How I Make Money As A Travel Blogger

Instagram makes travel blogging look like a dream job and I won’t lie, the perks are incredible. But what most wannabe travel influencers fail to realise is that it takes a lot of hard work, determination and a real passion for creating content that appeals to a lot of people to make a travel blog successful.

If you’re wondering how to make money as a travel blogger, read on. This blog post details exactly how I made a living from my travel blog – and how I continue to earn income from my blog now that I don’t blog full-time. I’ve broken down the multiple income streams available to bloggers and shared my personal experience with each of them.

This is the first time I’ve ever shared this much information about how to make money from travel blogging and how to monetise your Instagram and travel blog!

The most I’ve shared about blogging professionally before was in this blog post all about how I became a full-time travel blogger. I recommend reading that post if you’re hoping to quit your day job and take the plunge to full-time blogging.

Full disclosure: After the events of 2020, travel blogging understandably became less than lucrative. Nobody was travelling, my website traffic (and therefore, income) was down and so I decided to venture back into the ‘real world’ and get a full-time job.

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy my new job as much as I did and I’m still there today. BUT I’m also still earning money from my blog – even though I’m no longer travelling as frequently or publishing new content regularly. Read on to find out how…

I should preface this post by reminding you that I’ve been blogging for at least eight years. I’ve only been making money through my blog for about five of those, and it hasn’t always been enough to live on. Blogging is rarely financially stable – and travel restrictions hit my business hard. Just like anyone starting their own business, travel bloggers face a certain amount of risk.

Most professional bloggers have a slightly shorter journey to earning from their blog, but I didn’t take travel blogging seriously for the first few years so I had to play catch up. Yup, kicking myself for that now…

If you’re considering giving it a go and you’re wondering how to make money from blogging, read on to learn from my mistakes!

How to make money through your travel blog

My income as a travel blogger is split between three main sources: passive income, brand campaigns and freelance work.

It’s important to mention that the latter income stream isn’t actually from blogging. Many of my freelance clients found me because of my blog and hired me because of the skills blogging has given me, but it wouldn’t be right to attribute this income to my blog.

I only point this out because I’ve noticed, through reading various professional bloggers’ income reports, that a LOT of bloggers make most of their money from teaching other people how to make money blogging – yet most of the money they make is FROM that activity. It’s kind of misleading and very meta, so I wanted to be straight with you.

Freelance work is only a small portion of my income, but I’m mentioning it here anyway because I know for a fact that the majority of professional bloggers don’t solely make money through blogging. It’s good to diversify your income streams!

What is passive income and how do you earn passively through a blog?

My passive income streams are divided into two main categories: ad revenue and affiliate sales. 

Passive income is my main priority, because once your passive income strategy is set up, very little further work is involved. Like, I can be out for drinks and come home and check how much money I made while I was in the bar – but only because I put the hard work in to creating an effective strategy in place first. Overnight success this was not!

1. Display ads

See those annoying ads I have on my site? They come via a sexy company called Mediavine and they are my largest source of passive income through blogging.

Yes, they don’t look great, but I like to think of it this way: you pay good money for a magazine that has about 15% of its pages dedicated to ads, so you probably won’t have a problem with seeing ads on a website that you literally get to read for free. Right?

Mediavine is a million times better than Ezoic and Adsense, Google’s ad network, because the payout is much higher. In my opinion, it’s not even worth eating into your users’ experience with adsense ads, because they only earn you pennies.

With Mediavine, the more traffic I get, the more I earn.

That’s the great thing about blogging! I can take a break from publishing new content and will still earn money through people reading my existing blog posts. Of course, it’s a double-edged sword because I have to make sure all of my live blog posts are up-to-date and optimised so people can still find and enjoy them.

To join Mediavine’s ad network, you need to have 50,000 monthly page views. So if you’re not there yet, make it your next goal!

2. Affiliate programmes

My second form of passive income from my blog is affiliate sales. Put simply, if you click on a link on my website to a product, service, hotel or any other online retailer that I am an affiliate partner for, I may make a small commission if you then go on to buy the product, or sometimes even if you buy anything else on that site inside the cookie window.

It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but I get a teeny reward for leading you to that company’s website. It’s typically a percentage of the total sale, and can often just be a few pennies.

You have to spend a lot of time creating affiliate content that targets people in the right stage of the buyer journey and setting up linksw, but once this hard work is done, you’re earning passively. You do however need to make sure your content is up-to-date, so it isn’t quite as simple as setting it and forgetting it.

There are large affiliate networks where you can sign up as a partner for various brands. The affiliate platforms I use are Awin and Webgains.

I also work as an affiliate for some companies directly. My favourite affiliate programmes are booking.com, Get Your Guide and Amazon.

As a travel blogger, it makes sense for me to promote accommodation and tour companies because people reading my destination guides are most likely to be in the market for these products. If you’re looking to earn in a different industry, there may be more appropriate affiliate schemes for you.

I also use Shopstyle Collective for fashion because I get people asking where I bought certain items of clothing on Instagram. This isn’t a big earner for me though, because I don’t really consider myself a fashion influencer and certainly don’t go out and buy new clothes constantly!

The different types of sponsored content for bloggers and influencers

Sponsored content relates to any piece of content that a brand pays me to post.

Usually, the brand will have some degree of control over what I write or post – but that only extends to them approving whatever I’ve created or giving me key messages to convey in the content I produce. They never tell me what to say. I turn any of those jobs down.

Typically the activity will be part of a larger brand campaign involving the company’s marketing department, other influencers and the brand’s own social media strategy.

It goes without saying that integrity is everything when it comes to sponsored content. If a brand has been a part of the creative process, I’ll always let you know. And so should every blogger or influencer you follow!

There are different forms of sponsored content because there are so many platforms creators use. Here are the main ways to make money from sponsored content as a blogger or social media influencer.

1. Sponsored blog posts

As a blogger with my own website, I sometimes make money by publishing blog posts in collaboration with a brand. Making money from sponsored blog posts was all the rage in the glory days of blogging, but I find that opportunities like this are few and far between now.

I also prefer to focus on creating high-quality, organic blog posts that I know my readers will enjoy. Because of the income my display ads generate, I can afford to turn down anything that doesn’t quite fit with the overall vibe of While I’m Young.

2. Sponsored Instagram posts and stories

Instagrammers earn money when they publish grid and Instagram Stories promoting a product or service, usually working from a strict brief laid out by the brand.

Rates for Instagram ads vary widely and follower count isn’t everything when it comes to setting a fee. The savviest brands or influencer marketing companies are more interested in your engagement rate.

I tend not to do a lot of Instagram ads because my website is my main focus platform and I use Instagram as more of a community-building app. Plus, Instagram could disappear tomorrow and then years of effort building my profile could be gone overnight. I prefer to spend my time on my own online ‘property’.

If you’re looking for an easy way to monetise your Instagram, sign up to Tribe. This app lists briefs from brands in many niches and you can set your own fee.

I don’t use this app regularly because you have to submit your image for approval, then it might not get approved. So if you have gone out and bought a product then spent time creating the shot and then your image isn’t chosen, you’re out of pocket. Because of this, I only submit images for products or services I already purchase of my own volition.

Other apps like this include Takumi and Vamp.

3. Link placements

Occasionally, I earn money from companies looking to build their website’s domain authority by placing a link to their site on my blog. My blog has a high domain authority, which attracts these companies. They want to feed off my website’s strength to make their own site stronger, so to speak.

If you’re starting out as a blogger and thinking about selling link placements, make sure you’re up to speed with best practice guidelines. Google has strict rules around this subject and not following these rules can negatively impact your website. However, some bloggers seem to think it’s against the law! It’s definitely not. You do have to do it the right way though and decide what’s best for you and your site.

Getting paid to go on press trips as a travel blogger

Personally, I think new bloggers are misguided in thinking that scoring a press trip = made it. Attending press trips does NOT always equal earning money. In fact, when I first started getting press trip invitations, I’d sometimes end up out of pocket!

I quickly learned to not only ensure all of my expenses would be covered, but also charge a fee for the work I was producing. Press trips, particularly group trips where a PR person is present, are not free holidays.

It’s important to evaluate any unpaid press trip invitations very carefully. How many days of your time would be spent on this trip, and how much could you earn if you used that time on another project? Is absolutely everything covered, including all transport, accommodation, food, drink and experiences? Can you guarantee that the content you’ll create based on the press trip will earn you money in the long run?

Sure, press trips can be a lot of fun but they’re also exhausting and very hard work. After a long journey, you’re often up creating content for 17+ hours, getting little sleep and even less time to keep on top of any other work, let alone social media. Then when you get home, the real work starts!

These days, I rarely accept unpaid press trips – unless it’s to a place I really want to go, the itinerary is decent (and there will be time to work between activities), and I think I have a good chance at creating some stellar content that will perform well, be useful or interesting for my audience and earn me money in the long term.

I have price packages for press trips that I offer each tourism board or travel brand that reaches out. The fee varies a lot but typically depends on the amount of content required and how much time the trip will take out of my schedule.

Those are the main ways I make money as a travel blogger. There are other income streams for bloggers, but these are the ones I use in my business. Every content creator is different and you might do it a different way!

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