How to Make Money as a Travel Blogger: Guide to Your First $$$
It took ELEVEN years, from when I started my first blog, for me to begin earning real money from travel blogging. I’m going to boil that down for you and share my most practical tips for how to make money as a travel blogger so that it doesn’t take you nearly as long.
I’ll also share why it took me so long and whether it’s financially worthwhile to start a travel blog nowadays. If you want a realistic picture of what’s possible for you and what to expect as a beginner to travel blog monetization, read on.
7 Ways to Make Money as a Travel Blogger
Let’s start with the most important information. There are multiple ways to make money as a travel blogger, and the first two come closest to what you might consider ‘passive income.’
1. Affiliate income
As a travel blogger, you’ll naturally recommend hotels, tours and items to pack for your readers. When you incorporate affiliate links into your blog posts, you can earn income each time someone clicks through one of these links to make a purchase.
This is the quickest and easiest path to earning your first dollars with your travel blog.
There are MANY affiliate programs out there you can join. The best place to start is by taking stock of what products and services you already use and trust as a traveler yourself.
Then, research whether or not these companies have affiliate programs you can join.
Travelpayouts
Or, you can do what I do and streamline it all through Travelpayouts.
Travelpayouts aggregates a bunch of different travel companies in one platform, making it easy to join relevant affiliate programs. There’s no barrier to entry when it comes to signup requirements.
And, you’re more likely to have an easier time getting approved for affiliate programs through TP than you would be if applying directly with certain brands.
Plus, I can’t emphasize enough how nice it is to have everything in one platform that has such an easy-to-navigate dashboard.
💲 Click here to join Travelpayouts 💲
I’ve made thousands through Travelpayouts and truly believe any travel blogger not on this platform is simply leaving money on the table.
Stay22
Another affiliate program I’ve personally had great success with is Stay22. This one I use specifically for hotel recommendations.
While Travelpayouts also offers hotel affiliate programs, I’ve found I earn much more through Stay22 when it comes to accommodation affiliates. I’ve tested this (and missed out on a lot of earnings as a result) so I know.
💲Click here to sign up for Stay 22 💲
Benable
Benable is a new platform I’ve been trying out. To be honest, I haven’t earned much on it (yet, at least) but it’s easy to get started on even without a blog. Plus, I personally just enjoy making lists over there! So, if nothing else, it’s fun.
2. Ad networks
You’ll notice ads on my blog as you’re reading this post. A year or two ago, I qualified for one of the top blogger ad networks – Mediavine. I was ecstatic!
It took me a year of dedicated and strategic work once I finally learned how to blog (more on that later) to achieve the 50,000 monthly sessions to qualify.
Unfortunately, in September 2023 Google rolled out the ‘helpful content update.’ Essentially, think of this sort of as an algorithm update that tanked a lot of bloggers’ traffic.
Mine included. Less traffic means less eyes on your blog and therefore, less eyes on display ads. It also means fewer clicks on affiliate links.
All of this led to decreased earnings for many bloggers. Still, it’s not nothing! I continue to earn several hundred dollars a month from Mediavine and also from affiliate sales.
As someone who thought I’d never make more than $40 here or there, that’s still meaningful money.
Before I reached 50,000 sessions to qualify for Mediavine, I was on another ad network that had less lofty requirements. Recently, Mediavine launched it’s own version of this called Journey.
Mediavine is a big player in this space and I really do trust them as an ad network partner, so I recommend signing up for Journey until you qualify for their main network.
Click here to join Journey by Mediavine
Even more ways to make money as a travel blogger:
For even more ideas on how to make money as a travel blogger, start watching this video from 10:53. Or, if you want more insights into the recommendations above and the realities of blogging in 2025 then watch from the beginning!
Can you actually make money travel blogging?
Yes, making money travel blogging is not a scam. It IS possible. But the blogging landscape is changing, so it’s not as easy as it maybe once was. If you’re not attached to blogging about travel, you might consider another niche entirely.
But if you have a love for travel blogging, and you don’t necessarily need it to replace your full time income now or possibly ever, then it could be worthwhile.
There are travel bloggers out there making a full time income from their sites – I don’t want to say it’s impossible. But as someone who has been in the game for a while I also want to give you a realistic picture of the other reality.
Like me, you could find that travel blogging becomes a hobby turned into a decent supplemental income stream at the very least.
How long does it take to make $1000 per month blogging?
This truly depends on so many factors. There’s blogging, then there’s blogging ‘correctly.’ Because yes, there is a right way. It’s not enough to come up with ideas of what you’d like to write about, and then to simply write and publish such posts.
You need to think about how people will find your posts to be able to read them. It also depends on how much time you have to dedicate.
As I mention in the video above, things really came together for me once I found the right blogging course and had time to dedicate solely to my blog for a while after getting laid off from my full time role.
It took me about a year to consistently make $1000 a month from my travel blog.
How hard is it to become a travel blogger?
I spent YEARS trying to figure out how to become a travel blogger who actually makes money from it. I bought so many courses, self-taught myself what SEO strategies I could and was maybe starting to get the hang of it a bit until the pandemic hit and put a huge pause on travel blogging.
In 2022, I stumbled upon this course. I was unemployed at the time. With my sister’s encouragement, I took the leap to purchase it. And a year later, I was qualifying for Mediavine. After trying to do it on my own or with the WRONG courses since 2016 it all finally clicked.
👩🏽💻 Join the SYTB course
I still participate in the Facebook group and attend the ongoing community learning sessions.
Eventually, I felt like I needed another teacher to continue to uplevel my blogging education. So, at the beginning of 2025 I invested in this course that I’m currently working through.
👩🏽💻 Join the PPTB course
I’d taken so many courses in the past that weren’t really about SEO or blog growth, though they claimed to be. These two courses are not about social media or followers, but about strategic traffic growth for your website.
Yes, they’re an investment. But as someone who has made the investment in them myself all I can tell you is, it’s worth it.
