How to Become a Travel Blogger
Travel the world and tell your readers everything you see, feel, taste, and smell. Make it an adventure for your readers. Think of yourself as a virtual tour guide of sorts. Your words and images provide a unique first-hand experience of what traveling to that destination is like.
If you have a long term goal of getting paid to travel, you need to work hard to grow your own brand/business. It takes time but, the more content you create, the more successful your travel blog business will be. The first steps to becoming a travel blogger are:
Travel
Journal
Take Lots of Photos/Videos
Travel
Rather self-explanatory. It's the only real rule for becoming a travel blogger. Travel.
Whether it's traveling local, blogging about the best local spots, or writing about your international travel experiences. You need to travel to truly experience the sites, senses, and vibe of a place.
Journal Everything.
Keep a daily journal with you on every trip you take. Journals are invaluable sources of information when it comes time to writing content for your blog. Write in your journal when the memories of the sites and attractions are fresh in your head. This will give a more detailed and honest feel to your travel blog.
You won’t struggle to remember what you did in each place along your travels. You will have an accurate timeline of events and paint a clearer picture of your adventures.
All it takes is a minimum of 5 minutes a day and your travel blog posts will have already written themselves. Even if you just bullet point some of the things you see and do. It will help you come up with content ideas for your blog.
Journaling helps to put all your memories Plus they contain great memories for you to reminisce on as you write.
Take Lots of Photos/Videos
Having high-quality pictures and videos of your own travels will be crucial for growing your blog. You will be able to post unique content that does not have stock photos from Google.
Your personal content is perfect for creating social media graphics on Instagram and Pinterest when you start promoting your travel blog. These sites organically rank original images higher in their searches. So your images are likely to be seen more than stock images found online.
Think of your travel blog as an online photo album for your travels, that you share with the world.
Setting Up Your Travel Blog
Create a Website
Write Content About Traveling
Publish to Your Blog
You need to create a website so that you have a platform to share all of your travel experiences. It sounds like a daunting task, but you can create a website on Wix or Wordpress using templates in under an hour. You can use it for free or pay $13 a month for Wix full service and a free unique domain.
You only need a home page and a blog page to start. Then you need to start publishing your articles. This is where the journal comes in super handy if you kept a detailed journal you just already have a lot of potential content.
Check out our step by step guide to building a website on Wix in under 1 hour.
What to Blog About
You dream of becoming a travel blogger but you have no clue what to write about. There is so many amazing travel memories running around in your head but you can’t seem to put them on paper.
To start travel blogging, all you need to do is write about your experiences traveling. Doing some keyword research on the places you are writing about will help you attract more traffic in the future, but more on SEO writing later. If you’re stuck for ideas on what to write about here are some tips:
Write a list of places you’ve traveled recently. Remember, it doesn’t have to be abroad, you're an expert on traveling your home town, and a lot of people may want to read about the location.
Once you have your list of cities, countries, or continents, write down a few different ideas for what to write about each place. Provide value to your readers by sharing your experiences of that place honestly.
Content Ideas to Get you Started on Your Travel Blog:
“3” Day Travel Itinerary to “Place”. E.g 3 Day New York Itinerary - Literally just write down how many days you were at a place - 3 or 7 days are popular for online readers - then talk about the things you did there, any sites or attractions you saw, how you got around, how much things cost, etc.
“Place” to “Place” Road Trip - E.g Las Vegas to Grand Canyon Road Trip- much the same as above, write about what you saw, what vehicle you were driving, where you stayed, how long it took, what items you needed.
10 Top Things to do in “Place” - This is a super-easy way to generate content for your site, Write a list-type article. Bullet point as many of the best activities in the place you visited, then write a paragraph or two on each.
What you need to know before traveling to “place” - This can be a great idea if you are traveling overseas, talk about where you are going, how you organized a visa, accommodation, different currencies, languages, best sites to see, etc.
Think of your travel blog as an online business that you are growing into a valuable future asset. Each article you add to this website will grow your business. Every blog post gives your business more potential to reach more readers.
How to Make Money Travel Blogging
Imagine what it’s like to make money while traveling. Someone who is paid to document their travel experiences. A professional traveler of sorts.
The standard way to becoming a travel blogger is simple, you set up a travel blog, travel, and write. In the hope that enough people read your content and you make enough money to fund your travels. But, there are lots of ways to make cash online while your traveling:
Monetize your Travel Blog
Travel Blogger Freelancing
Paid Travel Opportunities
Monetize your Travel Blog
There are so many ways to make money online and by establishing a travel blog, you open yourself up to a lot of money-making opportunities.
When you start out as a travel blogger, it is important to focus on posting a lot of content, not on monetizing your blog. The real money comes in once you generate traffic. It's always a good idea to have a plan for monetizing in the future, though, here are a couple of options:
Affiliate Marketing
Most travel bloggers use Affiliate Marketing to make money. Affiliate Marketing is where you promote a product, service, or business through your blog with links if readers click on that link and purchase something, the travel blogger gets paid in commissions.
Thousands of businesses with an online presence have affiliate programs. Affiliate marketplaces have lists of products or services you can advertise. Amazon pays affiliate commissions for every product on its site.
When you become a travel blogger sign up to a few affiliate marketplaces like:
Browse all of these sites and find the affiliate programs you like the most. You receive unique links for your website from these programs, then add a few links to some of your articles. I find it much easier to promote products and services I use or believe in. For example, you could promote Travel Suitcases on Amazon or Cheap Student Flights on Cj Affiliate
Ads
Ad revenue is based on traffic so in the beginning, there’s not much point. However, this will eventually be worthwhile once you have built a following.
Once you are regularly generating organic traffic, it's a good idea to look into adding PPC ads and earning money from this traffic. Google AdSense and Mediavine are to sites that can help monetize your blog.
Travel Blogger Freelancing
Owning your own personal travel blog isn’t the only way to get paid as a travel blogger. There are tons of paid writing gigs online asking for travel writers. Upwork and Fiverr are two platforms I use when I need some extra cash on my travels.
It’s easy to create an account on both. If you make a great profile and consistently apply for jobs you will soon find your self making decent money as a travel blogger.
Clients pay you directly in compensation for the work you produce. Just write about your travels and get paid! If you need money quickly while traveling then I recommend signing up to Fiverr.
When I first started travel blogging, I had no experience as a writer and was traveling the US in an RV. I signed up to Fiverr and Upwork and made $1000 in my first 3 weeks, doing several one-off or temporary gigs, while exploring California.
Paid Travel Opportunities
A great way to make money while you travel is to receive paid opportunities to travel. These can come from a business, brand, or destination, and they provide all-expense-paid trips and cash.
You travel to that destination and blog about your experience. Marketing your experience to your readers. Once you have a large enough following on your blog and social platforms, these may come your way.
Growing Your Travel Blog
It’s easy to set up a travel blog, write detailed stories about your global adventures, and then upload it for the world to see. But chances are the world won’t see it.
While it is a lot of fun just writing about your travels, saving the stories for a trip down your next trip back to glory days. Why not at least try and earn some money while you travel? To do that, you need to grow and scale your travel blog.
If you don’t spend any time promoting and marketing your website, you won’t generate any traffic to your site. You will not be able to build a following. And no one will buy any products you promote or sell.
You need people to read your blog in order to get paid to travel. Any travel blogger being paid to roam the globe and document their travels has built an audience of loyal followers.
There are plenty of ways for an online business to grow and scale. For travel bloggers, there is a range of paid and free methods. SEO and Social Media are free to use and are both powerful tools for scaling a business and reaching more people. Paid ads and outsourcing are ways you can invest money into your blog to grow and increase your revenue.
Social Media
Paid Ads
SEO
Outsourcing
If you are successful in growing and marketing your travel blog, you will slowly build an audience. You will attract more organic traffic to your website, providing you with an income as you travel.
Social Media
When you set up your website, create a Pinterest, Youtube, and Instagram account to post content on. This will further your reach and drive more people to your travel blog. Travel is a popular niche on all 3 of these sites, and it’s free to create and post content.
The more content you put on social media, the better chance you get seen. It’s the best way to scale your reach online. Every time you write a blog post, make social graphics that relate to your content. Use photos from your own travels and give little snippets of what your article is about.
Canva is the best website for creating content for your social media accounts. It streamlines the process of creating a lot of content at once. You can select dimensions for a Pinterest pin, create awesome designs, and then edit the dimensions to an Instagram graphic and upload the same content to both platforms.
To streamline the uploading process, use Tailwind. Here you can schedule your social posts for Instagram and Pinterest weeks in advance. Tailwind is the easiest way to grow your social following.
Canva and Tailwind are both free services with paid options. The free account gives you access to a huge range of their services so you don't need to spend any money. If you’re looking for a way to grow your travel blog for free and maximize reach, use these two platforms.
SEO
Whenever you write a new travel blog post, you have an opportunity to optimize your content so that it gets found on google. By using the correct SEO techniques, your website will show up when people search for things related to your blog on Google.
Let’s look at an example: Say you take a few road trips in California, then write a blog post about it using correct SEO techniques. If someone then searches “California Road Trip” on Google, and Googles algorithm thinks your content is relevant and high-quality information. then your website will show up on the first page where people are going to click on your site.
The best thing about SEO marketing is that any blog posts on your website that have been correctly optimized will stay online forever. Potentially earning you an online income for years to come.
It’s a long process to getting your articles ranked on Google, but if you target the right keywords, use headers, and the correct keyword density, you will be well on your way to organic traffic.
SEO marketing is a must for any travel blogger, it is the best way to generate a future passive income. Check out our break down of SEO marketing for travel bloggers.
Remember, the more content you have online, the more likely you are to get found by readers. So, upload, upload, upload.
Paid Ads
No matter how well you optimize your website content for search engines, you will never see immediate results. Organic SEO marketing takes time. If you are looking for immediate traffic to your blog, then paid ads are the perfect complementary strategy for SEO.
Paid ads or pay per click advertising is where you post an ad and each time a user clicks on that ad you are charged a fee. Many online platforms offer paid advertising, including Instagram and Pinterest.
If you only have a small budget, then paid ads may not be the option for you in the beginning. They can be expensive so you need to be converting the traffic into paying customers, otherwise, it will not be worth it in and you will lose money.
Outsourcing
If you want to make money travel blogging, outsourcing some of the necessary tasks can be a fruitful investment. You can hire writers, designers, marketers, or assistants on freelancing platforms like Fiverr and Upwork.
Nearly every task you do online can be delegated to someone else for a relatively low price online. There are highly skilled freelancers all over the world looking for work.
If you don’t like a particular aspect of the blogging process, outsource it. Make your life easier and free yourself up to do the parts of travel blogging you enjoy.
Invest in your travel blog early on to grow quicker. If you invest in the right place, you could be rewarded handsomely in the future.
No matter what your budget is, you will be able to find someone to help grow your travel blog. Hire someone to write articles, make social graphics, manage your social media accounts, or design your website.
How to Become a Travel Blogger, A Summary:
If you want to make money while exploring the world, then you need to start traveling and posting content. The more content you create, the more chance you give your travel blog to be successful.
Travel, and document it for your readers. Describe to them your first-hand experience the best you can. You offer a unique perspective of what travel at your destination is truly like.
Tell them the sites, senses, and vibe of a place. Tell them what you see, your feel, taste, and smell. Tell them your thoughts and give advice. Remember the three main parts to becoming a travel blogger:
Set Up Your Travel Blog
Make Money Travel Blogging
Grow Your Travel Blog.
We want to help anyone looking to live the dream and get paid to travel the world. Please connect with us below, let us know where you are in the world and your goals for making money online.
Heres an easy to follow, step by step guide to creating a travel blog site on Wix.
To learn more about making money online as a freelancer, give this article a read.
For more travel blog content writing ideas, we've got you covered.
Comments