Travel bloggers are all the rage nowadays. The first thought that comes to our minds when we hear the words travel bloggers are people who are living the dream, traveling the world, all while getting paid to do so. But often, that leaves us wondering how do travel bloggers get paid and how they are able to afford their luxurious lifestyle.
But the truth is that not all that you see in pictures and videos is a dream reality. Travel bloggers have to deal with a plethora of other problems, especially at the beginning of their blogging journey, to get that perfect social media post and start getting paid.
Contrary to what you might think, not all trips that travel bloggers make around the world are paid for. Not all trips are sponsored by a tourist agency or a hotel. In fact, for most trips, they have to pay out of their own pocket. Even in paid trips, oftentimes, the food and photoshoots are not covered and are an expense that the travel blogger has to take on themselves.
So, then you may be wondering how do travel bloggers get paid to be able to afford their lifestyle?
The truth is that a travel blog is not an easy way to make money. It takes a lot of hard work and perseverance to start earning money with travel blogging. It requires a fair bit of hard work and dedication to reach a level where you can comfortably earn a full-time income from your travel blogging.
There is a whole lot more to travel blogging than enjoying trips in different countries, paid by others. There is a lot of struggle that takes place behind the scenes that leads to that outcome.
The good news is that if you put in the hard work, you can definitely get a handle on things and everything starts to get better. But keep in mind that your travel blog is not going to be your sole source of a steady income. You would need to earn money through other sources and opportunities to be able to afford your expenses wherever you go.
In this article, we will discuss what those ways are and much more.
Let’s get started!
Is Travel Blogging Even a Viable Career to Consider?
Absolutely!
The internet has provided us with opportunities we could not even imagine before. One of those opportunities is the ability to earn from the comfort of our homes or to earn while we are on the move.
You can definitely make money off of a travel blog and turn it into a viable career option for yourself. There are many people who follow their passion for travel blogging and earn a comfortable living from it.
The best way to earn money from travel blogging is to narrow it down to something you really like, are passionate about, and are good at. But always remember that you have to work for it because your dream life won’t become a reality with half-hearted efforts.
To turn travel blogging into a career, you need to build a strong foundation for your blog and brand. This includes things like:
- Meaningful content
- The right tools and resources
- Testimonials by clients/audiences
- Social media communities
- List of email subscribers
- Your brand personality
Whatever you do, make sure to treat your blog like a business if you want to make money from it like a business.
Is it Easy to Make Money as a Travel Blogger?
As mentioned before, earning money from your travel blog is not the easiest thing in the world to do. However, once you put in some solid initial effort, everything starts to get easier with time.
You will learn many things in your travel blogging journey and with time, you will recognize how to better use your time and resources to generate more revenue for yourself.
Moreover, you should always learn from the best instead of going at it blindly without any knowledge. Read travel blogging guides and how-to’s like this one to figure out more and more ways of making money from your travel blog. This is going to help you in avoiding mistakes that most travel bloggers make.
How you handle your travel blog and make money from it is largely going to depend on your goals, skills, commitment, location, experience, and niche. Everyone has different experiences with a travel blog but there are some common best practices that everyone should follow if they want to succeed.
Learn from the best. Follow other successful travel bloggers and see what information they provide and what practices they suggest to follow.
Always be a learner and stay committed to growing your travel blog, come what may.
How do Travel Bloggers Get Paid?
1. Attracting Traffic to Their Travel Blogs
One of the most important aspects of getting paid like a travel blogger is to attract an audience to your travel blog and get traffic on the blog page. The more readers you have viewing your content, the more likely it is for you to be earning a good income from your travel blog.
This is why, right from the very beginning of your travel blogging journey, your focus should be to find ways to drive more and more traffic to your website. For this purpose, you would need to know what people actually want to read and what is trending.
Moreover, you would need to use search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to rank better on search engines so that your content is exposed to a larger audience.
You should also be present on all forms of social media with the same name as your blog. This maximizes the chances of your travel blog being discovered by other people and increases your traffic.
While all these techniques are helpful and great, you should always aim to first produce content that people find helpful. Once that is done, then you can move on to the technical aspects of generating traffic.
2. Finding and Building Multiple Sources of Income
If you want to know the gist of how travel bloggers actually get paid, this is how they do it.
While writing useful and meaningful content is going to increase traffic on your travel blog, only doing it this way is extremely limiting if you want to earn money from it.
It is always better to have multiple sources of income at all times so that you keep on earning money and have something to fall back on at all times. You can supplement your blogging income by selling courses, e-books, physical products, ads, freelancing, and much more.
Some of these options are discussed later on in the article to get a more in-depth look into how you can earn money from multiple different places.
3. Promoting Their Travel Blog on Social Media Religiously
Social media is going to be your best friend if you want to promote your travel blog and get more traffic to it.
Social media helps bloggers create a sense of personal connection with their followers. They will be able to interact with them on a much more personal level on these platforms. This, in turn, will increase their loyal following and give them more traffic.
Social media is also good because it is another platform where you are promoting your travel blog content and increasing your visibility. Great content on social media platforms will lead to great reviews and a strong social media networking foundation for your blog.
4. Advertising on Their Travel Blog
Ads are a great source of passive income. For this reason, you should always be on the lookout for advertisement networks that would be willing to buy ad space on your blog page.
This step is more suited for bloggers who have established at least somewhat of a following on their blogs already since you get paid for ads according to the number of views and impressions they get. Plus, advertisers wouldn’t want to invest in a blog that does not have a significant amount of audience.
5. Selling Their Own Products and Services
Many successful travel bloggers make a significant portion of their income from selling products and services. This may take some time and effort to get started but is definitely worth it.
Creating your own products will provide you with a stable income to earn off of your travel blog. It can be a physical product like a clothing line or something educational and virtual such as books, e-books, and courses.
Provide some type of value and you will see people coming to you.
6. Doing Paid Marketing Campaigns and Press Trips
As you start gaining followers on your travel blog, you will be invited for campaign trips that are paid for in order for you to promote a destination to your audience.
This is like a dream come true for many people out there: getting paid to travel to a beautiful location.
While doing paid trips, you will be promoting the location you are visiting through your travel blog and social media channels.
But before you jump in and say yes to a paid marketing campaign, keep in mind that a lot of work goes behind promoting these destinations in the right way. Therefore, choose a destination that allows for activities you know your followers will love and resonate with.
7. Taking Up Sponsorship Opportunities
One of the most popular ways travel bloggers get paid is by doing sponsored posts. This is when brands reach out to you to promote a certain product on your travel blog.
It is a great way to earn money with minimal effort. But be sure to choose brands and companies that you believe in and trust.
8. Providing Consulting and Coaching Services
As you start to gain a following using your travel blog, you will realize that more and more people want to know what you know about running a travel blog. And they would be willing to pay for it.
This is an easy way to earn money. You can provide consulting services from the comfort of wherever you are in the world.
Not only is this going to help people but also, increase your overall income.
9. Becoming an Authority in Their Particular Travel Niche
When you decide to start travel blogging, take a step back and see what you would like to specialize in when it comes to traveling. In other words, narrow down your niche even further.
Don’t copy what other people have already done. Don’t generalize your content because normal people don’t care about it. They want to know specific things and need actionable advice on what can be done.
Therefore, choose a specific travel blog niche – something you like and are good at – and provide information on that topic.
This would make you an authority figure in that particular niche. Which means once your blog starts to get famous, you will have an established place in the community as an expert on a particular topic.
11. Freelance Content Creation
Travel bloggers need to find ways to fund their traveling and accommodation expenses wherever they go. Since this cannot be done with a conventional 9 to 5 job, other types of jobs are resorted to.
One of those job types is freelancing.
Freelancing is a great way to earn money while on the move. For freelancing gigs – such as writing, graphic design, web design, content creation – all one needs are a laptop and an internet connection.
Even if you start earning money from your blog, it is always good to keep the freelance gigs going to make extra money while on the go.
The Bottom Line
These were some of the ways travel bloggers get paid. As you can see, blogging is hardly the only way that bloggers earn money. It is more about the other opportunities that stem from travel blogging itself that bring in the actual money.
In the end, whatever route you choose to go with in terms of money, always remember to keep your audience first and produce content that they enjoy and love to engage with.
