5 Surprising 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?!
How Do Travel Bloggers Get Paid?
The majority of travel bloggers that do publish income reports typically receive money from these top sources:
- Ad Revenue
- Affiliates
- Sponsored Content
- Paid Trips
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 affiliates or digital products, it’s a more-passive way to make money, especially if you get a lot of website traffic.
The most popular ad revenue affiliate programs are:
- 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.
- 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%.
- Monumetric is an alternative to Mediavine for blogs with lower pageview traffic. The requirement is 10,000 pageviews per month.
- 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, email, or social media posts.
Sign up for these today:
1. Travelpayouts (and receive $25 towards your next payout)
2. Stay22 and get $100 after your first 100 bookings
For the travel niche, affiliate categories include:
- Flights
- Accommodation/Hotels
- Transportation
- Entertainment
- Tours
- Car Insurance
Travelpayouts is an affiliate network where you can manage different affiliate programs under one website.
If you’re ready to sign up for Travelpayouts, you can get $25 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:
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
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
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
I started taking this blog seriously in 2023 after taking Nina’s Profitable Part-Time Blogger course.
➡️ Read how much I made using just Travelpayouts in 2024.
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!
Sign up for these today:
1. Travelpayouts (and receive $25 towards your next payout)
2. Sign up for Stay22 and get $100 after your first 100 bookings
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