic slow down your site. I don’t see much difference between the two currently but my Ezoic site has far fewer total ads than any of my other sites.

The Mediavine site has the most, but this site is fast. It has passed CWV.

Mediavine now has an incredibly high traffic volume requirement before you can join, it’s 50,000 monthy sessions now I believe. That’s a huge amount of traffic for a new blogger to generate.

In my experience, Mediavine pay the best. This site is still with Mediavine.

As far as my experience goes, the way to make most money blogging is to get your traffic to Mediavine threshold, fast. Other ad networks like Mediavine exist, I haven’t tried them other than Ezoic and Adsense

Knowing SEO and KWR Before You Start is Essential and Things Have Changed

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Keyword Research (KWR) are probably the best ways to get eyes and credit cards onto your website.

Social media and email subscriber lists work too, but your Google search traffic is vital and you’ll only get that with good SEO, good KWR and targeting.

To use SEO effectively you’ll need a good keyword research too, I started with Longtail Pro and loved it, they also provide some good training. Now I’ve switched to the more expensive SEMRush, and likewise, I love it.

Don’t write a post until you understand the purpose of that post in terms of either pleasing and attracting subscribers (getting people reading), giving solid information to build your reputation and authority, making money or attracting people ready to spend.

There is a post on SEO for beginners here .

Recently there has been a huge shift in how Google search results work. Google Rank Brain has blown it all out of the water ( this is the best in-depth post I’ve seen on this).

Don’t focus solely on backlinks, DA and meta descriptions, it’s all about quality content and user satisfaction now. Rank brain has been great for me, it’s more human, write for humans.

Rank brain was quite a few years ago now, there have been dozens of updates from Google since. Always expect change.

A Blog That Makes Money is a Quality Site, Fast and Slick

Your site needs to be fast, mobile-friendly and have great SEO. This tends to come with good hosting , a premium theme, and good (often paid) plugins and tools .

You have to spend a little money to make more money.

If you’re the type to make a business plan as a blogger, you’ll need to factor in these expensive tools.

Don’t worry about looks, just make your site fast, efficient, and clear.

Also be aware of accessibility, you need good contrast of font to background.

People want information and they want to find it quickly and easily.

I would highly recommend investing in good hosting and a good, fast, secure theme like Studiopress and its Genesis framework.

Your theme needs to be mobile responsive and you DO need an SSL certificate.

Google has now introduced Core Web Vitals (CWV). Your site needs to pass certain speed tests, CLS and LCP. This means it has to be fast and give an outstanding user experience.

This site, using Mediavine Ads plus Mediavine’s Trellis theme, plus Agathon hosting has passed.

My Ezoic and Adsense sites have not passed despite the Ezoic site also running Trellis. Maybe it will in future.

Passing CWV did not seem to improve my traffic or rankings. So I don’t worry about it too much at the moment. They’re only failing fractionally, their speed isn’t poor.

If you can’t tick all of these quality and speed boxes you are likely sabotaging your own Google ranking.

Affiliate Income is About Targetted Traffic

How to make money from affiliate schemes?

Targeted traffic.

It’s 99% pointless to put some random affiliate links into posts or into your sidebar. The people reading those posts aren’t looking to buy whatever you want them to buy.

The skill lies in getting the people on the point of purchasing onto your pages. Get them there via Google search (SEO and KWR) or from social media.

Make Money Blogging By Sending Readers to Amazon

Amazon knows how to get people to buy. If you can get your reader to Amazon, you fought half the battle and won.

We have a post on making Amazon sales pages here . Because Amazon drops a cookie, anything your reader buys from Amazon for some time afterwards, will give you commission.

Remember that Amazon needs you to ad legal disclosures with exact wording to your site.

Content and Maximising Adsense Revenue

There is a skill to making as much money as possible from Google Adsense and it involves keeping eyes on pages longer and putting ads where eyes linger.

I had Adsense performing well. I’m with Mediavine now, which gives me an insanely good income, but you can’t join a premium advertising agency like that until you’ve got good traffic.

Beginners have to start with Adsense or similar.

Beginners may only make a dollar a day, maybe less. But that’s better than nothing, right? You can build on that day by day.

Keep people looking at your Adsense ads longer and draw their eyes and their time, to the places the ads are. Pictures, captions, videos, charts, tables, text boxes, anything mixed media that draws attention will keep eyes on the spot.

Work those features. Keep content long to allow more ads to display.

A super handy tip is to increase your font size. The longer the post, the more ads display.

Know that “above the fold” is premium ad space. It’s not rocket science. Aim to get your traffic up above 50K Sessions per month so that you can join Mediavine fast.

It’s an income game changer.

I jumped from around $600 per month to $1500 within weeks of changing.

Of course, keeping eyes on pages longer isn’t just good for your ad revenue, it’s also good for your Google ranking and your user satisfaction.

If your readers are staying on page because of the useful and engaging content you are providing, everyone is happy.

To Make Money Blogging Climb the Google Search Results as Fast as Possible

Grow your DA through legitimate link building, create quality, long, information-packed content, keep your readers on each page as long as possible, keep them on your site as long as possible, get plenty of social shares and get your on-site, technical, and on-page SEO right.

All these things will tell Google that your site is one they should be showing high in their search results.

Also, don’t target keywords you don’t have a chance of ranking for, try to find something a little obscure when you’re just starting out.

It’s usually better to have Google number 1s for low search volume posts than be on page 10 for high volume posts. You’ll soon learn that the correct answer to most blogging and SEO questions is, “It depends.”

This is why we study the data, to test and to find answers.

Remember that your DA is NOT in any way related to how highly Google will rank you, Google does not even consider your DA, so we’ve been told.

DA seemed to be the holy grail of SEO a couple of years ago but Google is way too smart for the fake backlink merchants now.

You can easily beat somebody with a higher DA than you if your content is better. DA is purely a measure of how many backlinks you have, it’s an indicator, but not something to pay too much attention to.

Keep an eye on your rankings in Search Console instead, if you’re climbing, all should be well.

Do not get involved in spammy sharing groups, link farms and link exchanges and assume that will make your site a success. It will come back to bite you, as they say.

Be genuine, be real, don’t try and cheat the system.

Link building is a thing, obviously, a huge industry and it can lift a new site off the ground way faster. People pay a lot of money for backlinks.

What I’m saying is, if your content isn’t good, if people don’t like it, no amount of backlinks will help you stay on top. The Google ranking reflect human reaction to your post.

If your content doesn’t satisfy users, it will never perform well under Google.

Get More Content Out, Faster. Get Help.

I have paid writers in the past to help me increase the volume of content I’m publishing.

The more content you can publish, and the quicker you can get it out, the more traffic you will receive.

The more traffic to your blog, the more money you make.

I have a new secret weapon in speeding up my content creation. AI, artificial intelligence, can now write your blog posts for you.

The technology is simply amazing and I can create maybe 6 posts a day using this tool. There is a free trial, use it well.

Your free trial should allow you to write multiple posts in no time.

Make More Money Blogging by Improving Your Old Content (How?)

Your old posts could be making you more money and helping your site rank more highly.

Go back and fix up each one in terms of usefulness, current information, speed, broken links, alt tags, and every aspect of SEO.

Wherever possible add something to your site to improve its rankings and bring you more traffic. More traffic equates to more money usually. Also add more affiliate links, make that old content work as hard as it possibly can.

Your old content can decrease your site’s overall SERP rankings if it’s bad. Get it fixed, if it’s really bad and beyond redemption, remove it and re-purpose it under a better URL.

You’ll likely need to redirect the old post to the new.

This is a last resort move but some of my old stuff was useless and embarrassing, it had to go.

Don’t worry too much about 404s and sometimes redirect. Another option is to tell Google not to index it.

But how to make money travel blogging? What are these income streams exactly?

More on that in this post on how to start a blog and make money , and this one on affiliate sales . That’s it for now, a quick 10-minute response because somebody asked the question. This is our truth about blogging and no 2 bloggers do it in exactly the same way.

I think the reality of the blogging industry is probably quite surprising to people who read blogs , they often assume it’s all about followers.

How to Become a Travel Blogger

You become a travel blogger by starting a travel blog. Just about anyone can start a travel blog, it’s cheap and fairly easy, no prior skills are really necessary.

Your domain (your travel blog name) should cost you about $10, your hosting, a similar monthly amount at basic level.

It doesn’t cost much to become a travel blogger. You don’t even need to have travelled extensively, you can become a travel blogger by researching travel online and creating content as you would an essay.

You don’t even need your own photos to become a travel blogger, many travel blogs use free or bought stock images. Of course, this isn’t the best way to begin.

The best way is to travel and to have a passion for travel, but if you haven’t even left the country yet, yes, you could start right now.

Read up on some of the basic skills of writing for SEO before you start, that’s the single most important tip for any new travel blogger.

What Skills Are Required To Be a Travel Blogger?

I had none when I started. I’ve learned as I’ve progressed. I’ve never bought a course nor paid for training.

You will need to be able to write in reasonable English (or another language) and be enthusiastic enough to want to learn the skills. You’ll learn to use WordPress or another blogging platform, about SEO, and social media marketing.

You can learn these skills for free on the internet, as I did. You will probably need to take a reasonable photo, you do not need to be a good photographer. I’m not, but if you are, that’s great.

Some bloggers just use stock images and create content about places they’ve never been. You will need to love your travel blog, without love, you likely won’t put the hours in.

What Equipment Do You Need to Be a Travel Blogger?

You will need a laptop and/or a phone plus power and wi-fi. That is all. If you’re serious about making videos and taking photos, start adding microphones, a gimbal, a drone and an underwater camera.

These items are in our Travel Essentials post.

How Much Money Do Travel Bloggers Make?

This varies. New bloggers or non-savvy bloggers make nothing. Travel blogger income rises over time as reach and audience grow.

I’ve made $500+ in a day often, and I’ve made $1000+ some days.

Daily income varies and depends on your skills and the hours you put in, but it is daily, with no stops for weekends or holidays, you earn as you sleep, 24/7.

The top travel bloggers can make in excess of 6 figures per year, over 5 figures per month. I was in that bracket before the pandemic and it will come back. A few make much more.

Some “travel blogs” aren’t owned by individual bloggers, some are run by big businesses with millions invested. These blogs are likely making huge sums but are paying a big team.

Do Travel Bloggers Travel For Free?

Sometimes, yes, travel bloggers can travel for free . If this is your reason for wanting to be a travel blogger, it’s not a good one. “Free” travel actually involves a lot of work.

The blogger will be working for the destination, hotel, or attraction and there will be required deliverables. On this site, we choose not to do “free” travel, or at least do it very rarely. We find it more enjoyable working for ourselves or on passion projects.

Is a Travel Influencer a Travel Blogger?

No, not usually. Influencers and bloggers are not necessarily the same thing, but a blogger can also be an influencer. Being an influencer requires a lot of dedication, as does being a travel blogger.

I know there wouldn’t be enough hours in the day for me to do both well. If a blogger with a successful travel blog also finds success as a vlogger or Instagrammer, I’m impressed. Each of those things can be a full-time job. Bloggers often employ virtual assistants (VAs) or other employees to take on some of these roles.

Recovery From the March 2024 Google Update (HCU)

Most bloggers were decimated by the March 2024 Google Update. This update was a part of the HCU (Helpful Content Update) which destroyed a lot of sites in September 2023. This site (World Travel Family) wasn’t affected in September 2023, but in March 2024 we were smashed. Nobody has recovered from the September update, it was a site-wide destroyer. I’m hopeful that this site is recovering from the March update. As shown in the graph (from SEMRush) above.

If this blog were our only income, we’d be destitute right now. Google removed livelihoods from hundreds of thousands of legitimate publishers, not spam sites, not AI sites, real humans like me who have sunk decades into building passion sites that are helpful to real humans. People thank me all the time for the work I’ve put into this site (and my other sites). All of my sites are completely legit, but Google doesn’t like the little guys making a living, it seems.

The HCU is far from helpful and I’m sure you’re finding the new Google’s results frustrating to use. Just scroll on past the endless Reddit results, the real sites are still there, just pages in.

Most bloggers I know, and their families, have ditched Google for Bing, Duck Duck Go, or any other search engine. I’m enjoying using Bing, it’s good, and they give credit to their sources in their AI results. You’ll notice that their AI results are mostly useless, factually inaccurate garbage, but at least they give credit. Just scroll on past.

This site has recovered somewhat from this update. How have I done that? I fixed a lot of errors and updated a lot of content. I’m the only blogger I know who has recovered some of their traffic. I have another site that is up, significantly, since the update. The graph for that one is below. It’s very similar to this one, it shows display ads. It’s on Ezoic, this site is on Mediavine. Ads do not cause the penalties, that can’t be true.

I know one blogger who wasn’t affected by the latest update, I watch his traffic daily in SEMRush. I have no clue why he wasn’t knocked down by Google. His site and mine are very similar, we’re both legitimate, human “old school” travel bloggers. It seems to be a lot of luck, there’s no reason to it. I’m still working on solid answers.

If you want to follow and find out how much I can recover, sign up for the “bloggers only” email list you’ll see on this page. I’ll keep you posted. Obviously, with something this big, the answers won’t be free. I’m waiting and testing and helping another blogger recover, until I can give solid answers on how to get your traffic back.

If you found this post useful go to our eBooks listings (this page is under maintenance today as we work on this site, but it will be back soon). There you will find a couple of eBooks that could be helpful to you. The Seven Year Ditch explains how we managed to travel for seven years off the back of a travel blog, the other, The New Blogger’s Checklist, could be just the thing you need if you’re a very new to lower intermediate blogger wondering how to kick start your traffic and income.

I’ll add more tips on making money blogging as I think of them this post is genuine and, I hope, helpful.  We used to offer coaching and support in a private, personal group, we may bring that back soon if there is enough interest. There is a formula, blogging – which is actually website creation –  is a science, not an art. I hope I can help you with that. Leave me a comment if you have questions or head back to the World Travel Family home page to check out the sort of content we produce.

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Alyson Long

Ipoh malaysia (is it worth visiting), australian food, 64 thoughts on “how to make money travel blogging (from a travel blogger who does, 2024)”.

“Helpful! This travel blogger talks openly about how much money you can make, different ways to make money, and why being good at what you do and making great stuff is so important. Great advice for new travel bloggers trying to succeed.As someone passionate about starting a business as a travel Blogger Our company – Xeni, provides a platform where Travel influencers travel Agents and Travel bloggers can build their travel brands with custom domain and language options. Also, it allows agents to easily create and sell their customized travel packages for their clients. Hope these insights are helpful to your readers.

Awesome article, really cuts through to the realness. I used this article in conjunction with the book “How to Transcend the Money Matrix” to get my business idea up and running. Check it out if you’re stuck on coming up with an idea and want to do it the spiritual way.

Thanks for the book suggestion. I’ll check it out.

Really enjoyed reading your post, Alyson. Your article offers awesome growth insights. I’m also a travel creator and I love to learn how people are finding ways to make money doing what they love. Keep it up! And in case you’re looking for new tool to monetize content, check out our sellable travel map tool tailored to travel bloggers at NanoWhat.

This is probably the best post I’ve seen on this topic. Thank you for sharing!!

WOW……

I’m only just beginning.

Whilst reading this one post, I have been inspired to open a further 12 pages. I have taken a page of notes to address and I’m excited.

Thankyou, I do enjoy learning new things.

The prospect of monetising my blog has festered into an internal conflict and complete brain meltdown over the past month. Should I leave my little blog alone, to take the next step. I then had a word to myself, and said…

“Self, why are you so worried about this conundrum? You have been looking for an alternative income stream now for a long time. You have wanted to sell your own travel photos on your own blog. So what is the difference between that and having an affiliate stream with advertising?”

After thanking myself for my candour, I started to research (google) around this topic and was lucky enough to find your site/blog/guidebook/bible.

Thankyou again. My future has now begun, today.

I have nothing set up yet, but please have a look at my little site if you are interested.

I did look Les. You have a lot of work to do. But why not monetise? I can’t see any sense in putting time, effort, and your own cash into creating something of value with nothing in return. Not to mention the gazillions we spent on the travel itself to get the knowledge and photos. Plus gear. This site probably costs me several hundred $ (US) per month in running costs. Plus my time for the last 10 years. This site (and several others) have been my full-time job for years. There are almost 1000 pages to this site, some of them would have taken me a week to create. Why not get paid? It keeps a roof over our heads and food on the table. Best of luck to you, it’s a fun and cut-throat word, the blogging industry. But you have to love it.

I really enjoyed this post. Thanks for sharing this information for free and paving the way for newer bloggers such as myself.

My pleasure Nini. Best of luck.

Fantastic read! Thank you so much

You’re welcome

I found this very useful and honest, finally an article that doesnt just share some generalized tips but actual practical advice. Thank you!

My pleasure Lucia, and best of luck. Best tip – don’t buy courses.

Thank you sir for this valuable knowledge.I appreciate it. keep sharing. loved this. to know more about click Best Website Development companies

I really appreciate this article thanks for sharing. very helpful to. keep sharing and to know more click future of blogging

I love this post! You wrote this so honestly and it makes so much sense! I often thought these things in the back of my mind but would get sidetracked by the countless other blogs saying to work hard on your list or social media! Thanks for confirming what I thought should work!

Cheers Rachael and best of luck to you with your blogging income. There’s room for us all.

Thank you so much for all of this information! I am following your list for bloggers to do and I appreciate that very much. I am a single mother of 4 children, so this really helps out a lot not having the money to pay for every little thing that I need to know and do!

No worries Tiffany and the very best of luck to you. Blogging is so wonderfully rewarding, not least financially, if you can get it right. But it can also be incredibly frustrating. I’ve been up, literally, all night, trying to fix something. Stick with it. It’ll be hard with 4 kids. Mine are grown now and my time is my own but when they were small I had to get really creative!

We have always blogged just for fun and we are still using the a free platform but realise we would have to move to paid to give monetising a try. As our kids grow up, I am becoming far more curious about the idea of making money from a blog or writing a book. Love your straight forward approach Alyson 🙂 Hope our paths cross in person one day.

Affiliate marketing hasn’t been a BIG money maker for me. I get a little income from it, but think Amazon doesn’t always pay out. They make way more than we do making the recommendations. Always looking for more ways to bring in an income. Love the idea of understanding the analytics and seo to help boost your search ranking. Tons of good tips here!

Whatever Amazon chooses to pay, we have no control. But we make a very nice living from Amazon affiliates plus a million other travel affiliate programmes. Plus other affiliate links on our non-travel websites. If you get it right it’s pretty easy to earn money from home this way.

I love your contrarian view on blogging! Sometimes when you hear the same advice over and over again, you think it’s true. But in actual fact, there are so many ways to do it and there really isn’t a specific strategy you have to take as long as you understand the mechanics behind growing a blog.

I actually grappled a lot about the “niche” my travel blog should go into for our site and after a while, I realised that our niche is basically.. us – our unique take on things, our travel style and how we travel. So, thank you for expressing your genuine views on it! I think a lot of bloggers and SEO industry experts go with the cookie-cutter advice because they think it’s what people want to hear.

I’m just starting out with my travel blog with my partner and we’re actually still 10 months into our round the world trip but we’re already really excited to be putting out content that’s uniquely interesting to us first before it’s interesting to anyone else. But of course, it needs to be keyword research and people need to be looking for it 😉

I don’t want to pour water on your bonfire Kan, but nobody visits a website from Google because of ” us” it’s all about the information the user is searching for. Best of luck. I’m coming up to 10 years blogging now and it’s been my whole family’s income for several years. It gets harder and harder with every change at Google. A general travel blog is a huge amount of work. I’d strongly recommend going into a commercial niche site instead ( ” best screwdrivers for left-handed mermaids” etc. ) That is if you’re serious about income and not just doing it for the joy of it.

This is wonderful! I have been following countless travel bloggers for years and even bought into the Paradise Pack a few years back to only be disappointed in the majority of the content that I bought into. I love your direct and to-the-point posts on every aspect of making money as a blogger. Thank you! Thank you! I totally agree with wanting to help others by sharing the knowledge I have without having to build a course to sell to them. I do have one question re: how much of a niche the blog should be. We are a family of five who already sold the house back in 2012, traveled in parts of the US in an RV then bought a house again and now travel around half of the year. Since 2015 our travels all revolve around rock climbing destinations. We have always been homeschoolers (12+ years) and so we worldschool at each location as well. Would you recommend that we focus our blog on our travel adventures as a rock climbing family or make it more general since we do other activities like boating, surfing, etc…?

A niche site is something like ” Best toys for brown gerbils”. A general travel site is a nightmare if you want to make money. If I was starting over I’d make a niche travel site on one destination ( and have, it’s in creation). People are not interested in you, your family or your travels ( very few anyway) and your site doesn’t have to be about you. It can be on any topic you can research. But if you’re just doing it for fun, do whatever makes you happy. If you want to cover worldschooling, make a site about worldschooling. But there’s very little traffic in it, I know as I’m Google number 1 for worldschooling. Best of all – start a recipes site or craft – loads of traffic in those!

Hi! This is so useful for new bloggers like me who’s struggling with content, traffic and initial budget. Thank you so much.

Thank you for this content! My husband and I are moving abroad later this year, and while I am getting my TEFL certification to teach English online at first, I am hoping to be able to make income from travel blogging, especially since this would give me more flexibility to travel even more often. You’re right, most sites try to suck you into courses for a couple thousand bucks a piece, and I appreciate that your advice is upfront and your motives are clear. Best of luck to you and your family in the future!

Cool, but I would strongly suggest not building a general travel site. Pick a region, country or destination and just cover one place to death. Way, way easier than doing it my way! Best of luck.

thanks for sharing wonderful info…that is a great way to bring in traffic…..

Thanks for posting this! We are not traveling full time but I am always looking for ideas for things I can do from home to earn a little extra money. There are always some ways to earn money while traveling.

Hey Alyson. Greetings from NZ! After reading dozens of blogging “how to’s” and managing not to get sucked in to doing any courses while also listening to innumerable podcasts, I very much appreciate your straight up advice. Must be the Aussie in you coming out. It seems you have found your true voice. At 56, soon to be 57 years of age I’m keen to put myself out there in a literary sense and with more than a bit of luck, perhaps derive a little income. I see you have spent some serious time in Vietnam, more particularly Hoi Anh which is how I found your blog while researching our trip. I’m going with my wife and teenage daughters and my mother in law. I’m hoping it will be an experience worth writing about but if it isn’t, well I’m going to write about it anyway! It seems I’m running out of space so here is my question. We want to avoid long bus or train trips and instead,enjoy some places in between cities around Hanoi, Hoi Anh, Na Trang, perhaps Sapa and Hue. Can you suggest anywhere not thick with tourists that may be worth visiting and maybe writing about? At this stage no one will be reading anything I’ve written so there will be no danger of the hoards descending on a small town due to my blog! Alrighty then, thankyou again for your sage advice and your research. So very much appreciated and all for free!

We were there just 3 weeks ago … Phong Nha. I’m yet to write it up but it was wonderful. If you go from Hue, by bus it’s I think 4 hours, Otr you can head there via Khe San and the DMZ and do them en route. We only had 3 days there, loved it. Will be back soon. But it’s inland, near Laos, not on the coast. Hue was great too had a week there, did loads of cool stuff. I’ll write it up soon but right now we’re battling the monster Google updates of November 8th and 9th and also Oct 24th and September. 2 of our sites are smashed. This one is OK thankfully. Working round the clock to find a fix. And thanks, best of luck. I’m not Australian, I’m British

Love this article. Every other article I’ve read has gone on about building an email list so this is like a breathe of fresh air! Can’t wait to read more on your blog. Your writing is clear and to the point and I think I can learn a lot from it. Thank you for providing so much information for free!

You’re very welcome mags. Best of luck.

Hi Alyson As someone who hopes to travel with family, i’m naturally interested in earning some cash along the way. I think I could learn all this stuff, with time and effort, but I’m a little concerned about basically making money through advertising products or services which I don not support from an ethical point of view. Do you have any control at all over what is advertised on your pages? thanks

You mean the Mediavine Ads? Everyone will see something different, they’re selected for each person based on their browsing history, so I have no clue what people are seeing. If you feel strongly about a particular company you can block them. But to get onto Mediavine you need over, I think 30,000 unique users per month, so it will take you a good few years to get on there probably. And no, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Of course you can try and make it without adverts and just go for gold on affiliate sales instead, in which case you’d be going for lower volume, more targetted traffic, people on the point of buying, in which case your traffic volume would be too low to make decent money through advertising, also the on-page ads detract from sales, you notice I don’t run them on sales pages quite often. I find making sales pages really boring so I mostly go for traffic volume instead. At current traffic volume, roughly 10,000 page views per day, those ads make me roughly $200 a day. Rising as traffic rises and depending on how long people stay on page, ie. do they read or skim. If you’re just going travelling for a year – forget it. Blogging is a long term game, plus the volume of in-depth knowledge you need takes years to acquire but people do, of course, write posts about places they’ve never been. There are a few on this site, not many because I’m a one man band. But most huge sites ( and we are very big) have a team of writers pumping out content. I had writers for a while but I just couldn’t keep up with that volume of publishing and Pinterest work. I need a team, but I don’t want to have to manage a team, so we’re semi crippled by just how many hours I have in a working day.

Hi, I read your article very informative and inspirational, creating a second income online as a newbie is daunting to say the least but haven’t said that I found an 8 figure super affiliate offering free training in the affiliate marketing niche you can read all about it in my blog .

That’s just a pyramid scheme Des.

Very nicely written. Jumping to your SEO for beginner post

Thanks! Glad to be useful

Hello Love the inspirational list! Envious of these bloggers. Would love to start my own soon, I am going to take a look at these one by one. Hoping for some great content. Thanks for compiling your list I really love the way you approach this topic, especially because your blog is not about how people can make money from a blog, but your article is still very instructive for anybody who is trying to make a living from a blog.

Thanks for sharing your experience! Really great.

Love the inspirational list! Envious of these bloggers. Would love to start my own soon! I am going to take a look at these one by one. Hoping for some great content. Thanks for compiling your list How do you suggest getting better at SEO and keyword research to attract and please readers and subscribers?

Great read, thank you. Really helpful and practical advice.

Thanks for giving this wonderful information you explained clearly how to start making money from blog. I hope I will get also Adsense approval on my travel blog . Thank you!

Hey fellas!.

Great piece of work I must say. . . Undoubtedly we all need to get some break from work to go for traveling !!! Especially with family….. Scientists have proved that few days break from work actually spans life…Atleast for our family’s sake we can search for Best Flights and hotels 🙂

Thank you for this post. True to your SEO ninja-ness, this was one of the first posts I found when I searched how to make money as a travel blogger. I’m just now coming to terms with my high levels of wanderlust. I want to travel, but I’m also not wealthy. Nice to know it is possible.

I actually don’t SEO ninja any of the travel blogging related stuff. I just create this stuff for the people I help, they ask questions, I answer those Qs. So good it’s rising natuarally, glad you found it. Best of luck with it Tracy. We were also not wealthy. We fixed it.

Brilliant post, thank you for all the useful info. I know it will be difficult for you to answer this but I’d like to get opinion on a plan I have for my travel blog. Writing indepth post on cities (Asian cities to start), best streetfood and the vendors, markets, parks, unknown sights and activities, best waterfalls on specific islands, and every post will accompanied with awesome 4k videos. If I work really really really hard at it, could that be a recipe for success?

Sure. But where will these 4K videos be? As you can see the videos on our site are super compressed. File size / site speed means everything has to be reduced.

Hi, the article was straight to the point with no intentions to please the viewer… I loved it… I have just started with my travel blog… and I need an review or a feedback for the same before I post more content. It would be great if you could just take a look at my website and give a small feedback,.. Thank you. All the best.

Sorry, I just don’t have the time Vish. If you understand SEO and write for SEO, all will be fine.

This is an awesome post, especially for newbie bloggers like me!

Can you please share 1 tip for local travel/ expat bloggers?

Local, travel, expat, it makes no difference really, the basic principals are the same. I’m an expat, so I touch on that sometimes. We do local travel in that we were based in London, Romania, Queensland. Making stuff all gel together can be hard sometimes but the bigger your site becomes the easier it gets. Get your tags and categories sensibly organised is a very big tip. At one point I had over 800 tags, stupid ones, I’m slowly getting them structured properly, I’m down to 300 now and my tag and category pages are ranking and getting traffic. Don’t go above a manageable number! I’m aiming for 20 max.

As always, you wear the crown for queen of the bloggers. This post is so,so helpful and you are a star for offering your endless support to all those interested in listening. Well done you x

Thanks for this article. It is a great summary of where to focus my energy in order to monetise.. It is easy to get disheartened by the number of travel blogs out there. I’m off to re-write some old content!

Excellent article!

I really love the way you approach this topic, especially because your blog is not about how people can make money from a blog, but your article is still very instructive for anybody who is trying to make a living from a blog.

Thanks for sharing your experience!

Thank you! So many posts exist out there “claiming” to offer insight into this topic but they end up just trying to sell you something.

I really appreciate your time and effort in this post as well as your whole site. Well done and keep inspiring!

re: “trying to sell you something” – if someone has put a massive amount of time, energy/effort, and money into acquiring knowledge and skill, why should they not be paid for teaching others those skills? Why does anyone expect to be taught for free without giving anything of value (i.e. money) to the teacher in return?

Because some of us, like me, are happy to help and point people in the right direction. This way people keep their money in their pockets and can learn anything they like for free. That is empowerment. That is smashing the system that keeps people down. It’s doing away with the idea that knowledge is poured into empty heads by a ” teacher”. It’s showing people that anything is possible. Most course sellers sell courses to line their pockets. Setting prices relative to what they want to earn, not what they are offerring. If they need to sell courses they generally aren’t making enough money at what they claim to be good at, so… why teach people to do that thing that doesn’t make them enough money? Human beings do not need a teacher, anyone can learn what they want from the internet or books . Some, still, feel they do need to part with cash to ever be good enough, or educated enough. It’s a shame, but they do. Unfortunately the people buying courses are often those least able to afford it and sadly, simultaneousy, those least likely to follow through with what they learn and therefore waste their money while making somebody else richer. I know you didn’t ask me. I don’t even know what Denea said, but that, to me, is what’s wrong with it. A lot is wrong with it. It’s corrupt.

Thanks for this blog! I’m really excited about starting a blog with my husband to try to travel more as a family.. Do you have any Pinterest tips? I’ve heard that’s a great way to bring in traffic. Have you ever worked with or know someone who has used AdThrive?

Yes there is a Pinterest post in the blogging section. I used to be a Pinterest ninja, up to 1000 clicks per day from there, but now I get almost nothing maybe 200 clicks per day. Pinterest has just totally stopped working for me as it used to. There is also a post on that in this section. But that said, it’s still my biggest source of social media traffic. I’m with Mediavine and I’m very happy with that, I think Adthrive is similar, don’t know if one or the other is definitively better or if they have different traffic thresholds before you can join.

Great post! How do you suggest getting better at SEO and keyword research to attract and please readers and subscribers?

You have the whole internet at your fingertips, everything you need to know is available for free online. Just start reading and study your stats, Google Analytics and Google Search Console will give you so much information if you use to read your own data and find the search terms that are actually working for you. Or you could ask me 😉

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Is travel insurance worth it?

April 30, 2024 | 2 min read

Planning a trip and wondering if you need a travel insurance policy? Keep reading to learn more about travel insurance to decide whether it’s right for you.

Key takeaways

• Travel insurance can provide financial protection if things go wrong before or during a trip.
• You might get travel insurance to cover potential losses from trip cancellations or delays, lost baggage or medical issues.
• Factoring in details specific to your trip and balancing with existing coverage might help you decide whether travel insurance is right for you.

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What does travel insurance do?

Travel insurance is a type of specialized protection that might help protect against financial losses from airline delays, medical issues or other unexpected occurrences. Some travel insurance plans focus on specific things, like lost baggage or health care. Others offer a wide range of benefits under a single plan. It’s a good idea to make sure you understand the terms and conditions, because coverage varies.

When might travel insurance be beneficial?

Some of the situations where it can help to have travel insurance include:

Interruptions and cancellations

Trip delay insurance covers food and lodging expenses if you experience an airline delay. Trip cancellation insurance can reimburse your prepaid costs if an illness forces you to cancel entirely.

Baggage issues

Baggage loss coverage can reimburse you if your luggage is lost, stolen, damaged or delayed.

Medical emergencies

Travel health or medical insurance can cover everything from medication to emergency medical evacuation if you become sick or injured when traveling abroad .

When might travel insurance be unnecessary?

There’s no right or wrong time for travel insurance. It depends on your circumstances. But when deciding whether travel insurance is worth it, you can consider things like:

• Type and length of trip: If the trip’s refundable, you might not need extra protection. And a short or cheap trip might not be worth the cost of coverage.
• Your existing coverage: Check existing policies and agreements. If you have coverage through your health insurance provider, credit card issuer or card network, you may not need more.

Considering travel insurance in a nutshell

Travel insurance can offer peace of mind if anything goes wrong before or during a trip. But it may not always be worth it. If you’re considering travel insurance coverage, looking at your situation, your trip and the terms and conditions of your existing insurance policies could help you determine whether the benefits outweigh the costs.

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How to Make Money Travel Blogging: 10 Ways I Monetized My Passion

By Will Hatton

Today, many folks dream of hitting the road and traveling the world while working remotely on their own business, as their own boss. It’s a path that has been heavily romanticized, and for good reason. To live life on your terms, choosing where you live and work from, is a truly liberating experience. But to get to this promised land is a challenge, and most folks who try to build an online business are ultimately not successful.

I'm the founder of The Broke Backpacker , one of the world’s largest travel blogs, and I'm a serial entrepreneur with over a dozen different online ventures under my belt. I started my own journey fifteen years ago while backpacking the world on a budget of just $10 a day, and since then I have learned a TON about what does and what doesn’t work when trying to build an online income.

How I became a travel blogger

Embarking on my own journey as a broke backpacker, I was hungry for both adventure and great stories. I found I had a passion for writing in-depth reports of what it was truly like to be living in a tent, hitchhiking, couch surfing, and basically living like a hippy around the world. I was passionate about the potential for personal development through challenging travel that threw me out of my comfort zone and I used this passion to build up my travel blog and to launch some other projects along the way.

Simply being on the road as a young and naive teenager without two cents to rub together presented me with numerous challenges. I took a good number of risks and made pivotal decisions that transformed this passion project of mine into a sustainable source of income. From refining my niche to leveraging productivity systems, each decision was a stepping stone toward building a sustainable and successful business.

I am sharing some of the key decisions that propelled my humble travel blog for budget backpackers into a profitable business with an audience of over 1 million users a month. So, fasten your seatbelts and join me as we explore the pivotal moments that transformed my budget travel blog into one of the internet’s best-known travel sites.

10 strategies I used to build my travel blog into a business

1. investing in a catchy domain name.

It may sound simple, but let's be honest—picking the right brand name is a pivotal decision for any business. The Broke Backpacker is a memorable name that immediately tells the audience what the site is about. It also has a personal element to it.

This not only helped me establish a strong brand identity but also attracted the right audience from the get-go: people who wanted to go backpacking, but were pretty broke.

Back in the day, 10 years ago when I first started this blog, there was hardly any content online about traveling on an extreme budget. Indeed, most travel blogs talked about traveling on a budget of $50 a day (so $1500 a month) after flights. This was way more money than I ever had access to and I’m glad, as it pushed me down a different path. Ultimately, I saw a sizable gap in the market.

By aligning my domain name with my niche, I positioned myself early on as a trusted resource in the budget travel space, drawing in readers who resonated with my content and message.

2. Embarking on crazy adventures

One of the game-changing decisions I made was to embark on extraordinary adventures that captured the attention of both readers and the media.

I explored and covered off-the-beaten-path destinations like Venezuela when not many were doing it—especially with the same level of detailed, raw coverage that I brought to the game. Some of my photos in Venezuela went viral and this was a crucial moment for me.

By undertaking epic journeys like embarking on an attempt to travel from the UK to Papua New Guinea overland, I managed to attract the attention of powerful media like the BBC and The Daily Mail , scoring the first powerful backlinks that helped ramp up The Broke Backpacker’ s value in Google’s eyes and helped me build some more monthly traffic.

I also documented my adventures on Snapchat, taking my audience with me as I hitchhiked across Iran, hiked deep into the Pakistani Himalayas, and drove a rickshaw all around India. I was raw and real in my videos, often enjoying a cheeky smoke on camera and always trying to tell it how it is.

The exposure and credibility gained through these adventures propelled my blog's visibility and opened doors to new opportunities.

3. Launching expeditions to Pakistan

Photo courtesy: Will Hatton

In 2015, I visited Pakistan for the first time. I was broke (big time) and I covered everything on my Snapchat. I was the first blogger to do this, and the first in Pakistan for a LONG time. My audience was stoked to see this misunderstood part of the world.

I went back there a second time in 2016. I turned to my audience on Snapchat and asked if folks would be interested in seeing this amazing country with me as their guide.

I put up a PayPal link to secure deposits and overnight it sold out. I suddenly had $6000 (12 x $500 deposits) in the bank, which I immediately spent on trying to grow The Broke Backpacker, reasoning that I had six months before I led the first tour and therefore time to make it back.

It was a pretty big risk but…I made it work.

4. Being authentic

Authenticity pays off, and it has been a cornerstone of my success.

I made the conscious decision to openly talk about topics that are often considered taboo, such as drug use and things that real people do in the real world. I felt like travel blogs often hid such things, and I made an effort to always be transparent.

By sharing authentic stories and vulnerabilities, I created a deeper connection with my audience. People related to the raw and unfiltered nature of my content, and this genuine approach built up a lot of trust and loyalty among my readership.

Being authentic and true to my personality allowed me to build a strong community of people who appreciated my transparency and valued the realness I brought to the table.

5. Going ALL in

I think perhaps what separates successful entrepreneurs from those who dream of working for themselves but struggle to make it work is their refusal to give up and their ability to fully commit to a project.

I spent two years in Chiang Mai working 60 to 70 hours a week. During that time, I had to put my travel goals and dreams on hold and focus solely on working tirelessly. It's ironic that in order to be successful in running a travel blog, I had to temporarily step away from the road and dedicate more time to writing posts, designing strategies, organizing standard operating procedures (SOPs), cultivating relationships, and hiring writers. There was so much involved in that stage, and I made numerous sacrifices.

I vividly remember feeling incredibly anxious and worried, often struggling financially to the point where I couldn't afford to eat or do much else. I had traded the freedom, joy, and personal development of being on the road for a desk, where I became my own boss and worked relentlessly. I faced significant internal struggles with self-belief and self-talk, constantly questioning whether all the hard work would pay off.

Throughout it all, I managed to hold on to the belief that it had to work because I had reached a point where I had no other options. I had borrowed money that I could only repay if I succeeded. The pressure on me was immense, but ultimately, it galvanized me to do whatever was necessary to achieve my goals.

6. Building an awesome team and knowing when to outsource

The Broke Backpacker is huge. It has about one million monthly visitors and 3,000 unique posts. Building a team to help me organize and think of projects and bounce ideas around has been crucial to my success.

Every cent I earned along the way, I invested in hiring and expanding my team. Now, I am proud to have an incredible team of broke backpacker adventurer folks—and let me tell you, they do a stellar job at keeping the show running.

Knowing when to outsource tasks allowed me to focus on my strengths and allocate resources effectively. By assembling a team of expert vagabonds, I enhanced the quality of my content, expanded my reach, and freed up valuable time to explore new opportunities.

With them, I’ve managed to build systems that work, develop a ton of standard operating procedures for new hires and projects, and all of that combined has been the foundational force behind the scalability and success of my blog.

Recognize the power of collaboration and the value of expertise. Hire good people, focus on honesty, work ethic, and creative flair over experience. Trust your gut, not everybody can be trusted.

7. Leveraging the power of existing traffic

Over the years, I realized my blog was bringing in considerable traffic to our affiliate partners in the gear space, so I decided to capitalize on that.

I ventured into the world of dropshipping and started designing my own lines of backpacker essentials like hammocks and quick-dry towels under the brand name Active Roots.

This strategic move not only allowed me to diversify my revenue streams but also solidified my brand presence in the travel industry. It was successful for a while until Covid started and made it impossible to sustain, as shipping costs increased by 400%. Sadly, I had to throw in the towel on that business.

But now that the storm has passed, I’m already working on an upgraded version of that business that is aligned with the evolving demands of my audience, including a new line of Broke Backpacker Basics.

8. Going physical

The online world can be very fun, and I’ve dabbled in a lot of interesting business models and creative ways of building an income. Driven by my passion for online entrepreneurship, I recently ventured into creating a physical business that catered to my audience’s evolving needs.

I am passionate about the power of online entrepreneurship to change lives and raise people out of poverty. For a long time, I had dreamed of opening a business that would act as a beacon, a hub, and a muster point for aspiring entrepreneurs and digital nomads to find their tribe, as well as sleep, eat, work, and play.

In 2022, after a few challenging years, we finally managed to open Tribal, Bali’s first custom-built co-working hostel. I’m thrilled to say that we’ve been getting great feedback, and we’re usually full.

This project allowed me to merge my love for travel, community building, and entrepreneurship. Tribal Bali became a hub for like-minded individuals, fostering collaboration and connection among digital nomads, as well as overall just being a kickass place for my nomad folks to get some work done.

9. Being disciplined

Being disciplined is a crucial skill for entrepreneurs and digital nomads to develop. Personally, I found that cultivating discipline was essential in building and managing a successful travel blog.

To achieve this, I focused on staying organized using tools like Google Calendar and Trello. I set clear goals for myself and identified the habits I needed to cultivate in order to reach those goals. I have whiteboards placed throughout my house, displaying various goals, affirmations, and reminders to keep me on track. Each evening, I review my habits and tick off the ones I successfully accomplished during the day.

I also employ a two-phone system to avoid getting too engrossed in my phone and ensure a proper winding down before sleep. The second phone is dedicated to music, audiobooks, and podcasts, devoid of any social media or communication apps. Ultimately, the key is to minimize distractions, maintain focus, and establish goals for each part of the day. I've spent the past 10 years cultivating these practices.

I've also developed a strategy to ensure that every aspect of my blog receives the attention it deserves. I break down all the necessary tasks over a three-month period and chip away at them on a weekly basis, even the ones I may not particularly enjoy. Honesty and self-awareness are important in recognizing both successes and failures.

It can be tempting to spend time on your online businesses’ social media, or endlessly designing a logo, but at the end of the day, there are essential tasks that only you can accomplish—the "big business domino" that needs to be toppled every day.

Cultivating discipline enables you to get things done, especially when faced with challenges. It helps you focus and avoid unnecessary distractions. This skill is paramount for any aspiring entrepreneur.

10. Being patient

During Covid, the site's monthly user count plummeted from 1.5 million to a mere 200,000. Travel-related search traffic took a massive hit as well. Even when looking at it from a percentage standpoint, the revenue generated from the remaining traffic wasn't as expected. While some people continued to search for travel-related terms, bookings for hostels and purchases of gear were virtually non-existent.

The entire world was in a state of anxiety and uncertainty.

In such circumstances, there was no choice but to double down and fully commit. We utilized that time to rebuild the site, making it faster, leaner, sexier, and smoother. Previously, it had become a Frankenstein-like creation, initially designed by me and later worked on by various developers who never communicated with each other.

Over a six-month period, we rebuilt it from the ground up. We also expanded our team of writers, focused on revamping different content series, and updated older posts. Fortunately, our efforts paid off, but it was undeniably a nerve-wracking experience to double down when everything seemed to be falling apart.

I firmly believe that if you aspire to succeed and create something remarkable, you have to go ALL in.

FAQs about creating a travel blog

How can i monetize my travel blog.

Display ads are a good way to start generating income, though they might deter some readers. My suggestion is to start by joining affiliate programs for brands you love and find ways to plug them as hard (and as softly) as you can.

Is travel blogger a good career?

Starting a travel blog can be an extremely rewarding career, though you really have to be passionate, patient, and persistent. With the right mindset, ahead of you await plenty of travel, income, and creative expression opportunities.

What should I include in my travel blog?

Start by asking yourself what is your speciality or travel superpower. Finding the right niche is more effective than going broad. Perhaps you know a specific destination/region better than anyone, or a style of travel. Start there, study the competition, and create something better.

About the Author

Post by: Will Hatton

Will Hatton is the man behind The Broke Backpacker travel blog. For many years, he journeyed to far-flung lands all over the world on just $10 per day. Today, his site is the ultimate resource for aspiring adventurers looking to ditch their desks and hit the road in search of raw, real, and meaningful adventures.

Company: The Broke Backpacker

Website: www.thebrokebackpacker.com

Connect with me on LinkedIn and Instagram .

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Biden-Harris Administration Announces Final Rule Requiring Automatic Refunds of Airline Tickets and Ancillary Service Fees

Rule makes it easy to get money back for cancelled or significantly changed flights, significantly delayed checked bags, and additional services not provided  

WASHINGTON – The Biden-Harris Administration today announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued a final rule that requires airlines to promptly provide passengers with automatic cash refunds when owed. The new rule makes it easy for passengers to obtain refunds when airlines cancel or significantly change their flights, significantly delay their checked bags, or fail to provide the extra services they purchased.

“Passengers deserve to get their money back when an airline owes them - without headaches or haggling,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg . “Our new rule sets a new standard to require airlines to promptly provide cash refunds to their passengers.”  

The final rule creates certainty for consumers by defining the specific circumstances in which airlines must provide refunds. Prior to this rule, airlines were permitted to set their own standards for what kind of flight changes warranted a refund. As a result, refund policies differed from airline to airline, which made it difficult for passengers to know or assert their refund rights. DOT also received complaints of some airlines revising and applying less consumer-friendly refund policies during spikes in flight cancellations and changes. 

Under the rule, passengers are entitled to a refund for:

• Canceled or significantly changed flights: Passengers will be entitled to a refund if their flight is canceled or significantly changed, and they do not accept alternative transportation or travel credits offered. For the first time, the rule defines “significant change.” Significant changes to a flight include departure or arrival times that are more than 3 hours domestically and 6 hours internationally; departures or arrivals from a different airport; increases in the number of connections; instances where passengers are downgraded to a lower class of service; or connections at different airports or flights on different planes that are less accessible or accommodating to a person with a disability.  
• Significantly delayed baggage return: Passengers who file a mishandled baggage report will be entitled to a refund of their checked bag fee if it is not delivered within 12 hours of their domestic flight arriving at the gate, or 15-30 hours of their international flight arriving at the gate, depending on the length of the flight.  
• Extra services not provided: Passengers will be entitled to a refund for the fee they paid for an extra service — such as Wi-Fi, seat selection, or inflight entertainment — if an airline fails to provide this service.

DOT’s final rule also makes it simple and straightforward for passengers to receive the money they are owed. Without this rule, consumers have to navigate a patchwork of cumbersome processes to request and receive a refund — searching through airline websites to figure out how make the request, filling out extra “digital paperwork,” or at times waiting for hours on the phone. In addition, passengers would receive a travel credit or voucher by default from some airlines instead of getting their money back, so they could not use their refund to rebook on another airline when their flight was changed or cancelled without navigating a cumbersome request process.  

The final rule improves the passenger experience by requiring refunds to be:

• Automatic: Airlines must automatically issue refunds without passengers having to explicitly request them or jump through hoops.   
• Prompt: Airlines and ticket agents must issue refunds within seven business days of refunds becoming due for credit card purchases and 20 calendar days for other payment methods.  
• Cash or original form of payment: Airlines and ticket agents must provide refunds in cash or whatever original payment method the individual used to make the purchase, such as credit card or airline miles. Airlines may not substitute vouchers, travel credits, or other forms of compensation unless the passenger affirmatively chooses to accept alternative compensation.    
• Full amount: Airlines and ticket agents must provide full refunds of the ticket purchase price, minus the value of any portion of transportation already used. The refunds must include all government-imposed taxes and fees and airline-imposed fees, regardless of whether the taxes or fees are refundable to airlines.

The final rule also requires airlines to provide prompt notifications to consumers affected by a cancelled or significantly changed flight of their right to a refund of the ticket and extra service fees, as well as any related policies.

In addition, in instances where consumers are restricted by a government or advised by a medical professional not to travel to, from, or within the United States due to a serious communicable disease, the final rule requires that airlines must provide travel credits or vouchers. Consumers may be required to provide documentary evidence to support their request. Travel vouchers or credits provided by airlines must be transferrable and valid for at least five years from the date of issuance.

The Department received a significant number of complaints against airlines and ticket agents for refusing to provide a refund or for delaying processing of refunds during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. At the height of the pandemic in 2020, refund complaints peaked at 87 percent of all air travel service complaints received by DOT. Refund problems continue to make up a substantial share of the complaints that DOT receives.

DOT’s Historic Record of Consumer Protection Under the Biden-Harris Administration

Under the Biden-Harris Administration and Secretary Buttigieg, DOT has advanced the largest expansion of airline passenger rights, issued the biggest fines against airlines for failing consumers, and returned more money to passengers in refunds and reimbursements than ever before in the Department’s history.

• Thanks to pressure from Secretary Buttigieg and DOT’s flightrights.gov dashboard, all 10 major U.S. airlines guarantee free rebooking and meals, and nine guarantee hotel accommodations when an airline issue causes a significant delay or cancellation. These are new commitments the airlines added to their customer service plans that DOT can legally ensure they adhere to and are displayed on flightrights.gov .  
• Since President Biden took office, DOT has helped return more than $3 billion in refunds and reimbursements owed to airline passengers – including over $600 million to passengers affected by the Southwest Airlines holiday meltdown in 2022.   
• Under Secretary Buttigieg, DOT has issued over $164 million in penalties against airlines for consumer protection violations. Between 1996 and 2020, DOT collectively issued less than $71 million in penalties against airlines for consumer protection violations.  
• DOT recently launched a new partnership with a bipartisan group of state attorneys general to fast-track the review of consumer complaints, hold airlines accountable, and protect the rights of the traveling public.  
• In 2023, the flight cancellation rate in the U.S. was a record low at under 1.2% — the lowest rate of flight cancellations in over 10 years despite a record amount of air travel.  
• DOT is undertaking its first ever industry-wide review of airline privacy practices and its first review of airline loyalty programs.

In addition to finalizing the rules to require automatic refunds and protect against surprise fees, DOT is also pursuing rulemakings that would:

• Propose to ban family seating junk fees and guarantee that parents can sit with their children for no extra charge when they fly. Before President Biden and Secretary Buttigieg pressed airlines last year, no airline committed to guaranteeing fee-free family seating. Now, four airlines guarantee fee-free family seating, and the Department is working on its family seating junk fee ban proposal.  
• Propose to make passenger compensation and amenities mandatory so that travelers are taken care of when airlines cause flight delays or cancellations.   
• Expand the rights for passengers who use wheelchairs and ensure that they can travel safely and with dignity . The comment period on this proposed rule closes on May 13, 2024.

The final rule on refunds can be found at https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/latest-news and at regulations.gov , docket number DOT-OST-2022-0089. There are different implementation periods in this final rule ranging from six months for airlines to provide automatic refunds when owed to 12 months for airlines to provide transferable travel vouchers or credits when consumers are unable to travel for reasons related to a serious communicable disease. 

Information about airline passenger rights, as well as DOT’s rules, guidance and orders, can be found at   https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer .

Money latest: JD Sports introducing tagging sprays in stores

JD Sports is introducing tagging sprays across its stores nationwide as part of a ramping up of security measures. Read this and all the latest consumer and personal finance news below, plus leave a comment in the box.

Tuesday 30 April 2024 16:18, UK

• State pensions 'could be in doubt for future generations'
• Average UK rents hit new high
• Higher food prices warning as new Brexit checks begin
• JD Sports introducing tagging sprays in stores

Essential reads

• Turns out supermarket boss was right about self-checkouts
• Swap rates are the reason mortgage rates are rising - what are they?
• Gameboys and 1950s furniture: Items in your attic that could be worth small fortune
• Money Problem : 'Builders won't repair dodgy work - what are my rights?'  
• '£2,000 landed in my account' - The people who say they're manifesting riches
• Train strikes in May - everything you need to know

Ask a question or make a comment

The sports retailer is introducing tagging sprays across its stores nationwide as part of a ramping up of security measures. 

It will start using SelectaDNA sprays, which can be misted on property and criminals. 

The sprays work by leaving a synthetic DNA and UV marker which does not wash off and can be used to link assets to owners and criminals to crime scenes. 

JD Sports said the measure was in response to a significant increase in shoplifting in UK.

In particular, it said it had seen a rise in "steaming" - where large gangs run into stores, threaten staff with violence and then run off with armfuls of stolen products.

The SelectaDNA spray reportedly does not cause any harm or damage to skin, clothing or property.

Lidl plans to open hundreds more supermarkets across Britain.

The German discount chain, which is now the UK's sixth biggest supermarket, is targeting thousands of new shoppers as it continues its expansion.

It currently has about 960 stores but is targeting more than 1,100 across England, Wales and Scotland.

In the coming months, the chain will welcome shoppers to new stores across the country, from Bristol, Birmingham and Berwick in Scotland. 

In London, it will be opening new stores in Wandsworth, Fulham, Hoxton and Canning Town.

But it says it is eyeing growth in more locations. If it successfully finds a good location, it is willing to pay a finder's fee of 1.5% of the total freehold purchase price, or 10% of the first year's rent for leaseholds, which would equate to £22,500 for a completed £1.5m site purchase.

A finder's fee can be paid to any member of the public who identifies a suitable site for it to open a new store.

Richard Taylor, Lidl Great Britain's chief development officer, said the company was "continuing to invest in new locations whilst exploring innovative routes to expansion".

"As we look ahead, we're excited to welcome even more new shoppers to our existing stores, as well as those we're planning to open across the country in the coming months and years," he said.

Mortgage approvals rose to 61,300 in March - the highest number since September 2022.

They had been at 60,500 in February, according to the Bank of England.

While this is positive, industry experts are reporting that uncertainty over the direction of interest rates this year is prompting caution.

Mortgage rates have risen in the last few weeks as markets went from pricing in a base rate cut in June to thinking it may be August.

US inflation proving stubborn has led to concern here that the path to the 2% target may be bumpy - meaning the base rate may have to stay high in order to constrain spending and thus ease price rises.

Forecasts of three cuts this year from the current 5.25% have been scaled back to two.

Hina Bhudia, partner at Knight Frank Finance, said: "The sun is out and buyers are returning from their Easter break, so we'd usually expect these to be the busy weeks before the summer; however, the uncertain outlook for mortgage rates will undoubtedly weigh on activity.

"It's not just buyers that are frustrated. The lenders are eager to rebuild their businesses after a subdued 2023; however, they are constrained by stubborn inflation and the resulting impact on their cost of funding."

Following Sainsbury's boss Simon Roberts' claim that Britons like self-checkouts...

...we asked Money blog readers, and followers of our LinkedIn page , for their views.

While our inbox was filled with a lot of hate for self-checkouts, our poll of 2,613 people on LinkedIn shows that, overall, Mr Roberts was right...

We have rounded up some of your views here...

Self-checkout is the worst thing to ever happen. Standing like a child with your hand up, one person running up and down to deal with this, underpaid and understaffed. Janice Karaaziz, Money reader

I'll go out of my way to find a cashier, largely because my five-year-old will make a beeline for pressing the scales. I've noticed my local store having fewer and fewer cashiers on - and on many occasions there have been none. We need to think about inclusivity here. There will be some customers who will need a cashier for various reasons, so would expect there to always be at least one on, so stores are accessible for everyone. KaraS, LinkedIn

I try and limit my social interactions as much as possible, out of choice, so most of the time self-checkouts are convenient. Alasdair Corton, LinkedIn

They induce a level of irritation. Sometimes I can be heard answering them back. In general I choose to have my items flung at me by Lidl checkout staff. Siobhan W, LinkedIn

Self-checkout provides a great alternative to customers, especially those with smaller quantity purchases, but personally I think it's sad to see them dominate the front of Sainsbury's stores. In my opinion, it's the removal of one of the greatest ways to provide good customer service. Tom Tregay, LinkedIn

Self-checkouts are great, I will always choose to use one instead of a normal checkout. Some are easier to use than others, the Co-op and Tesco have easy-to-use interfaces whereas Morrisons is a bit more complicated. They'll evolve over time and there's always staff to help out. CG, LinkedIn

They're useful, but when they trigger a "basket check" on nearly every single shop, they begin to lose attractiveness Nicola Bradley, LinkedIn

I tend to argue with them lol. Especially when I can't get it to scan a particular item or you need approval for something so you have to wait for assistance anyway! Plus as a disabled customer I have to juggle my crutch, shopping, scanning and packing. With reduced staff in shops you can't always get the help you actually need. Elizabeth Graney, LinkedIn

Definitely not. So when I go to Sainsbury's I see a lot of older people and no way do they want to use self-checkouts. My mother lives in assisted living and all of them say they hate them. Get a grip, Simon - they are not faster, they are saving you employing more staff. I know my aunt has stood at an Asda til they put a staff member on there. Andrea Robinson, LinkedIn

Robots should never replace humans. Interaction is essential... if machines replace people no one will work, it's a crazy dangerous road. Nicola van Eerten, LinkedIn

The self-checkout is a money-saving exercise. They cut back everywhere. No staff on the shop floor to help. Paper bags in the veg section now cost 30p - for absolutely no reason. Mark, Money reader

Average advertised rents have hit a new high in the UK, according to Rightmove .

Across Britain, excluding London, the average monthly rent being asked for a property coming on the market in the first quarter of 2024 was £1,291, the property website found. This was 8.5% higher than a year earlier.

The average advertised rent in London also hit a fresh high in the first quarter of 2024 at £2,633 per month but this was just £2 higher than the average asking rent in the fourth quarter of 2023.

While average rents have climbed, the property website says there are signs that the pace of the increases is slowing.

There are also indications that more landlords are having to reduce their asking rents, particularly for bigger homes, to meet what tenants can afford.

Rightmove's director of property science, Tim Bannister, said the rental market was "no longer at peak boiling point" but it "remains at a very hot simmer".

By James Sillars , business reporter

The index rose by 0.3% to 8,174 points at the open.

Only real estate stocks were proving any kind of drag.

Among the companies leading the gainers was HSBC.

It climbed by more than 2.6% in London after the Asia-focused bank announced a rise in shareholder awards despite a slight drop in quarterly profits.

The share price reaction also reflected news that chief executive Noel Quinn is to retire - read the full story of that here ...

Among the other gainers in early dealing was Whitbread.

The Premier Inn owner's annual results revealed a sharp rise in annual profits but also a new focus on hotel investment at the expense of its restaurant brands.

That was placing 1,500 jobs at risk, it warned - read the full story here ...

By Jess Sharp , Money team

We first came across Tom McPhail when he posted this on X... 

The pensions expert appeared to be suggesting state pensions were at risk of disappearing.  

After speaking to him on the phone, he confirmed that was exactly his concern, warning something needed to be done sooner rather than later to avoid a "catastrophic" situation.  

He described state pensions as a social contract – each generation pays taxes and national insurance, which funds the pensions of today's older people, and they hope the following generation will do the same for them.

But with population growth slowing, there's a worry there may simply not be enough people to keep the system afloat in the future.  

"There's a significant demographic shift going on in the UK. It started before the Second World War, cohorts of people born in the 1930s have been experiencing significantly longer lives than was the case prior to that, so people now in their 80s are living quite a lot longer," he said. 

"But at the same time, we've got fewer children coming through. And so this exacerbates the shift in the age of the population."

He said if he was 20 today, he would be "sceptical" about the promise of a state pension because he isn't sure how it's going to be paid for.  

At the moment, the state pension system costs around £120bn a year and more than half of retired people rely on it to make up at least 50% of their income, he added.  

Over the next 50 years, Tom predicts the proportion of GDP the state spends on older people will increase from around 16% to 25%.  

"I hesitate to use the word unsustainable, but it will certainly start to look challenging," he said.  

"If we suddenly switched off the state pension or significantly reduced it, people would be in trouble, so the government can’t do that. 

"You can't keep on progressively ratcheting up a more and more generous state pension. The costs of state pensions is going to become increasingly difficult for the younger cohorts to bear."

He pointed to a few ways to potentially salvage the state pension – policy change, more babies being born or people working until they are in their 70s.  

"Politicians are going to have to make decisions about how to get out of this kind of political bind," Tom added. 

"Time and time again it's just kick the can down the road on the pension question, just put a sticking plaster on it and let the next government deal with the problem. 

"You can't keep doing that. So I would really like to see, on the other side of this forthcoming general election... whoever's in power, in collaboration with whoever's in opposition, to just really open it up to some honest conversations about where the demographics are going to take us." 

He does note there is one piece of good news: "This happens quite slowly, so we do have time on our side." 

Basically, swap rates dictate the pricing of fixed-rate mortgages.

Lenders, such as banks and building societies, borrow in order to lend.

They borrow from financial markets and often these transactions are made using Sterling Overnight Index Average (SONIA) swap rates, which can move around.

By contrast, most domestic mortgages are set on what is known as a "term" rate – in other words, the borrower knows how much interest they will be paying for a set period of time.

To avoid a situation where the SONIA rate goes above the rate it is charging borrowers, which would leave the bank or building society lending at a loss, the lender will seek to enter a "swap" arrangement which protects them from such a situation.

Under such agreements, two parties exchange cash flows with each other. The lending bank will swap the variable payments it may make to service a mortgage (which is fixed to the SONIA rate) for payments at a fixed rate. This insulates the lending bank from unexpected increases in the SONIA rate.

Once a deal is struck based on the swap rate, mortgage providers set their fixed deals for customers, with their own profit margin priced in.

How are swap rates decided?

Swap rates are based on what the markets think will happen to interest rates in the future.

When they go up, so do the rates being offered on the high street, as we have seen in the last week or two amid uncertainty over whether forecasts for a summer base rate cut are accurate.

Read other entries in our Basically... series:

Train drivers will stage a fresh wave of strikes and overtime bans in May, causing disruption to the rail network.

The strikes are part of a long-running dispute over pay.

Members of Aslef union at 16 rail companies will walk out on different days from 7 to 9 May. Additionally, all members will refuse to work any overtime from 6 May to 11 May.

Here is a full list of the services affected by strikes and when.

Rail strike dates

Tuesday 7 May

Strikes will affect c2c, Greater Anglia, GTR Great Northern Thameslink, Southeastern, Southern, Gatwick Express and South Western Railway.

Wednesday 8 May

Strikes will affect Avanti West Coast, Chiltern Railways, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, Great Western Railway and West Midlands Trains.

Thursday 9 May

Strikes will affect LNER, Northern Trains and TransPennine Express.

Overtime ban dates

From Monday 6 May to Saturday 11 May union members will not work overtime.

Overtime bans, an action short of a strike, means some services may not be running or may be reduced as drivers refuse to work their rest days.

People are advised to check before they travel, as some areas may have no service.

How do strikes and overtime bans affect services?

Strikes tend to mean services on lines where members are participating are extremely affected or cancelled entirely, whereas overtime bans often lead to reduced services.

How can I stay in the loop?

You can use the National Rail's  journey planner  to see when trains are running.

Be sure to check it close to when you plan to travel, as it will be updated regularly.

Why are the strikes still happening?

Aslef rejected a two-year offer of 4% in 2022 and another 4% this year, saying this was way below inflation, and was linked to changes in terms and conditions.

Aslef says train drivers have not had an increase in salary for five years, since their last pay deals expired in 2019.

Royal Mail is temporarily waiving a £5 charge for unsuspecting members of the public who receive post sent with a fake stamp.

The company said it was developing a new scanner in its app which will let customers scan stamp barcodes and check whether they are recognised counterfeits.

While this takes place, the £5 charge for people who receive the post will be paused, Royal Mail said.

It added that it would work to ensure the sender of items posted with counterfeit stamps are charged instead of the recipient where possible.

Royal Mail chief commercial officer Nick Landon said new security measures alongside its barcoded stamps have "led to a 90% reduction" in counterfeits.

"We want our customers to buy stamps with confidence and always recommend that customers only purchase stamps from post offices and other reputable high street retailers," he said.

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Trump's hush money trial

Day 8 of Trump New York hush money trial

By CNN's Kara Scannell, Lauren Del Valle and Jeremy Herb in the courthouse

Key takeaways from Donald Trump's hush money trial on Friday

Jurors will now have a three-day weekend to think about what they heard during the first full week of testimony in the historic  Donald Trump hush money trial .

David Pecker finally stepped down from the witness stand after more than 10 hours of testimony across four days, where the former American Media Inc. chief described in detail how he helped Donald Trump suppress negative stories and pummel Trump’s rivals in the National Enquirer during the 2016 campaign.

On Friday afternoon, prosecutors called Rhona Graff, who was Trump’s assistant at the Trump Organization, where she worked for more than 30 years. She was quickly off the stand, and a banker for Cohen came next – signaling a move in the trial toward the documents at the heart of the charges against Trump.

Here are the key takeaways from Friday:

• Jury sees paper trail: The hush money case against Trump weaves a colorful narrative, but Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records — so prosecutors have warned this will in many ways be a  routine, document-heavy trial . Friday afternoon prosecutors called a banker from First Republic Bank as their third witness where jurors saw the paper trail for a shell company and corresponding bank account Michael Cohen created in Delaware that was meant to be used to pay AMI for the rights to Karen McDougal’s story.
• Trump lawyer tries to puncture Pecker’s credibility: Prosecutors elicited testimony from the AMI chief about how Pecker’s 2015 deal with Trump was unique, helping him be the “eyes and ears” of the campaign. But in Pecker’s final day on the stand, Trump’s attorneys sought to undercut his testimony with a series of alleged inconsistencies, poking holes in discrepancies from prior interviews with federal and state prosecutors and disputing his testimony that AMI admitted it violated campaign finance law.
• Prosecutors try to re-establish Pecker’s credibility: Prosecutors responded during redirect to reestablish Pecker’s credibility in his answers, showing how his story was consistent and that AMI did admit to campaign finance violations. The points were small in the grand scheme of Pecker’s testimony related to the case, but the fight was really about Pecker’s credibility as a witness. That’s key to the prosecution’s case because he helps tie together the larger hush money scheme – and will be a corroborator of Cohen’s testimony.
• Trump cracks a smile for his longtime assistant: Trump’s longtime assistant Rhona Graff testified for less than an hour. Graff managed Trump’s contacts and calendar for much of her 34 years as his assistant at Trump Tower. Graff’s testimony about her former boss prompted a smile from an otherwise subdued Trump on Friday.
• Defense tries to humanize Trump: Pecker was a longtime friend of Trump dating back to the 1980s, the former AMI chief said on the stand. As his ending question, Bove asked Pecker if he believed Trump cares about his family. He replied, “Of course I do.” Graff no longer works for Trump but she spoke positively about her experience at the Trump Organization and having Trump as a boss. Other coming witnesses, like Cohen and Daniels, will have a far more hostile view of the defendant in this case.

Trump's hush money criminal trial has been on since 2 weeks. Recap what's happened so far

From CNN staff

The second week of court proceedings in Donald Trump's historic hush money criminal trial has wrapped.

To refresh your memory, here are the key moments and witnesses from the trial so far:

April 15: Trial began with jury selection

April 19: A panel of 12 jurors and six alternates was selected.

April 22: Prosecution and defense made their opening statements. Former tabloid boss David Pecker was called to testify.

April 23: Judge Juan Merchan held a Sandoval hearing for Trump's alleged gag order violations, but reserved his decision.

April 25: While Trump sat in the Manhattan courtroom, the Supreme Court heard arguments on the matter of his immunity in special counsel Jack Smith's election subversion case against him.

April 26: Pecker's direct questioning and cross-examination concluded. Trump's former longtime assistant Rhona Graff was called to testify briefly. Finally, Michael Cohen's former banker Gary Farro testified.

See courtroom sketches from Trump's trial

No cameras are allowed inside the Manhattan courtroom where Donald Trump’s hush money is underway, but sketch artists are capturing the scenes.

Trump's hush money trial has wrapped up for the week. Here's what happened on Friday

The jury in Donald Trump's hush money trial heard from two new witnesses on Friday after former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker finished his testimony.

Trump’s defense team tried to poke holes in Pecker’s story, pointing out discrepancies and trying to undermine his credibility. Pecker had testified during direct questioning from the prosecution about how he helped broker a deal with Stormy Daniels and arranged to “catch and kill” a story about an alleged affair between Trump and Karen McDougal.

Prosecutors also had the chance to revisit various lines of questions in their redirect before calling Rhona Graff , Trump’s former long-term assistant, to the stand. After that, prosecutors called finance executive Gary Farro .

Farro will continue his testimony on Tuesday. Court is not in session on Monday.

Here’s what happened in court today:

David Pecker

• Trump Tower meeting: Pecker told Trump attorney Emil Bove that the concept of “catch and kill” was not discussed at an August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower . According to Pecker’s previous testimony, that’s when he agreed to be the “eyes and ears” for the Trump campaign and flag negative stories to Michael Cohen. 
• Redirect: Pecker said after the 2015 meeting, he and Cohen had an understanding that Pecker was going to use his resources at the Enquirer to flag potentially negative stories to Cohen. He testified that before the 2015 meeting, he did not previously have deals to share positive stories about candidates or agree to run stories attacking Trump’s opponents.
• Stories about Trump’s opponents: During cross-examination, Bove confirmed with Pecker that the Enquirer often recycled content from other outlets about Trump’s opponents. The outlet did that without notifying Trump, Pecker said, and confirmed the stories were based on information that was not exclusive to the Enquirer because it was not cost-efficient.
• McDougal agreement: Pecker agreed that McDougal, who said she had an affair with Trump, was not focused on the payment part of the agreement. Pecker confirmed McDougal wanted to relaunch her career and there were other provisions in the deal . He previously testified that the other elements were intended to “hide” the actual intention of the payment.
• Redirect: The prosecution revisited this point and had Pecker re-confirm that the purpose of the contract with McDougal was to suppress a potentially damaging story about Trump and influence the 2016 election.
• Legal concerns: Pecker said he told Cohen that the agreement with McDougal was legally sound . He said he reviewed the agreement with a campaign attorney and his company’s general counsel.
• Redirect: Pecker said he never spoke directly with the campaign lawyer and he did not tell the AMI general counsel about the arrangement that was struck with Trump during the August 2015 Trump Tower meeting. The prosecution is trying to infer that the lawyers who reviewed the contract did not have the full underlying context of Pecker’s agreement with Trump.
• Stormy Daniels: The former tabloid boss confirmed to the defense that he wanted nothing to do with Daniel’s story and told Cohen that his company AMI would not buy it.
• Redirect: Pecker reiterated that he called Cohen with then-editor-in-chief Dylan Howard encouraging him to buy Daniels’ story .
• FBI interview discrepancy: Pecker testified this week that Trump thanked him for handling stories about McDougal and Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin during a January 2017 meeting at Trump Tower. But the defense pointed out that "Trump did not express any gratitude to Pecker and AMI" during his 2018 FBI interview .
• Redirect: Steinglass read notes from an FBI meeting one week after the meeting highlighted by Bove that confirmed that Pecker told the FBI that Trump thanked him. 

Rhona Graff

• Answering questions from prosecutor Susan Hoffinger, Graff said she worked for Trump for 34 years at the Trump Organization. She was largely in control of his calendar and in charge of maintaining Trump's contacts.
• She recalled seeing Daniels in the reception area at Trump Tower before Trump ran for president. She later testified to the defense that she assumed Daniels’ visits were to discuss being cast for "The Apprentice." In addition to Daniels, Graff testified she also kept contact information for McDougal .
• During cross-examination, attorney Susan Necheles asked Graff about what it was like working with Trump. She described it as a very “stimulating, exciting, fascinating place to be” and said Trump was a “respectful boss.”
• Farro was previously a senior managing director at First Republic Bank where he worked with Cohen . He said Cohen coordinated with him to set up an account for Resolutions Consultants LLC for the payment to McDougal that never happened. Jurors saw emails between Farro and Cohen.
• Farro testified that his understanding was that Cohen was opening the account for “real estate.” In the paperwork , Cohen described the entity's function to be "management consulting (including HR & marketing).”
• Farro said the Resolution Consultants LLC account was never opened because no deposit was made. Nearly two weeks later, Farro said Cohen told him he wanted to open a new account instead.
• The new account, Essential Consultants LLC , was used to pay Daniels $130,000. On the paperwork, Cohen said this account was for a real estate consulting company.

Gag order: Judge Juan Merchan said there will be a hearing on Thursday morning to discuss possible violations of the gag order against Trump.

Trump hush money criminal trial may see “quite a few somewhat dull witnesses,” expert says

From CNN’s Aditi Sangal

Donald Trump’s hush money criminal trial will see “quite a few somewhat dull witnesses,” said former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori.

The case is less about the salacious details of Trump's alleged affair with Stormy Daniels — that he denies — and more about the allegations that he covered it up to influence the 2016 presidential election, he points.

“The crime actually has to do with all of this somewhat banal record-keeping stuff. This is a case where I think we’re going to actually see quite a few somewhat dull witnesses producing things like documents, ledgers, invoices, things that just have to come into evidence to complete this case,” he told CNN.

Meanwhile, prosecution and defense also have to be mindful of the approaching weekend.

As a prosecutor, “you like the idea of leaving [the jurors] with something solid, unchallenged, good at the end of the week,” said Trump’s former attorney Jim Trusty.

“They’re basically introducing some paperwork for the jury to look at at 4:30 before they go home, and go, oh there were checks, or there were meetings, or there were contacts.”

It’s also smart for the defense “to keep it dull, to basically not spend any time cross-examining people where you have no real reason to gain anything because they’re not establishing criminality or they’re not establishing controversial points,” he added.

Leaving court, Trump says he'll debate Biden

From CNN's Kaanita Iyer

After exiting the courtroom Friday, former President Donald Trump once again said he would debate President Joe Biden.

"I've invited Biden to debate. He can do it any time he wants, including tonight. I'm ready — here we are. ... I'm here, ready willing and able," Trump said.

Earlier Friday, Biden said in an interview with radio host Howard Stern that he'd be happy to debate Trump .

Judge Merchan says he's calling it a week

Mangold says she's at a natural stopping point and Judge Merchan says, we will "call it a week."

He is now giving the jury instructions.

Trump hit his attorney Todd Blanche on the arm and leaned over to tell him something.

Merchan reminds jurors court is dark on Monday and we are back 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

Merchan says, "Have a good weekend, take care."

Farro says Cohen "changed course" once before opening LLC that he used to make Stormy Daniels payment

Farro says the bank "did all of our work to establish" Cohen's original account, but it was never funded.

"A deposit was never made in the account, so the account never went live," Farro says.

Thirteen days later, on October 26, 2016, Farro received another email from his assistant to return Michael Cohen's call, according to the court exhibit.

"He stated he was changing course and no longer wanted to open Resolution Consultants, and wanted to open a new account," Farro says.

"Every time Michael Cohen spoke to me he gave a sense of urgency and this was one of those times."

The new LLC was Essential Consultants LLC, Farro says.

This is the LLC that Cohen used to pay Stormy Daniels the $130,000 payment.

On the form the bank prepared for Cohen to open the account, it stated under "business narrative" that Cohen was opening the account for a real estate consulting company to collect fees for consulting work on real estate deals.

Cohen again checked "No" on a form that asked if the entity is "associated with political fundraising/Political Action Committee (PAC)."

Cohen checked "No" on a form asking if his entity was associated with political fundraising

Cohen checked "No" on a form that asked if the entity, Resolution Consultants LLC, which was created by him as a Delaware entity, is "associated with political fundraising/Political Action Committee (PAC)."

Farro testified several times that his understanding was that Cohen was opening the account for "real estate."

Per the paperwork, Cohen described the entity's function to be "management consulting (including HR & marketing)."

Cohen was the only authorized signatory for the account.

Farro says that the bank "did all of our work to establish" Cohen's account, but it was never funded.

"A deposit was never made in the account so the account never went live," Farro says, confirming the account was not opened.

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There Is No TikTok in China, but There Is Douyin. Here’s What It Is.

ByteDance owns both TikTok and Douyin, and although TikTok has more users around the world, Douyin is the company’s cash cow and a China mainstay.

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By Claire Fu and Daisuke Wakabayashi

Reporting from Seoul

In China, there is no TikTok. There is only Douyin.

After President Biden signed a bill on Wednesday forcing Chinese company ByteDance to sell its ownership of TikTok, the United States moved one step closer to an internet without the short video app. The legislation opened the door to a possible ban of the social media platform if TikTok fails to find a U.S. government-approved buyer within a year.

Douyin is also owned by ByteDance . It is a staple of the Chinese internet the way TikTok is in the rest of the world. But because it has no presence outside China, Douyin, which means a “shaking sound” in Chinese, is not as well known globally.

But Douyin is critical to ByteDance’s finances. Its continued success will be a significant factor in how the parent company assesses what it plans to do with TikTok. Will ByteDance succumb to political demands from Washington, or will it refuse to sell TikTok and face the consequences?

Here is an overview of Douyin.

What is Douyin?

Douyin is the most popular short-video app in China, and it is one of the most visited social media platforms in the country. As on TikTok, the videos on Douyin appear in a vertical format and users swipe up to get to the next offering. There are other similarities to TikTok. The Douyin algorithm learns your interests from how you interact with the videos you are shown and feeds you an endless stream of content.

Douyin debuted in September 2016 in China, a year before ByteDance introduced TikTok for overseas markets. Initially, Douyin focused on China’s big cities where young smartphone users were early adopters of new social media. Douyin reached more than 700 million active monthly users in May, meaning it was being used by a majority of China’s internet users, according to QuestMobile, a Chinese data firm.

TikTok has more users on its platform, but Douyin is ByteDance’s cash cow. Roughly 80 percent of ByteDance’s $54 billion revenue in the first half of last year came from China, derived mainly from Douyin, according to The Information , a technology news site. The remaining 20 percent came from overseas markets mainly through TikTok.

How does Douyin make money?

Douyin is a thriving business in China. The biggest chunk of its profit comes from distributing online advertising alongside its library of video content. The research firm eMarketer estimated that Douyin took in $21 billion in advertising revenue in 2023, or about two-thirds of Alphabet’s ad revenue from YouTube.

But it might have even more potential. In China, almost all social media apps have shopping components, and Douyin is no exception. Douyin has opened its own online shopping mall inside the app where vendors sell clothes, electronics, groceries, brand-name goods and discount products. Every transaction generates a commission or service fee for Douyin.

One popular form of commerce is live video streams by influencers who peddle items to audiences — imagine Home Shopping Network meets a daily video blog. The transaction value of shopping conducted through livestreams on Douyin exceeded $200 billion in 2022, according to Statista, a data and business intelligence company in Germany.

E-commerce in China is growing fast, too. Douyin is already the country’s fourth-largest online retailer behind Alibaba, JD.com and Pinduoduo , and it is growing much faster than those more established companies, according to eMarketer. Douyin’s online commerce sales grew an estimated 60 percent in 2023, eMarketer said.

To try to cash in on its traffic, Douyin announced an app called Douyin Mall last month for Android users in mainland China. The app is not in Apple’s App Store.

How is Douyin different from TikTok?

TikTok is available in more than 150 countries and regions in 75 languages, while Douyin can be used only in China. The two apps have many similar features, but they remain separate services. TikTok users can search for accounts all over the world, but they cannot gain access to Douyin accounts in China — and vice versa.

TikTok’s audience tends to be young, but Douyin has a much older user base in China. In fact, it is the most widely used and preferred app among Chinese people over 50 years old, according to a report released by QuestMobile, a research firm. Douyin introduced measures to prevent addiction for seniors, including voice reminders or forced interruptions to people who have been watching for too long.

Douyin has become a crucial platform for the Chinese authorities to disseminate information and propaganda. In 2018 , Douyin teamed up with 11 government departments and media organizations to help improve content production to make their videos more effective at carrying their messages.

A senior official in The PLA Daily, the newspaper of China’s military, once wrote in an essay that there was an urgent need for military media to join Douyin because the platform had become “a new space and a new position for ideological competition between us and the enemies.”

Like other social media services in China, Douyin follows the censorship rules of the Chinese Communist Party. It conscientiously removes video pertaining to topics deemed sensitive or inflammatory by the party, although it has proved a little harder than text-based social media to control.

Among the things that have been restricted or removed so far this year are accounts of economists who spoke negatively about China’s economy , as well as short dramas about the conflicts between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. The latter seemed to portray interfamily relations in a dramatically negative way.

Claire Fu covers China with a focus on business and social issues in the country. She is based in Seoul. More about Claire Fu

Daisuke Wakabayashi is an Asia business correspondent for The Times based in Seoul, covering economic, corporate and geopolitical stories from the region. More about Daisuke Wakabayashi