Start a Travel Blog and Get Paid to Travel Blog for Others
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Many believe that to start a travel blog and get paid to travel, it requires huge levels of dedication and hard work.
There’d be right.
It is entirely possible to start a travel blog and make money from it though, not to mention get paid to travel and grab some freebies while you’re out in the big wide world too.
The most lucrative form of travel blogging I’ve come across is travel blogging for others. This is how I’ve made the most money through travel blogging personally (and I’ve even written a book about it!).
Even if you only go on holiday once a year you can still get paid for writing about your travel experiences.
If like me, travel isn’t something you just do to ‘get away from it all’ but more of a lifestyle choice (or you want it to be), then the opportunities to get paid to travel and write about your adventures are even greater.
1. Start a travel blog, build your audience and monetize it
Your very own travel blog gives you a platform from which to write from and allows you to explore topics and styles as you see fit. Plus a regular blogging schedule demands something that all writers (and other freelancers) need to develop over time: self-discipline.
Aside from selling your own products, the most common way to monetize your travel blog is to place ads on your site. This can be either with programmes like Google AdSense, affiliate partners like Amazon’s Associate program, or by pitching directly to companies to see if they’ll advertise with you. You then earn money each time a visitor to your blog either clicks through or buys something via these adverts. If you have your own self-hosted travel blog then you take all of the profits from advertising, don’t forget.
You obviously need to have a fair bit of traffic to your blog in order to make this work, so you need to work on that first. The major plus here for any travel addict is that you can be making money when you’re fast asleep on the other side of the world while somebody is reading your blog and clicking on your adverts from anywhere else in the world.
To generate this ‘passive income’ from your blog you’ll need to draw visitors to your site by posting well-written, useful and engaging posts on a regular basis – but that’s what you were going to do with your travel blog anyway, right? This post on how to get your blog noticed will help you get your blog out there and into the virtual hemisphere.
Get paid to write about travel:
2. How to get paid to paid to travel blog for others
If you’d prefer a more reliable way of getting paid to travel and write about it then you’re best off pitching directly to travel companies for paid blogging work. These days everybody has to be online. Everybody. That includes every single travel company, from tiny tour operators to multinational travel agents. And guess what all of these travel companies need in order to make a good impression online and get visitors coming back to their website time and again? That’s right – a good blog.
Travel companies need well-written and useful travel content for their websites just as much as you do for your own travel blog. It’s just a matter of choosing a few travel companies and then shooting them a quick email to see if they need a blog contributor. Then convince them why you are the best person for the job. This is where your own travel blog comes in handy as you can use it as a portfolio of your work to showcase to potential new clients.
Not only will you get paid per post but most companies will also include a link from their website back to yours when they publish your piece so it’s a great way to get additional traffic to your site.
What sort of thing do you pitch to these companies? It can vary. You may have just got back from a trip and have a unique angle on a well-trodden travel path, or you may want to impart your practical travel tips and advice to the travel companies readership.
The above two options both take a lot of work to be successful (I never said it would be without a bit of hard graft) but if you really want to travel the world and get paid for writing about it then it is entirely possible. What’s more, if you combine the above two strategies and start your own travel blog whilst also blogging for others, you’ll get paid to travel… and some.
