6 steps to become a successful and profitable travel blogger

You’re sitting at your desk daydreaming about being on an island somewhere in the south Caribbean.

Just a fun little cliff dive will do.

And when you need a break from waterfalls, your mind takes you on a quick plane ride to a quaint cafe in the middle of a historic European town with cobblestone roads running through it.

Ah, the joys of travel, adventure, and hopping between different cultures.

How do you make traveling while working a reality?

If you’ve ever dreamt about becoming a travel blogger, here’s a reality check -- you can make it happen and get paid to do it, but it isn’t a cakewalk. You have to be willing to put in the hours and hustle to monetize your blog.

Is it worth it? Definitely. Is it as easy as writing a few blog posts and calling it a day? Not quite.

Today, we share with you the realities of being a travel blogger and the steps you need to take to join their ranks as a well-paid traveler.

Let’s get to the important bits first: Just how worth it is becoming a travel blogger?

How much can you make as a travel blogger?

You can make as little as nothing, or you can earn a substantial income as a travel blogger. It all depends on your persistence and having the right monetization plan set up.

After all, the demand for reading travel content online is growing. Digital travel content sees double-digit growth year-over-year.

When you’ve got your foundation properly laid out, you can earn over $3,000 per month, just like these fellow travel bloggers:

Nora earns over $3,000 per month from her The Professional Hobo travel blog. Nora has been traveling full-time since 2007 and has stepped foot on over 55 countries.

6 steps to become a successful and profitable travel blogger

At the mid-range, Monica earns $10,000 in monthly income from her The Travel Hack blog, which she started in 2009.

Finally, on the far side of the revenue scale, Matt Kepnes pulls in over $50,000 a month through his Nomadic Matt site. Matt has been trotting the globe since 2006.

Pretty impressive, right?

Don’t worry if a decade of blogging sounds daunting to you. If you continue to publish valuable content regularly, your audience will grow, and so will your love of the craft.

The main takeaway is to build up your stamina for the long-term. With a bit of perseverance, running your own travel blog can be profitable because the startup and maintenance costs are relatively minimal. Still, some costs to take into consideration are:

Additional folks to help with your production as you grow like virtual assistants and freelance writers
Website maintenance, like hosting and domain registration (unless you use an all-in-one platform like Podia that handles your hosting for you!)
Automation and management tools, like your platform or email service

All in all:

You can earn a significant income as a travel blogger with today’s growing demand for digital travel content. So long as you keep up your blog over the long-term, you’ll be successful at it.

As for how to get started, check out our simple, six-step system below.

6 steps to start a travel blog

Step #1. Find a theme based on your travel passion

Your first step is to find an angle based on your travel passion. You don’t have to cover everything travel-related. Instead, narrow in on a niche or theme.

To whittle it down to one travel theme, ask yourself:

What is it about traveling you enjoy the most?
When you travel, what do you gravitate toward most? Is it the people, culture, food, natural environment, or history?

As an example, blogger Dan focuses on traveling solo and capturing the world’s scenic wonders through his professional photography, which is featured in his Dan Flying Solo blog.

Couple Megan McDuffie and Michael van Vliet focus on a completely different theme, and spotlight on their Fresh Off the Grid blog delicious foods and easy recipes you can make while camping and traveling to outdoor destinations.

As you can see, you can get creative while selecting your theme and choose from a wide array of niches within the travel category.

The key is to get specific so you can focus on one niche audience. Once you’ve done that, and only when you’ve settled on a niche, you’re ready for the next step.

Step #2. Research and learn about your niche audience

Once you’ve selected your niche topic, it’s time to conduct market research. This step isn’t optional: market research is vital for understanding your audience and gaining clarity on what they’re interested in.

After all, your goal is to deliver to your blog audience precisely what they want and need. Good business is about solving people’s problems, ideally before they’re aware of those problems.

As for an effective way to conduct your research, start by diving into online forums, discussions, and social media groups to uncover popular points of interest within your topic.

For instance, a quick query for “travel photography” in Reddit pulls up several Subreddit threads within the 2.7 million large online community.

This serves as a great place to glean some useful insights for your blog. You can brainstorm ideas on how to educate and solve some of your audience’s related problems based on what you glean from social communities.

Better yet, take it a step further and join these groups to start engaging with members to learn first-hand what they’re biggest struggles are and how they talk about those struggles.

That way, you can address their needs in your blog articles and provide valuable, educational content to your audience using their own words.

In a nutshell:

The only way you can serve your niche is by getting to know them. Use social communities and one-on-one conversations to dig into people’s problems and find ways that your blog can solve them.

Then, begin writing.

Step #3. Start writing regularly (and imperfectly)

When people ask writers how they produce so much content, the answer is always a little disappointing, but true: we just start writing.

You need to do the same. Because your blog is something you need to keep up over the long-term, don’t let your perfectionism slow you down at the starting line.

Your style, voice, content, formatting, and et cetera will organically develop over time. The important thing is to start writing a blog, not writing it perfectly.

Curious about which topics to cover in your first articles?

Use the info you gathered from your market research and focus on educating your readers about how to overcome their challenges.

Your first few attempts to write for your audience probably won’t be perfect, but the sooner you get started, the better you’ll become at writing for your niche.

Plus, the more you get to know your audience as you build relationships through your blog, the more you can cater to your readers’ needs, which means the better your content will be.

It’s a nicely self-sustaining cycle that way.

OK, the writing part is the bulk of the work, but if you’re just starting out, you’ll need to do some extra hustle with logistics.

(Blogging is included with all Podia plans, and it's as easy as typing in a Word doc. No coding or developers needed. Start your 30-day free trial today!)

Step #4. Purchase your domain name and choose a blogging platform

Your next step is to purchase your domain name and choose a blogging platform.

To purchase your domain name, check out these top domain registrars:

As far as blogging platforms go, there are numerous platforms to choose from, but we recommend Podia since it's automatically connected with your website, online store, and email.

Keep in mind, your bigger goal is to monetize your site, so you want the option to connect your blog with your email list and digital products easily. That way you can write, create products, and talk to your audience all in one spot, without paying for and managing a ton of extra tools.

You can check out Podia's ease of use by signing up for free for 30 days. You get access to all Podia's features so you can start blogging and even making sales before paying a dime.

Once your blogging platform and domain name are taken care of, it’s time to dig into the fun part of setting up your blog -- the design.

Step #5. Keep a simple design

Keeping with the theme, I’ll say it plainly: Use a simple design for your travel blog. A clean and simple blog design that's easy to navigate let's your content shine, and makes it easier to showcase your products.

Here are a few things we recommend to make your designs pop

Lots of white space
Easy to navigate
Contrast between text and background colors and images
Clear fonts that are big enough and easy to read

In other words, something like Chris and Rob Taylor’s 2TravelDads site.

All this is easy to do in Podia's website and blog builder. Podia comes with pre-made templates that you can customize however you want. Everything looks great, and it's actually hard to make something that doesn't look good. You can change your layouts, colors, fonts, images, borders, padding, and background -- all in just a few clicks.

The big lesson is:

Maintain a simple design for your travel blog that’s easy for your readers to navigate. This will create a great UX (user experience) for your visitors and strengthen your business growth overall.

Step #6. Upload and publish your blog content

At this stage, it’s time to upload and publish your blog articles. If you're using a user-friendly platform like Podia, you simply upload your written content in the form field and include a featured image.

You can also customize the URL slug, social sharing image, meta description, and excerpt description for each post.

Whatever tool you use, ensure you’re using it consistently. Publishing posts regularly is vital to the success of your blog.

Why? Your readers will get acclimated to anticipating your new content and relying you as the expert on your topic, especially as you accumulate emails and send out announcements about your latest article posts.

As for the nitty-gritty of frequency, bloggers who publish weekly are 2.5x more likely to report “strong results” than those who post monthly or less.

So, make it a habit to maintain a regular posting schedule over time to grow your blog.

Now that you have your blog page all set up, it’s time to grow your audience and start monetizing your site.

Let’s dive into some tactics on how to promote your blog and grow your audience.

How do you grow your blog audience?

Use social media to publish posts about your travel blog articles and reach new readers.

If you’re wondering which channels to focus on, continue researching your niche market to find out where your target audience hangs out the most.

Like with all of your published content, be sure to post regularly, so your audience gets used to hearing from you as the expert on your travel topic. The more followers you accumulate for your content, the greater your industry authority will become.

Of course, getting a little outside help with said industry authority wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.

#2. Guest post on other prominent blogs

Another way to expand your audience reach is to guest post on other blogs that receive more traffic than yours.

It’s an effective way to get in front of a broader related audience, while also contributing your valuable knowledge by forcing you to write for a new audience, so it’s a win-win for both parties.

Well-established travel blogs that accept guest posts typically have writing guidelines for you to follow, which you can usually find on their "Work with me" or "Contact me" pages.

Note, however, that while guest blogging is a viable strategy and good for building your audience, it's not as easy as it used to be and the return isn’t super impressive.

So, keep in mind this strategy may be a good supplement for audience growth, but it’s not ideal for driving the bulk of your outreach.

As for what is ideal for driving your outreach, check out our next strategy.

#3. Create a lead magnet to attract new readers

Use a lead magnet to entice new readers to opt-in for more of your content and join your email list.

A lead magnet, if you’re unaware, is an incentive you offer your visitors by giving away content for free in exchange for their email address so you can continue to communicate with and warm up your audience to your brand and other paid offers.

Lead magnets come in a wide array of formats, including cheat sheets, templates, assessments, guides, how-tos, checklists, ebooks, video tutorials, and et cetera.

For instance, founder of travel blog Backpacker Banter, Chris, offers a free guide at the top of his travel blog, where subscribers can opt in for his travel planning guide in exchange for their name and email.

By collecting his readers’ contact info and email, Chris can then send subsequent emails to nurture his audience further.

In other words, he can email content that continues to educate his audience, touch on their problems, and help to solve their biggest needs, through more blog articles and paid offers.

Fortunately, the secret to making lead magnets work is pretty simple -- be clear about your offer.

Basically:

Offer a helpful lead magnet to grow your blog audience and nurture them toward your additional valuable content and paid offers through your email list.

Now, let’s look at our last audience-builder for the day.

#4. Use SEO to build organic traffic

Using organic inbound marketing, like search engine optimization (SEO), to attract visitors to your blog is one of the most powerful ways to expand your audience.

What are some search engine optimization tips to use?

Use keyword research - You can try tools like Ahrefs and BuzzSumo to find out which keywords and terms are the most popular. If there is a lot of traffic and low keyword difficulty competing for those terms, that’s a good recipe for an article topic.
Match your content intent with your keywords - It doesn’t matter how many keywords are mentioned in your article if the intent behind those keywords doesn’t match up, so be sure to prioritize the humans behind the keyword volume.

An important takeaway is to focus on serving your audience relevant, useful content on your travel blog, which helps you become a credible expert on your topic. As people search for more info, your goal is to rank as the top resource within your travel niche.

OK, with audience growth under your belt, it’s time to leverage your growing audience and earn money from your travel blog.

How do you make money as a travel blogger?

#1. Participate in affiliate marketing programs

Looking for a simple monetization method? Use affiliate marketing to earn income as a travel blogger.

Affiliate marketing, if you need a refresher, is when you promote an outside business’ product or service on your blog and earn a commission for each sale you make on their behalf.

If you’re curious about how much you can earn using affiliate marketing, founder of Living the Dream travel blog, Jeremy, earns about $25,000 per year through his travel affiliate programs.

As you explore affiliate programs, keep in mind anything you promote should align with your brand and serve your audience (are you noticing a theme?).

After all, you’re doing all this work to build your credibility as a trusted resource, so it’s best to protect the credibility and loyalty that you’ve grown with the same audience-first approach to monetization.

The same is true for the next monetization method, as well.

Another way to get paid as a travel blogger is by partnering with complementary brands.

Similar to affiliate marketing, in a brand partnership, you also promote an outside business’ product or service on your blog.

Rather than earning a commission on each sale, you earn income based on an agreement between you and your brand partner, which means the expectations and pay levels vary.

For instance, creator of Expert Vagabond blog, Matthew Karsten, earns $4,000 – $20,000 per deal with brand partnerships and influencer marketing, depending on what’s involved.

For a frame of reference, Matthew’s travel blog overall pulled in over $250,000 in 2018.

Brands can pay you for a wide variety of travel-related gigs from guest posting to taking over their Instagram account to going on an all-expense-covered trip to one of their destinations.

Note that partnerships aren’t usually available for newcomers in an industry -- they’re often reserved for influencers -- so while this is one of the most lucrative ways to monetize, it’s also one of the hardest to land.

Fortunately, ads and sponsored posts are far more beginner friendly.

#3. Sponsored posts

Another way to drive revenue to your blog site is through sponsored articles, where an outside entity pays you to include a mention of their product or service on your blog.

For instance, successful travel blogger, Raphael Alexander, dedicated an entire article on his Journey Wonders blog to his post sponsor Tep Wireless.

It’s important to note it’s a legal requirement to include a disclosure for any paid sponsored content on your blog, which Raphael does at the end of his post.

If paid ads and sponsored articles don’t sound ideal to you, our final tactic is a more trusted way to monetize your travel site.

#4. Sell digital products online

You can also sell digital products on your own website, such as online courses and ebooks, to earn a significant income from your travel blog.

Creating online courses and publishing ebooks are great examples of how you can share your travel expertise while pulling in revenue, but don't just take my word for it. Let's look at some examples.

First up is Taylor Jackson, who sells his Make Money with Your Travel and Landscape Photography online course for $90, where he teaches students how to sell travel and landscape photography.

Online courses and ebooks aren’t your only option, though.

You can create other info products to sell, like guides, mini courses, b ootcamps, audiobooks, video tutorials, or even flashcards. The main ingredient, as ever, is to provide something of educational value.

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As you can (hopefully) see, you have a variety of options when it comes to selling digital products to your blog audience.

As always, offer your audience valuable solutions to their problems regardless of the format you decide to go with, and you’re as good as gold.

Your destinations and blog audience await your arrival

Getting paid to work while traveling is definitely doable. If you have dreams of exploring the world, you can become a full-time travel blogger and earn a significant income with these tips.

Let’s recap it for you:

Income levels for travel bloggers vary from zero to thousands of dollars per month, depending on how much effort and consistency you put toward your blog.
To start your own travel blog, find a theme based on your travel passion and conduct market research to learn more about your niche audience.
Once you begin to write regularly, you’ll have a consistent flow of content to publish, which means you’re ready to purchase your domain name.
Using an all-in-one blogging platform like Podia makes it easy to run your blog and business all under one roof.
To grow your audience, use social media, guest post, create a lead magnet, or use SEO tactics.
Four ways to earn income as a travel blogger include affiliate marketing programs, brand partnerships, paid ads and sponsored posts, and selling digital products.

Ready to become a paid blogger and live the nomadic life?

Safe travels -- the world awaits.

You can sign up for a 30-day free trial of Podia right now! Your trial includes your blog, email list, and products, so you can start publishing content and making sales today.