Can you make money in travel writing

can you make money in travel writing

You could travel to your nearest tourist attraction and write about. This also may seem a bit obvious, but if this is the trade you want to get into you need to be writing all the time. It may be a visit to a restaurant, or it may be a diary of your month in Thailand. But whatever it is, make sure to write about it. Before you send in your work to places, read through it extremely carefully. This means making sure that there are no spelling mistakes and that all wruting information is correct such as telephone numbers, website addresses .

Expand into Travel Guidebooks

For all but the upper echelon of travel writers, the days when publications paid expenses and commissioned thousands of words at a dollar a word are gone. Stacking assignments is the fine art of spinning out multiple stories from a single working journey, rather than taking trips for one story at a time. And it starts before you leave on your im assignment. In other words, set the trip up so you—at the very least—break. Anchor assignments can also help structure your trip and secure support that reduces costs. After all, assistance from local tourism boards, hotels, restaurants, and similar institutions—which may cover costs in exchange for stories—is sometimes a necessity for travel writers covering expensive destinations. A handful of writers use hotel reviews as their anchor assignments. Hosted hotel reviews for paying publications satisfy the dual function of slashing costs and generating some income.

How to Generate Revenue from What You Own

Let this serve as a base as you research other stories. Some time later, long-tail pitches kick in. Richards makes sure to extend journeys that are writimg set up, be they guidebook commissions or press trips, and uses the extra time to write. Throughout the process, keep in mind that stacking is impossible without research. Richards, Bayley, and Whitley return to some destinations again and again, and research places—not matter how familiar—extensively before they go. Your research has to go much further than just the location—you also have to research publications and other clients that would be willing to pay you. Who would wriiting suit?

Publications that offer freelance travel writing jobs

Before you fall for it, remember that it also sounds exciting to be a rock star, a best-selling novelist, or to play basketball for the Golden State Warriors. It may sound silly to compare the most successful travel writers or hottest travel bloggers to rock stars and pro athletes, but the odds of getting to that level of success are just as daunting. It might not even happen over years. As a service to any beginning travel writers out there who are ready for the real story, here are the seven biggest myths of travel writing and what it will take to defy the odds. Some people make a good living as a travel writer. They are a very small minority of the total pool though. Most are part-time writers doing this on the side.

can you make money in travel writing

Pile ’em up

When I talk to individuals about their dream work-at-home job — it always revolves around travel. After all, who wouldn’t want to travel the world and get paid for it?! But what does it take to be a travel writer? How much can you earn? And how can you get started as a travel writer? Last week I had the opportunity to chat with Anja Mutic and Holly Johnson and here’s what they had to say about working from home in the travel industry.

Expand into Travel Guidebooks

Yeah right! Getting paid to travel was more attractive than teaching — you want to know exhausting! It turns out travel blogging is exhausting, and really not very lucrative, especially in the early years wrihing your online business, just like most businesses. Absolutely you can make money off a travel blog. Makd can make money off almost anything, either directly or indirectly.

The best way to earn an income travel blogging is by doing something you love and are good at. By that I mean things like:. It involves a lot of smarts and learning from the right people. There are many variables at play. I want to be upfront with you — travel blogging takes a lot of time and energy and other blogging niches appear to provide a better income.

Think like an entrepreneur, not an employee. Getting paid to travel is not that easy. It took us two years of intense work before money started flowing into our travel blogging business. There is no simple answer to. Too many variables at play. I suggest you set big goals and then work towards them step by step. Some people like to set more realistic goals.

I just put out the big numbers and then believe I can move closer to. You know the saying, shoot for the moon and land amongst the stars! Some travel bloggers make a few hundred dollars a month, some a thousand and some even.

The best travel bloggers earn multiple six figure incomes from their travel blogs. The majority of travel bloggers can earn enough money for them to live well in developing countries. This is a very worthy goal.

If you can reach that state of happy financial independence by living in a country where your travl are much lower, then that could be a raging success. Work for the lifestyle you want. I wanted to be able to earn enough, no matter where I lived.

That was the whole point to us starting a travel blog in the first place — to have time freedom, to be location independent. We wanted the freedom to live wherever we choose. That involves being able to survive, as a family, in a place as expensive as our current one — Australia.

And we have reached that level. We earn six figures because of our travel blog. Now all you have to do is learn and carve out your own path AND why not try and do even better? We want you to believe you can do it and we want you to go out and do it too! You can achieve a full-time income from your travel blog when you focus on longevity, establishing your authority and credibility first, and building a loyal following that you give a lot of value to.

Join our free Digital Lifestyle Ca Tribe and grab some free training to help you make money travel blogging:. We are not big believers of monsy one income stream. We like multiple income streams. Before I started travel blogging, I once had 9 part-time jobs. Besides, I hated the box of a ground-hog-day job. The thing you must understand — and this ties in so well to the value thing — you will not make much money OFF your travel blog you can but you need makr high traffic numbers but BECAUSE of your travel blog.

If you want this to be a long-term lifestyle then treat it as. I see far too many travel bloggers getting into this game just to get free trips so they can travel. Get our travel eBookand discover can you make money in travel writing many other amazing ways you ln get free or cheap travel.

If you want to make money as a travel blogger, you need a long-term business plan, not a free ride. Man, this took us 3 years too long to dive into this income stream. It was my damn insecurities and fears that got in the way. Creating your own products or services is a stable way to earn an income off your travel blog. So when you write that business plan of yours for your travel blog, start investigating the different products you can create and the value you can provide through trwvel.

I know what we do looks like a lot of fun and it is, but we also do a lot of work behind the scenes promoting destinations. We work with destinations to promote their experiences via our travel blog and social channels. This is when a brand wants us to promote their product or experience for any particular reason. Again, we choose carefully based upon the criteria moneg. And we disclose, and so must you. Sponsored posts are basically like an advertisement that is written by us.

Sometimes these may come in the form of a sponsored social media update as moey. I was a teacher for 15 years so have no problem getting up on stage to share my thoughts and experiences. And it has to be a pretty awesome package for me to leave our road trip and family if they want me to speak without any compensation. We have a private mentoring group that is connected to B-School. This technically falls under the affiliate stream of income, but I put it here as we actually offer a mentoring bonus instead of just taking the affiliate commission and sending them on their way to fend for themselves.

We offer coaching calls where we share our tips and insights, and we have ariting active Facebook group where we answer questions from the Dreamer Fools and help guide and support.

They are such a cool group btw! Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money from your travel blog because you only set it up once, and the income keeps coming in forever. We recommend products or services that we personally use, like and trust. We have affiliate partnerships with Booking. Click here to get started with the affiliate marketing course Read more: 9 affiliate marketing tips. I wrote for the Kidspot Going Places campaign sponsored by Ij for 2 years.

Kidspot is the largest parenting website in Australia and I wrote a column on family travel, which has just ended. We also write for Skyscanner. Just to give you a few more ideas.

Think about what ,oney you have learned through blogging. How could you then empower other businesses to do the same and improve their visibility? If we had the time we could easily organize and manage blogger brand campaigns. We know how to make them work best.

There are plenty of these groups popping up now that manage these types of relationships for travel bloggers. There are plenty of mobile travel agencies. Cool idea. You could become your own tour guide. Wandering Earl offers group tours around the world. As a seasoned traveller, he is more than experienced in showing people how to have similar experiences to what he does. Would love to fulfill my dreams of being on Getaway. Love to have my own film crew following me around so I could just enjoy the adventure and relax!!

Our friends from Places We Go do this! This is not an exhausted list of income streams. There are others creating and doing different projects all the time. It will be up to you to decide where your focus should be.

Caroline Makepeace is the co-founder of yTravel Blog. She loves helping people unplug from the chaos, follow their bliss, travel more and create better memories. She has a free travel planning toolkit to help you do just that! Caz is the flighty Libran, bringing harmony to the family through crystals, meditation, and downward dogs and the odd glass of wine at 5pm.

It’s all about the balance, right? Follow her on Instagram. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. As usual a comprehensive article Caz. Travel is definitely a market unlike any. I see so many people take a gap year or some other extended trip, start a blog and then think they can make a career out tou it. While this may be true in theory, the fact is most blogs fall by the wayside when the trip is over, therefore never really reaching any decent sort of monetization.

You mentioned that it took 2 years before seeing any real returns and this is why only a handfull of blogs are on your level.

FREELANCE WRITING: How to Get Started FAST (With No Experience!)


Expand Your Genres and Cross Some Borders

can you make money in travel writing
To make money with travel writing takes time. This follow-up article shows you several ways for freelance travel journalists to earn more income. So, if your goal is to make a go of it in freelancing, this article is for you.

Can you do it?

Few, if any, freelance travel writers sustain themselves solely through writing for magazines and newspapers. I write about travel and culture, and related topics like wine, beer, and food. I also dabble in communications, military history, vehicles, weapons, and film festivals. Often my genre articles have a travel bent, but I write them for specialty magazines. Writing in multiple genres has these advantages:. Joney query letters are sent via email these days, and payment can be done electronically, there truly are no borders when it comes to where you can sell your stories. But, even with a wide variety of print outlets, most enterprising freelance writers have other streams of income to make ends meet. Writing guidebooks is a potential way to make money for any travel wrihing. There are several approaches you can take in this area. He eventually expanded into a thriving tour business and he now employs a large staff of tour guides who lead tours throughout Europe. He offers travel consulting services for people who want help planning their trip to Europe. He also sells an exclusive line of travel gear in his store in Edmonds, Washington, and online. And it started with a guidebook.

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