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5 Surprising and Inspiring Travel Blog Income Reports

We’ve all read advice from bloggers across all niches that it takes years to work up to a sustainable blog income.

Whenever I heard this, I pictured the most profitable bloggers making maybe $20,000 to $40,000 a year while working other jobs or traveling inexpensive countries to get by. I didn’t know that a higher travel blogger income was possible, no matter how long it took.

I knew the incomes ranged widely, but it shocked me when I saw travel bloggers making tens of thousands in one month?! Even $5,000 a month?!

Pinterest pin that says "5 Inspiring Travel Blog Income Reports" with a photo of Rome through a window in the background

These travel bloggers were not given extraordinary powers nor started with the best-designed websites in the world or perfect blog posts. They put in the time and effective strategies to earn income with their blog.

As a new travel blogger, this is my ode to the bloggers that shared their travel blog income reports and who are inspiring me in my current travel blogging journey.

What Is a Travel Blog Income Report?

Travel blog income reports break down how much money was made from a blog, whether from one quarter or a whole year. In general, the reports include how much money was made from each income stream, their lessons learned, and next steps.

The majority of travel bloggers that do publish income reports typically receive money from these top sources:

  1. Ad Revenue
  2. Affiliates
  3. Sponsored Content
  4. Paid Trips

Why Should You Read Travel Blog Income Reports?

Maintaining a blog and turning it into a sustainable income is a long game and hard (but hopefully satisfying) work, especially since it takes a lot of trial and error with no one guidebook. Add travel to that, and for many, other jobs to sustain them, and it’s easy to just call it quits.

Travel blog income reports are a source of caffeinated inspiration.

These bloggers know how hard it was to start, kept persisting, and saw their efforts and investments rewarded.

Travel blog income reports are examples that this path is possible. They tell us to keep going, to keep putting effort in, and one day you’ll get there too.

On a practical level, here are reasons beyond the (important) serotonin boost: 

  • Look at their most profitable income streams and affiliate programs that they use.
  • Get an insight of what site traffic amount they had to get to where they are now.
  • Get a sense of what you want to try out and prioritize after reading their experiences.
  • Learn from their shared lessons of what they’d do next time.
  • See their monthly expenses and what tools they see worth investing in.

How Do Travel Bloggers Get Paid?

Here are the top travel blogging income streams:

1. Ad Revenue

When you visit most blogs, you’ll see ads throughout the website, from banners to videos, and on blog posts mid-page. Travel bloggers are paid to display these ads on their website. 

While not all bloggers choose to do this and can earn income from other sources like courses or digital products, it’s a highly profitable and passive way to make money, especially as you begin to get a lot of website traffic. 

I was initially against going down this ad affiliate route, because it seemed to affect the reader experience and slow down a webpage. Here’s what changed my mind:

  • While too many ads can get annoying when browsing blog posts especially on a phone, generally, they’re not as troublesome to be able to read the content.
  • And to be honest, seeing that most travel blog income reports cited high ad affiliate income convinced me otherwise. Let’s all get a piece of that sweet pie!

The most popular ad revenue affiliate programs are:

  1. Mediavine: this program seems to be the holy grail for travel bloggers, and I’ve only read good reviews regarding the program and customer support. It does require a minimum viewership of 50,000 website pageviews a month to apply. This is what I’ll be aiming for.
  2. AdThrive: a blog needs 100,000 monthly pageviews to be eligible to apply to AdThrive. While AdThrive offers a higher potential income, they have a low acceptance rate of 15%. 
  3. Monumetric is an alternative to Mediavine for blogs with lower pageview traffic. The requirement is 10,000 pageviews per month.
  4. Google Adsense is well known, however, the potential income revenue is notoriously low. Most posts I’ve read advise not to start with Adsense. Instead, work your way up to more pageviews without any ads, and then apply for one of the other programs.

2. Travel Affiliate Programs

A travel affiliate program is when you are paid for promoting a brand’s product or service AND garner sales from that promotion.

How do you know how many sales you’ve made? You’re given custom links that track any purchases made from others clicking on that link. You can promote that link by adding it to a blog post, Youtube video, or social media posts.

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For the travel niche, affiliate categories include:

  • Flights
  • Accomodation/Hotels
  • Transportation
  • Entertainment
  • Tours
  • Car Insurance

Some common travel affiliate programs:

  • Amazon.com for travel products
  • Booking.com for flight and hotel bookings
  • Rentalcars.com 

An easier route would be to sign up for a travel affiliate network, a platform where you can manage different affiliate programs under one website.

Travelpayouts is the most popular one and has more than 100 travel-related brands in its network with high commission rates.

If you’re ready to sign up for Travelpayouts, why not get started with $25? You can get this by signing up using my referral code. (Yes, this does mean I get a commission from you using my code! And I’d be really grateful if you do!)

3. Sponsored Content

The third most common travel blogging income stream I’ve seen mentioned is sponsored content, in which the blogger writes and creates a post reviewing or featuring the brand’s product or service.

Rates will vary on the brand and work. I’ve seen anywhere from $70 USD per sponsored content to the thousands. 

4. Paid Trips

Paid trips are when a brand will offer free things such as accommodation, products, flights, or an all-expense paid trip in exchange for a writeup or feature from the travel blogger.

A pro of a paid trip is that you can offset the cost of a trip or purchase. As a new travel blogger, this is what I pictured I’d love to do all the time.

After reading more travel blogger experiences and travel blog income reports, I saw that sponsored trips are more work than it seems, and may be less worth the effort. And that if you are to do paid trips, aim for brands you really love and want to be a part of.

Examples of Travel Blog Income Reports

Below are 5 travel bloggers that published travel blog income reports. Since these reports take a lot of work, some of these bloggers stopped publishing them.

What to look for in travel blog income reports:

  • First income report: not only is it inspiring to see how bloggers got started, first blog income reports show us a practical and realistic journey. (Though note that most bloggers were years into their journey before they started gaining traction or started treating their blog like a profitable business.)
  • Most recent travel blog income reports: I also look at the latest income reports to see what strategies they’re doing now compared to their first income report.
  • Their most profitable income streams (spoiler: it’s usually ad revenue), and how many pageviews it took to reach the revenue amount.
  • Their most profitable affiliate programs: If I see patterns across all income reports, I’ll take that as a sign that it’s a program worth signing up for.
  • Their lessons learned and plans for the next month (this is so valuable!)
  • Their common monthly expenses and tools they use: While new bloggers may not invest in all the tools right away, it’s good to see what tools they see worth paying for, and get a sense of how much money it takes to maintain a blog.
  • Top traffic sources: Some bloggers share top traffic sources, including any blogs that went viral or attracted a high amount of traffic.
  • Seasonal tips i.e., when to expect a usual dip or increase in pageviews.

Here are 5 examples of Travel Blog Income Reports:

1. Travelwithaplan.com

After 8 months and new to blogging, Jen made $735 with their family travel planning blog. 

  • 15,596 pageviews a month
  • Google Adsense (advertising): $66.98
  • Amazon Affiliates (affiliate sales): $144.54
  • Booking.com (affiliate sales): $6.78
  • CJ Affiliates (affiliate sales): $0.51
  • Paid writing: $495.00
  • Free product value: $21.50

2. DigitalEmpires.co

Of the $11,000 Shruti made, $400 was made from the first 4 months. Shruti notes that her largest income revenue came from ad affiliates that increased after joining Mediavine’s ad affiliate program.

Shruti writes: “It takes six to 12 months to build a foundation, get into a rhythm, and really understand the different aspects of blogging.”

3. Two Wandering Soles On their last travel blog income report (2020), Two Wandering Souls made $74,367 in just one quarter, or three months. 

Their pageview summary:Total Q4 Website Statistics:

  • Pageviews: 1,018,956
  • Unique Visitors: 646,491
  • Sessions: 819,666
  • Email Subscribers: 17,670 (increase of 3,592 in Q4)

Top income sources:

  • Q4 Affiliates: $53,078.98 
  • Q4 Advertising: $21,288.27 (with Mediavine)

Some of their most profitable affiliate programs were with Amazon, Booking.com, and Agoda.

4. Practical Wanderlust In their first full year of travel blogging, Practical Wanderlust made $22,454. 

Here’s their travel blog income report breakdown from that year:

  • Advertising: $6,720.14
  • Affiliate Income (Excluding Amazon): $1,658.91
  • Amazon Affiliate Income: $2,764.49
  • Paid Press/FAM Trips: $6,135
  • Sponsored Posts: $2,725
  • Social Media Consulting & Courses: $2,450.75

5. Amyfillinger.com

Amy’s travel blog income report covers one month of June 2022:

  • June 2022 pageviews: 77,553
  • Total income from ads in June: $2484.23
  • Total income from affiliates in June: $1739.51

Amy’s top affiliate incomes for that month came from Discount Rental Cars, Amazon, Shareasale, and CJ.

Bonus Income Report:

6. ThisOnelineWorld.comWhile not a travel blog, this blog income report is what sparked my motivation to kickstart and prioritize blog monetization.

In 2022, Tom made $272,712 from blogging primarily from these two sources:

  • Mediavine Income – $152,297.74
  • Affiliate Income – $116,915

Compared to other years, 2022 was an incredible jump:

  • 2018 – $1,700
  • 2019 – $7,000
  • 2020 – $22,000
  • 2021 – $92,000

Note the amount webpage traffic they got in 2022:

  • 3.1 million users
  • 3.8 million sessions
  • Approximately 220 posts published

Next Steps: How to Start Making Money with a Travel Blog

First, don’t over-read travel blog income reports! Regardless of everything that’s written here, there is a limit to consuming too much content before you actually take action. 

After learning from these travel bloggers, refer to their travel blog income reports only when you need a boost of inspiration and motivation to attack a task.

After going through travel blog income reports, here’s my plan and goals for my travel blog in 2023:

Goals:

  • Reach 50k monthly views to apply for Mediavine
  • Make $2000 with affiliate programs

In weekly tasks it looks like:

  • Publish a minimum of 3 blog posts
  • Post on TikTok twice a week
  • Pin on Pinterest 10 times a week
  • Work on 1 paid & 1 guest post per month

My Affiliate Program Plan:

As a new travel blogger, I’m starting with only a few brands, including the ones on Travelpayouts. I don’t want to over-promote a bunch of brands at once, especially since I don’t have a large amount of blog posts.

Here are the some of the brands I’ve chosen to start with, which are brands I have the most experience with:

After getting accepted into the affiliate programs, I go through this process:

  1. I look through my blog posts that either mention any of the brands or talk about anything related to the brand’s services. For example, in my South Korea travel guide, I talk about the hotel price ranges. I could easily link an Agoda affiliate link copied from Travelpayouts and insert it into the sentence, or even embed a hotel search widget.
  2. I go to my list of blog post ideas, and prioritize which ones I could easily insert affiliate links into. If I can’t fit in any affiliate link nor expect high traffic from the post, I move that post to the end of my blogs-to-write list.

This is Your Sign to Get Started Today

Once I start making an income, I will post my first travel blog income report and hope to be an inspiring kickboost for others like these bloggers were for me.

If you’re interested, you can help me out and sign up for Travelpayouts using my referral link. You’ll receive $25 towards your $50 payout, which means you’re halfway there! 

Hope these travel blog income reports were inspiring and helpful to you as well! Best of luck!

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