Make Money While Traveling The World. Start A Blog.
I recently asked a room full of ordinary Americans “what kind of people get to travel?” The response from an overwhelming majority was “rich people“. Another popular response was “lucky people“.
I don’t consider myself to be rich by any means, and I like to think that I have created my own luck through motivation and determination. I decided a long time ago that there are no rules to life, and that anybody can live the life of their dreams.
For me that dream is travel, a dream which is continuing to be funded, in part, by this travel blog. While you can quite easily travel the world on the cheap (ie free accommodation, volunteering), and even travel the world while in debt, you still need money to make it happen and keep you on the road.
You need money to keep you on the road.
Travel blogging is just one of many ways you can make money while traveling the world. However you don’t have to write about travel just because you’re traveling. You should choose a focus which interests you – something you are passionate about which will hold your interest, even when money may not be coming in. No matter which focus your blog takes, there are always opportunities to earn money.
It’s important to remember that blogging takes a lot of time and effort, more than most people can possibly imagine, and that money won’t start coming in until you have built both a readership and a reputable brand. For many bloggers this can take at least a year. But if you’re looking for some extra cash to put towards your travels while keeping people up to date with your adventures, you should think about starting a travel blog.
Better at writing great emails than proper travel pieces? Some of the best bloggers aren’t necessarily the best writers. Some excel at photography instead. Some are phenomenal at engaging with their audience via social media. Others are incredibly savvy businessmen/women who have built their blog around a successful business model. So to succeed at blogging, always start by recognizing and playing to your strengths.
Time and effort. Blogging from my wedding day.
Here are some of the ways blogging has allowed me to make money while traveling the world.
We highly recommend Sharon Gourlay’s “How to Make Money From Blogging” – She details strategies for monetization and the exact methods she uses to make an annual $150,000 income.
Sponsored Posts
A sponsored post is one in which the content has been created specifically for an advertiser. In fact, this post is sponsored. Sponsored posts can range from a promotional article endorsing a product or brand (which this is), to creating a general blog post and placing an embedded link back to a targeted website/company.
Companies paying for embedded links but not necessarily promotion, do so in order to boost their SEO (Search Engine Optimization). They’re after “link juice” – the more authoritative websites which link to yours, the higher your website will rank in search engine results (the basic gist).
Depending on the quality of your website, bloggers can bring in anywhere between $50 – $400 per article. While there is no industry standard, $100-$200 is a fairly reasonable expectation, remembering that more often than not, you may be negotiated down on price.
A recent sponsored post. See full article.
But how do you find these mythical sponsors? After 8 months of building my traffic and brand, sponsors began coming to me. However I also took steps to ensure my name was out there as much as possible.
Highly recommend joining sponsorship marketplaces like themidgame – a free platform which showcases your influence to potential sponsors. You create a professional looking profile and connect your social media and website accounts to showcase your influence. It’s fast, easy and free, and combines all of your metrics in the one place, creating an instant media kit which updates without any maintenance on your part.
You won’t be logging on to these kind of websites everyday, however it’s a great idea to set up a profile and leave it running in the background – you’ll get an email each time a sponsor has work for you.
My profile on themidgame. Click to join.
Direct Advertising
Sell advertising space on your website – but don’t be blinded by cash. Once your website becomes popular you’ll start receiving advertising offers on a daily basis. Consider whether there is any point to advertising products which are not related to your brand and not interesting to you or your readers.
Affiliate Advertising
Affiliate advertising is where you gain a percentage of each sale referred from your website. More and more companies are offering affiliate programs. Once again, consider whether a partnership of this kind will be (a) beneficial to both parties and (b) is related to your brand and readers.
Currently an affiliate for Hakka Tours, I earn 10% of each NZ Adventure Tour sold within 90 days of a reader clicking through from my website. Check out companies like Agoda, Orbitz and Amazon as a starting point.
Yonderbound is also a fantastic platform to check out, offering the option for affiliate marketing to everyone whether you run a blog or not. It’s a hotel booking platform which lets you earn money online by sharing your travel insights in the form of hotel reviews. You earn a 70% commission of the profit every-time a hotel is booked through one of your reviews. It’s as simple as signing up at Yonderbound.com and creating reviews!
Contextual Advertising
Personally yet to use contextual advertising, many friends have found it reasonably profitable. In a great post about how she affords to travel from blogging, Sabrina Iovino of “Just One Way Ticket” sums contextual advertising up as follows:
Google Adsense & Mad Ads Media are both quite similar in look. The only difference is that Google Adsense pays per click, while Mad Ads Media pays per views. Many people don’t like to use contextual advertising on their blog because they have probably earned only a few cents and thought it’s not worth to give away the space. I agree, if you don’t have at least 15k visitors a month, don’t bother with Google Adsense. Mad Ads Media pays on average US$1 per 1000 views, which would make US$50 if you have at least 50k views per month.
Freelance
Travel blogging has the potential to open the door to a range of paid freelancing work. If you’re a good writer, start pitching story ideas from your experiences/destinations to magazines and newspapers. If you’re a good photographer, try and sell the photographs you take.
Freelance as a website designer/consultant, book public speaking gigs, write and sell ebooks; think outside the box and sell yourself and your specific skillset.
Book public speaking gigs. Check out my recent keynote presentation on “How to make adventure travel your lifestyle“.
Mentorship Programs
Once you’re a pro blogger, consider using your knowledge and expertise to coach others wanting to do the same. Blog mentorships and coaching/consultations are beginning to see a rise as a viable business option. However to be taken seriously it’s advisable to have substantial experience and actual expertise on a subject before selling advice on it.
For examples of the leading programs currently on offer, Mike and Anne Howard of Honey Trek offer Trip Coaching (teaching client’s everything they need to know to take a long-term trip–anywhere in the world and on any budget.)
Bret Love and Mary Gabbett of Green Global Travel offer a range of exceptional blogging mentorships. Kristin Lajeunesse of Will Travel For Vegan Food runs training programs for entrepreneurs.
Green Global Travel’s Blogging Mentorships Programs.
Taxes
Once you’ve figured out how to make money with your blog, you’ll want to make sure you get to keep as much as possible after paying taxes. So, make sure to keep track of your blog-related expenses throughout the year so you don’t forget deductions when preparing your return.
Also, make sure you use the proper legal structure for your situation. The right legal structure can have a significant impact on your bottom line.
This post was sponsored by themidgame. All opinions expressed here are, of course, my own.
62 Comments
Great article. I think I may start up a blog, with my pending trip to Mongolia. I may write about each country… Any advice on this, I know you are travelling on the rally also. I don’t write very well, but take some awesome photos.. Thanks
That is right; blogging in the right way will really make money. Thanks for the encouragement.
I am running a small blog which is related to make money. I will definitely share your article with my subscriber.
Hi Megan,
we started our blog before we went on our one year trip around the world as a family. It was at beginning aimed for our friends and family all over the place to keep them informed about our adventures. Now the goal is to earn a bit of money with it. As you also you also mention in your blogs it´s a lot of work, time consuming, you have to learn a lot….but it is so much fun! My husband and I divide the work a bit, the writing and marketing. That helps a lot! While traveling there is not so much time for marketing and engaging with other people through social media. Soon our travel will come to an end and we can concentrate a bit more on our website. Thanks for sharing…Greetings, Alexandra
Very informative post, Megan! Really enjoyed it! Thanks!
Super useful advice! I’m currently evaluating whether making the leap from a ‘pocket money’ blog to a more serious money-making blog is the right step for me, and this article has really helped clear things up a little more. Thanks very much!
I continue to be amazed and impressed how open the travel blogging community is with information and advice, I love it! Really showcases the industry’s passion and professionalism. Thanks for sharing, to a new blogger like me this is always great to read!
Thank you Megan, this is great info!! Thx for the feature, too! Hugs from Seoul!!
Megan, thank you for sharing some insights about your money making while travel blogging, even if it happened in a sponsored post :) It always seems a bit strange to be thinking about money and the business aspect when you simply want to share your experiences and encourage other to travel as well. But on the other hand, being able to earn money while doing something that you enjoy, also sounds like a wonderful thing… :)
Thanks a lot Megan! That is in fact a great reminder and it seems certainly worth taking a risk in pursuit of your own dreams rather than someone else’s. Always safe and happy travels to you as well! :)
Thanks for the tips, Megan. I signed up for themidgame, looked good at first sight. But, I’m sorry to say, I’m not sure it’s going to work: Get Sponsored got me a popup with the link for learning how to get sponsorships, which was for their blog, which got me a Server Not Found error message. So basically I have a profile but can’t do anything. That doesn’t inspire much confidence, to say the least…
Hi Peter, thanks for the feedback. You are right, that link was pointing to the wrong place and we have now fixed it. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Right now there is no need to do anything else if you already setup the profile. We are continuing to develop features to make it easier for sponsors to contact you when they have a sponsorship opportunity. Thanks!
Thanks for the great article Megan! It is great to see that there are many options for bloggers to make money now a days. We welcome everyone to our platform and are always happy to hear feedback from our users.
This was such a great approach to a sponsored post, Megan! Informative in many ways, aside from just recommending themidgame :)
Megan, we love this article. Yes, monetizing a blog can be a tricky business. Especially if you’re a niche site like ours. Although, that should work in our favour, shouldn’t it?
Great article! We get the ‘you’re so lucky’ thing all the time. While I do believe we are incredibly fortunate, it takes a lot of time and effort to make our travels possible.. and we are still only barely breaking even right now! This is a great summary though of how people can make money from blogging. Next time someone asks us how we do it, I’ll just direct theme here ;)
Great info Meg! There are many ways to make money from blogging and you can build great connections doing so. The best part is getting to see the world even if we are on a budget! :-)
Thanks Megan! You are such a doll and so full of information. Thanks for this, Mindgame is a new one for me, so I am going to check it out. We may money here and there, but we need to kick it up a notch. This is just what I needed to get my rear in gear and do more “work”.
Great article Megan and I’ve learnt one or two new tools from you by this, thank you.
I agree that it takes time before advertisers come to you and you have to be patient.
It is also in fits and starts as to when they come and the budgets they have. In the last month I’ve had a lot of enquiries but very little amount to anything. Either they have a very low budget for which my personal time is more valuable, they submit low quality content or they want to link to non-relevant sites – such as gambling which doesn’t fit the Travel Blog niche.
This looks like an article I’ll keep referring back to. I always like to see how other bloggers have learned their way and what works best for them.
Thanks again.
Yes, my week is not too bad thanks, just very hectic. And you?
I’ve just received an inquiry earlier today from someone about advertising. They sent it from a do not reply e-mail address. I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do about that? Either they are a very sophisticated spammer or an amateur. BTW I did reply to it to test it and as expected my e-mail bounced back.
This is a great overview, Meg, about the possibilities! You’r totally right that building a blog takes a lot of hard work and a ton of time! :)
This is a great article. We started our blog two months ago and agree it is a lot of work!
Hi Megan! Thanks so much for your article on how to make money while traveling. I am a public school teacher, and I published five educational books with major houses back in the 1990s. I am beyond ready to retire from teaching and travel. Unfortunately, I will still need to supplement my pension. We started our road trip blog BackroadPlanet.com last October, and although it is a lot of work, I do enjoy it. The difficult part is finding time to write while holding down my day job. I know we still need to grow the site before we can get any sponsors or advertisers. My dream is to become the JohnnyJet of the road, perhaps connected with rental car agencies or RV companies, but I cannot say that we have made any great connections with people in the industry other than a few pages contributed to Roadtrippers. This article was very helpful and sparked some ideas for me . . . . Thanks again!
Well, I just learned by leaving that last comment that using my blog email address does not show my picture. Gotta get that registered!
Great article, I started my FB page 2 months ago and have achieved 1300 likes and today launched my blog page. I would love to earn some money from blogging so I can travel more so will following advice from your article. In the meantime I’ll keep trying to increase my connections on FB to draw in more support. Many thanks.
Really great advice about making it work as a travel blogger, especially about finding sponsors. Writing and taking pictures come much more easily to me than marketing myself to potential sponsors! I started my blog two months ago and have been having a great time with it, as well as really working those social media accounts (I could never really understand Twitter before my blog…now I’m on it every day).
Keep on blogging and helping out with advice for the rest of us!
great tips! just started my own blog as well. themidgame site is very cool!
I’ve had my travel blog for nearly two years but only recently have had any time to devote to it–still not as much as I’d like. Great tips – thanks!
Thanks for sharing these awesome tips Meg! I’ll be the first to admit that I am envious of folks around the world that are able to financially keep afloat using their travel blog. Of course I would love to make money using my blog but as of right now I have this as just a hobby because both Heather and myself are full-time workers that love to travel whenever time permits. I think everyone is unique and we all have very different goals but all of these points that you made are applicable in some way to all of us. A really great article and I am interested in signing up for themidgame.com that you mentioned to see what happens with that!
Congratulations on your green card & moving forward in your travels! Great article! Thank you, Suzanne
My other Blogs:
http://frenchmermaidcollection.blogspot.com
& this one is brand new, so not much on it as yet: http://http://french-caribbean-cuisine.blogspot.com/
Thank you so much for posting this!! I am in the process of fine tuning a few things before I make the big leap and really get into pitching my work. I really is difficult running a blog though! I never thought it would be so hard. Living in Ireland working a 9-5, trying to travel on what small salary I have, writing for my column back home, blogging, and trying to talk to people is literally all I do! Getting through it all slowly, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy
Lovely read and very inspiring… Traverse the world and lets get blogging I would say …..
Thanks for the tips Megan, very inspiring for us aspiring bloggers!
Thanks for sharing these awesome tips Meg!
Thanks for writing this Megan! I just hit the one year mark with my blog about hidden gems around the world; it’s no easy task but your encouragement is great and it definitely is something I love to share with fellow travelers! I signed up for themidgame and my revised user-friendly website is rolling out in a couple weeks. Excited! I enjoy following your travels and articles, keep it up :)
Hi Megan, Thanks for this amazing post and sharing your insights with us.
I am a big fan of your blogging in your wedding dress picture. This looks like something I would do. I hope your groom didn’t mind.
Great article, glad I’d come across your post! Definitely add some knowledge about earning through blogging….. thanks for sharing!
Thanks a lot Claire. Very useful article indeed. I am quite newbie on travel blogging. I haven’t used any advert on my blog yet. Do you think it is worthed? Thanks anyway.
Thanks so much for this article Megan! I have a blog but haven’t done much with it. I’m thinking of restarting it up. Any advice? You have a lot of great ideas I never thought of and would like to try. My wife and I are planning to buy a 5th wheel RV and travel and work around the country. But we need more than one source of income. In fact we haven’t even purchased the RV yet and need to build income for that as well. I think I have a lot of content I can write about from my many skills and experiences (handyman, classical/opera singer, voice teacher, local and long haul truck driver, etc.) I”m looking forward to any suggestions you may have. :)
Hi Megan. Nice post and I appreciate the openness, its nice to see what other bloggers are doing to make their blog successful. One of the hardest things for a new blogger is the whole social media/marketing aspect. I love the writing and photography part but I’ve procrastinated on searching out advertisers or sponsors. It’s not the part of blogging I enjoy (and I’m sure you’d probably say the same. I guess I have no excuse).
But I got my first successful contract last month. A media company in the UK contacted me about including a link to a company marketing all-inclusives. And they paid the equivalent of $350 for it. But it wasn’t about the money – as a blogger it is nice to be recognized and to have a company want to be associated with your blog. People may pay compliments, but when someone wants to pay you it’s the biggest pat on the back ;) .
I’ll make sure to check out some of your links and will look into the midgame.
Good read!
Frank (bbqboy)
Overwhelming, Megan!! Carry on the best of you!! I will contact to you soon for a good.
Have a successful Days!!
You have some great tips. I’d like to add one. I’m financing my trips by renting out my private flat while on travel. Often this is enough to get money for the entire vacation. I’m using the following websites to advertise for free:
http://similar-web-sites-to-airbnb-roomorama-wimdu.fastweb.no
What a great article, thanks! I’ve been dying to know how you were getting funded. Thanks for sharing so much!
Thank you, thank you for this amazing advice. I have found a ton of valuable information and quite honestly this is the most informative post regarding monetizing your blog I have come across.
I will definitely try it with my blog.
Really great post, it inspired me a lot to grow what we are doing with our travel blog.
http://www.etravelclouds.com/the-secret-of-great-blog-photos-revealed/
Great post Megan! Lots of great info, we will be using it! BOOKMARKED! :)
I did learn from your blog,which I found because of twitter! Thank you. But the Midgame Get Sponsored link doesn’t work. Or may be my website is too new with to little visitors yet.
I’ll keep trying.
Thanks for Sharing.
Hi Megan,
Thanks for this incredibly informative post – I started my blog about a month ago and already I see how much work it is! Sometimes making money from it seems like an impossible dream but this post makes it seem attainable (with lots of hard work and perseverance of course!)
any advice for growing an audience for a niche speciality travel website? I started http://www.AllTogetherOutThere.com to share our experiences traveling with our boys one of whom has cerebral palsy.
Another great post. Very informative, especially for a guy like me who’s just beginning a blog.
Thanks a bunch!
Hi Meg,
Speaking of sponsorships, one thing I really appreciate about your posts and articles is that the sponsor is never in your reader’s face. Sometimes one needs to scroll down carefully to find it.
I appreciate that!
Allan
Great Post
You can also become a tour guide where you are travelling if you get a license and after that you can promote your tours for free on GuideBubble.com to get access to a lot of international tourists.
Great article! I love your blog! I am a solo traveler and I admire people like us. It is the best life choice. Thank you for sharing your experience. Best regards!
Great post. This post gives good insight on what we can gain from blogging. As a new blogger, we want to read positive things like this to keep us motivated.
Thanks for the ultimate guide on blogging !!
Real excellent information can be found on web blog . “I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure.” by John D. Rockefeller.
I’m seriously thinking about adding a Fashion Friday segment to my blog.
It’s not my niche or anything but I feel I can morph it in and make it fit – I’m not ready to become a full time fashion blogger (probably ever). What do you think? People seem very interested when I post about fashion or post my pics – they ask me about clothes now just as much as health and food ? And I’ve only been into this since January…….
So, here is what I would love to hear from you – more on the behind the scenes of getting posts up, getting aff. links and organizing all the links -is there a streamlined approach to that – cause some of those posts you do with tons of links make me wonder how long they took to put together. Do you have an assistant or do you do it all yourself? If I do one post a week I’m wondering how time consuming it will be as I don’t have a lot of time as it is.
And do you think it would be profitable to take this approach with just one post a week?
I’m sure I have a million more questions ………….. now it’s my turn to hit you up with questions ?
Blogging is something very new to me and in the process of exploring. Writing is something I’ve always enjoyed so why not share my passion with others. After reading this article and the comments, I am inspired to write more about my travels; Sharing what I’ve learned and what is to come.
Great article
I travel a lot and I tried all kinds of ways to make money online,
What works best for me is Koocam.
I teach my hobbies, and sells my knowledge in every field.
So I can continue to travel and make money at the same time, it’s great!
Grat post, I think the most important thing we tell people is to travel with a purpose, Do not just wander around the world aimlessly. (Like ours is to experience and document the Top 100 Travel Adventures) So many travel blogs do not really have a purpose or a niche. Niche is key and many miss out on that because they want to cover and do it all.
This information is amazing Meg! I’m starting up a Holistic Health Blog with the goal of making side revenue from it for my business, and these tips are perfect. The only option I’m struggling with right now is whether or not I should go forward with vigorously marketing myself and my blogs on social media yet when I only have four blogs.
Thank you for this very interesting post. I’ll keep your advices in mind for my brand-new blog ;)
Really great post! It’s so crazy because I really want to engage more as a lifestyle blogger but I continue to turn back to fashion and that is where I seem to find the most interaction with others. Thanks for all the tips.