How to Start a Travel Blog and Make Money

One question I get most is how I make money and travel with my dog, Gatsby. Basically, how to start a travel blog and make money. It took a while to build a foundation of different income streams that allowed me to be a “stay-at-home dog mom” and have the freedom to do what I am doing today. 

In this blog post, I’m sharing various ways to make money with your blog so you can travel and do the things you love by leveraging the power of today’s digital world, where we can work from anywhere.

Just know that these are not get-rich-quick schemes. Your success is not guaranteed unless you do the work, commit, and dedicate yourself to learning new skills to achieve results. But once you plant these seeds of opportunity, watch them grow, and you’ll be glad you started.

Why Start a Blog in 2024? Isn’t blogging dead?

Those are the two questions I often get in my DMs and from friends who want to start a blog but wonder if it’s worth it. First, there is no better time to start a travel blog or any blog than now. We are well into the digital era! Your blog is essential to showcase your personal brand and a way for you to make money online. It’s where you should invest your time instead of Instagram because, like I said, YOU CAN MAKE MONEY, but at your own pace. 

On Instagram, while you can make money from sponsored posts, you need to be seriously pumping out content consistently daily to stay relevant. Is it sustainable? And, if you’re a travel blogger, you must always be chasing the next best hotel, destination, place to eat, and the next best thing. It’s a cycle that doesn’t end and leaves you feeling burnt out. 

In a nutshell, here’s why you should focus on your blog instead of Instagram

1. More Detailed Stories: A blog lets you write longer, more detailed stories about your travels, unlike Instagram where you’re limited to short captions.
2. You’re in Charge: With a blog, you have full control over your content and platform, unlike Instagram where changes in rules and algorithms can affect your reach.
3. More People Can Find You: Blogs can be optimized for search engines, helping more people discover your content beyond just your Instagram followers.
4. Make More Money: Who doesn’t want more money?! While Instagram lets you earn money through sponsored posts, a blog opens up more ways to make money like ads, partnerships, and selling digital products. 
5. Show Your Style: Blogs let you create your own style and brand, so you can stand out more than Instagram, where everyone’s content looks similar because everyone uses the same audio and trends.

How to Start a Travel Blog

1. Define Your Niche and Audience

Before diving into the world of travel blogging, take some time to define your niche and target audience. Consider what sets your travel experiences apart and who you want to connect with through your blog. Whether you’re into budget travel, luxury vacations, dog-friendly travel, solo adventures, or family trips, identifying your niche will help you create content that resonates with your audience.

2. Choose a Platform to Host Your Blog

Next, choose a blogging platform to host your travel blog. Consider factors like ease of use, design flexibility, and scalability when selecting the platform that best suits your needs. I recommend Bluehost. 

3. Select a Memorable Domain Name

Your domain name is your blog’s online address, so choose a memorable and relevant name that reflects your travel niche and brand identity. Aim for a name that is easy to spell, pronounce, and remember, and check its availability to ensure it’s not already in use by another website. For me, I have decided to use my full name.

4. Choose a Theme for Your Blog

There are many themes to choose from, but I will always recommend Empress Themes. Created by a blogger for bloggers, each theme is gorgeous and extremely popular amongst fashion and travel bloggers. Plus, each theme is designed to help you make money as a blogger through plugins like Shop The Post where you can share widgets from Like To Know It (LTK).

5. Create Compelling Content

Content is king in the world of blogging, so focus on creating high-quality and engaging content that captivates your audience. Share your travel stories, tips, experiences, and recommendations through well-written blog posts and captivating images. Consider incorporating a mix of evergreen content, destination guides, travel hacks and outfits, and personal travel stories to keep your audience engaged and coming back for more.

6. Promote Your Blog

Once your travel blog is live, it’s time to promote it and attract visitors. Utilize social media platforms like Pinterest to share your blog posts. Pinterest is the platform to help you get page views! After implementing a few strategies, my blog hit a massive milestone in 2023, which meant more earnings! Optimize your blog for search engines with keywords to increase visibility and drive traffic to your site.

7. Stay Consistent and Authentic

Consistency is key to building a successful travel blog, so commit to regularly updating your blog with fresh and engaging content. Stay true to your authentic voice and passion for travel, and prioritize building genuine connections with your audience. Respond to comments, engage with your readers, and adapt your content strategy based on audience feedback and insights.

How to Make Money As a Travel Blogger

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a way to make money on your blog by recommending products or services you love to people who already want to buy them. You, as the affiliate, will receive a commission for each sale or action generated through their unique tracking links. 

Amazon’s affiliate program and LTK (Reward Style, Like to Know It) are a few. For example, if I recommend a pair of my favorite boots from Amazon or a unique link generated from LTK, and my reader goes and buys it, I would get a commission. These commissions can be small, but they add up when you get many views and conversions.

High Ticket Affiliate Marketing

My commissions from recommending products on Amazon and LTK are only a small fraction of my income, about $2k-3k a month. That’s why I focus on high-ticket affiliate marketing, and my biggest affiliate commissions come from recommending high-ticket items.

This means promoting expensive products or services. Instead of promoting less expensive items, like a $35 sweater, high ticket affiliate marketing involves promoting more expensive things, such as a $600 course, a $1000 piece of technology and app, or luxury vacation packages, all that can earn you a range from $150 to $2,500 each commission.

You must be wondering how I’m getting traffic to my site. My main traffic drivers are SEO on Google (Search Engine Optimization) and Pinterest.

You can get my free beginner’s guide if you want a deeper dive in affiliate marketing.

Brand Sponsored Collaborations

Creating my lifestyle and travel blog has opened up so many opportunities for me. You see, I was able to generate sales through my affiliate links, and that is when I got on the brand’s radar. One thing led to another, and a few brands approached me and asked if I wanted to partner up with content creation.

My blog is like a portfolio from the eyes of a brand. I was able to secure brand partnerships even with a small social media following because they know what I can create, whether it’s my photography or my ability to tell a story. Coupled with skills in digital marketing, all this is demonstrated on my blog, and it has resulted in collaborations with some of the best 5-star hotel brands.

Content Creation

Who doesn’t need content these days? Content is king. A few brands I initially collaborated with later contacted me and asked if I was interested in creating content for them and in an User Generated Content (UGC) opportunity.

Types of content creation can be providing high-resolution images on brand products and lifestyle shots or short-form videos. For UGC content, brands will pay you to create a video so they can use it for social media ads, and you won’t even have to post it on your social media page. 

Brands will pay big bucks for it because it is still far less expensive to pay a creator than to hire people and have a whole production. 

Ads

Display ads are another way to make money on your blog as a travel blogger. You basically get paid based on the page views and clicks you receive. As a new blogger, you can get started with Google Adsense (an ad network), and then once you have acquired 50k sessions in 30 days, you can apply for other ad networks like Mediavine or AdThrive, which will pay you ALOT more money.

Sell Digital Products

Selling digital products on your blogging website is a great way to make money because they’re easy to create and don’t involve shipping. These products, like eBooks, Lightroom Presets, digital planners, or online courses, can be downloaded instantly, reaching a global audience. 

They offer high-profit margins since they don’t need physical materials and can be sold repeatedly at prices you set. This flexibility allows you to work from anywhere and automate sales, making it a scalable way to earn money online and travel, with many creative options to explore. 

Overall, digital products offer convenience, global reach, and the potential for good profits without the hassle of handling physical items.

For example, maybe you’re a wellness expert and want to create a 10-week pilates course. Your blog can be a great way to build an audience and then you can later offer your course to help your audience.

The possibilities are really endless. 

For me, my digital product is my e-guide: “The Insider’s Guide to Landing Hotel Collaborations,” where I share how to get started. It’s geared for someone with a small social following but wants to know the ins and outs of getting into the hotel partnerships space.

Courses I Took That Helped Me Turn Blogging and Content Creation into a Profitable Journey

A quick story before I share the courses: a friend wanted to get into social media and blogging. So I told her to take some courses. She responded, “I don’t want to pay. I want to learn for free.” She sounded ridiculous! One, because why should anyone teach you anything for free? The person teaching the course has gone through all the trials and found a way to succeed. The fastest way to achieve something is to learn from someone who is already successful. Two, she wasn’t willing to invest in herself. 

My response to my dear friend:

“Invest in as much of yourself as you can, you are your own biggest asset by far.”

Warren Buffet

These are the courses that turned my blogging and content creation into a profitable journey:

Blogger Bootcamp By Christina Galbato

When it comes to travel blogging, the Blogger Bootcamp is your go-to. I resonated with Christina a lot because she also quit her 9-5 corporate job to take a leap of faith in doing something that she loved. This comprehensive course will help any beginner start a blog by establishing your brand, technical setups, content strategy, and strategies to grow an email list and monetize your blog.

Perfecting Blogging Bundle by Sophia Lee

Another comprehensive course to take, Sophia Lee shares her strategies on making 4 figure months when she was just in college! The Perfecting Blogging course is very straightforward and offers a fast track to starting your blog. She’ll teach you how to write blog posts correctly that get clicks, and she literally goes through her posts and shows you examples. You’ll learn SEO, content strategies, content calendar creation, and tools she uses to place display ads, make graphics, etc. 

I purchased the Perfecting Blogging, Pinterest, and Email bundle, and let me tell you….if you follow her steps and techniques, the results will be astonishing. I found her Pinterest course extremely helpful as I went from 800 to 200K+ monthly views in just a few months. 

Affiliate Marketing Blueprint by Dave Sharpe

Now, when it comes to high-ticket affiliate marketing, I don’t think anyone does it better than the OG Dave Sharpe. From a high school dropout to now an 8-figure earner and digital marketing guru, he seriously knows how to build and scale an online business. I took his Affiliate Marketing Blueprint course, which has helped me generate thousands. It was one of the best investments I ever made. 

This blueprint has everything you need to know about picking products that make money, getting people to visit your site, and joining top affiliate programs to make your affiliate marketing business successful.

This blueprint covers everything from making your first sale to learning all the ins and outs of affiliate marketing. And, Dave’s copywriting skills have me blown away!

Dave also gives you practical advice and techniques to get started with affiliate marketing fast, even if you don’t have a blog set up yet.

Want to learn more about affiliate marketing? Get my free beginner’s ebook to affiliate marketing to see if it’s right for you..

Ready to Launch Your Travel Blog and Make Money?

Starting a blog or an online business and choosing a life of travel takes a lot of work, but it’s not impossible. With a blog, you can move at your own pace. Unlike Instagram where you feel like there’s a need to always chase after the next best thing and once you stop creating content everyday, you become irrelevant.

At the beginning of a blogger’s or content creator’s journey, you are basically the SEO expert, writer, researcher, analyst, photographer, videographer, email marketer, social media manager, brand manager, etc. You get it: all the roles that run a marketing agency. 

Anyway, I just wanted to keep it real and didn’t want to give you the impression that you’ll make six figures once you launch your blog. You will get there, but it takes time. 

Believe in yourself. Invest in yourself. Take courses, and continue learning. It’s the only way to succeed in doing anything in life. 

Wishing you much success!

This post may contain affiliate links, meaning when you click the links and make a purchase, we receive a commission. Thank you for your support of this blog.

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