Wondering what are the different ways to money from travelling? This blog talks about different ways you can earn while travelling: as a travel blogger, influencer, while working as a guide & more ways like online trading.
Traveling is something that we remember even after many years, and that we are always happy to tell our friends about over a glass of wine on a cosy evening. You have probably met people for whom traveling has become a true calling, I am one of them.
For us, vacation and home are incompatible concepts because vacation is life, learning about new places, and meeting new people, is our calling. Travelling for us is more than just a hobby.
And then, we can’t deny the fact that travelling has its benefits.
It has a positive impact on emotional health. It offers unique opportunities to know ourselves better. The people we meet during travelling moreover teach us a lot of things. And such acquaintances leave warm memories in the soul forever.
However, full-time travel is not as easy as it may seem. You need money to travel. There are some tips on how to create a work-travel balance, but in any case, it is very difficult to do it because you risk losing interest in both aspects. But don’t get upset, I have some ways out for you to travel and make money at the same time! Read on, and you will find out some of the best professions which will perfectly suit your traveler identity.
Top Professions For A Full-Time Traveler
Travel Blogging
Travel blogging, as a profession, is becoming more and more popular, and this is not strange because we live in the era of digital technology.
Moreover, blogging as a career is ideally compatible with travel as you can visit different countries, share your experiences with subscribers, collaborate with different hotels/brands, and make money while on the go.
But it is important to understand that to achieve success in the field of blogging, you need to be good. You need to be able to interest the audience and have decent editing and filming skills. We will discuss more about this profession later in the article (including my personal experiences).
Travel Guide
As you understand, this profession often involves travel. Your responsibilities will include conducting excursions to cultural and historical places as well as introducing tourists to the sights of a particular region.
However, such work requires knowledge of the history and culture of tourist places, and an excellent ability to communicate with people and interest them.
Another limitation can be working with a firm as a full-time employee. Nevertheless, you can travel and make money at the same time.
Trading
The profession of a trader is becoming more and more popular, especially among young people. The main advantage of this profession is that you are not tied to a place or time because you can trade at any time convenient for you.
Also, to earn money, you don’t need to spend a lot of time, especially if you are good at trading. Moreover, to work in this field, it is not at all necessary to have an economic education.
These are the most popular professions today, but we would like to focus your attention on trading, namely Forex trading, as it is a great choice for a traveller!
Forex Trading: Why It Is A Perfect Option
To begin with, it is important to know that one of the best platforms for Forex trading is JM, as its professionals will give you the answers to all your questions.
This type of trading involves buying one currency for another; as you understand, trading occurs in currency pairs, and the most popular ones are EUR/USD, GBP/USD, CAD/USD, JPY/USD, AUD/USD, CHF/USD, NZD/USD. To start trading it is important to find a reliable broker because it is through them that all your Forex activities will take place. The broker will also better familiarize you with all the details of trading.
So why is Forex the best place to make money for those who love traveling?
The thing is that trading on this market takes place during four main sessions, which means trading is available around the clock. As a result, you will not depend on the time of day or even location, since Forex is accessible almost anywhere in the world.
This market is also considered the most suitable for beginners, since the level of risk when trading is quite low. You don’t have to worry about investments, since the entry threshold for Forex is low, and there are no commissions at all on most types of accounts. An important factor for traders is volatility, because it reflects constant changes in the value of an asset, and it is due to volatility that trading in Forex can boast high profitability.
Now let’s understand more about Making Money as an Influencer, based on my learning and experiences…
How Much Money Travel Blogging Can Generate
Before we discuss the particulars, I want to give a basic idea that there is more to this game than just hard cash.
For example, my blog took me across Europe for two months (between March and May) and all I paid from my pocket was 70 thousand Indian Rupees — in buying a return flight from India and paying for my Schengen visa. Everything else was sponsored by local government tourism boards.
And later, this year in September and October 2017, I was invited by the Malaysian and German governments for a press trip (all expenses covered).
Other than hard cash, travel blogging gives you a lot of free trips. I mean if I talk about my Europe trip, I spent only 70k Rupees. But if I add the value of all the free things I did in Europe (including a 15,000 Rupee Vatican Tour and a 10,000 Rupee per night hotel room in Frankfurt) I tried at least 10 Lakh worth of travel experiences.
So yeah, other than hard cash, you get a lot of other benefits too.
Brand/Tourism Board Partnerships
Based on how much influencer and experience you have, tourism boards either pay you or do a barter. Barter as in they offer free travel for promotion of their services/destination. Since I am a one and a half years old blogger at the moment, organisations want to work with me on a barter basis. They see less return on investment from my blog (but this will change as my reach increases over time).
In a barter deal, they offer me things like a free hotel stay, a free trip or a free flight ticket in return for promotions on my channels. It takes many forms, like sponsored blog posts, Instagram features, or newsletter mentions.
Again, at this moment, where my blog stands, most of the deal I get are barter deals — meaning, I don’t get paid to travel but my experiences, stay and transportation are taken care of by the brand.
Related Read: How to contact tourism boards for travel blogging sponsorships
But then, free travel doesn’t suffice and the question remains… what is the salary of Indian travel bloggers?
How much money do travel bloggers in India make? How much do I make?
So let’s talk about that, perhaps!
Different Ways of Making Money From Travel Blogging
Product Affiliations
Sometimes when I share my favourite travel gear, photography equipment, or things I recommend, I include special affiliate tracking links to those products.
This means if you decide to click through and buy something, I’ll receive a small commission. The price remains the same whether you use my special link or not. Here’s a good example of a similar page I wrote on Motorcycle Accessories with affiliate links.
There are many companies including Amazon.com, Booking.com, WorldNomads.com, Skyscanner.com, and others, that offer affiliate programs in the travel industry. However the problem is, that many companies do not offer affiliate services in India, so make sure you read their terms before applying for their affiliate program.
So yea, if you’re planning to add affiliate marketing as a source of your blogging income, especially your travel blogging income, try TravelPayouts.
Freelancing
Freelancing helps in making money from time to time, especially during a blogger’s early days. So find a good source of freelance income.
During my initial days of blogging, I relied on freelancing platforms like Upwork and Freelancer to find any travel writing or photography-related work. With increasing credibility as a travel blogger, I now write for a couple of print magazines and an in-flight magazine.
Blogging Workshops
Teaching your fans about the art of travel blog, sharing all the knowledge you’ve acquired and charging money for it is another way how I make money from time to time. I also speak in colleges and travel forums as and when I get an opportunity.
So far, I’ve organised 5 blogging workshops in Delhi and 2 in Bangalore. I even have one blogging workshop planned in Mumbai. Often, I charge 1200 Rupees per person for a 3-4 hour blogging workshop and the total strength of the attendees is around 7 people.
I hope this article helped you answer the travel blogger salary in India, or how much a travel blogger earns in India. If you have any questions, leave a comment below!
Also Read: Different Ways To Make Money Travel Blogging
It is nice to see that how one can survive with the blogging as his career . since you have revealed the other ways of earning money while blogging. thank you for sharing such a informative article.
hii. dev,
i am a civil servant and looking forward to travel alot. Thanks for sharing your expertise. it will surely be helpful.
Hi , prashant m preparing for civili services and mean while m confused if ill became civil servant then i hv enough time to get travelling or not ??? And thats the reason i get confused for this exam or i hv to do full time travelling, cn u please help me out that cn i get enough time for travelling after became civil servant ??
Hey Dev,
Was looking for information on pitching to tourism boards. You have some useful information out here. Please keep up the good work.
As my followers are less, I would try to pitch to local tour companies and hotels, as you said.
Yes Priyanka, that would help. I’d suggest taking the list of hotels out from hotel aggregation websites like booking.com and then checking each hotel’s website to get their email and contact them. I am sure hotels would be interested in partnering. Do this for sometime until you have an impressive portfolio. This will also help you travel more are you will save 100% on accommodation. good luck 🙂
Wow, I received valuable information from your blog. I love to travel. Occasionally there is a lot of trouble in traveling. You have told me how to use money and how to save money on travelling. Nice to read your blog.
Thanks Evan. Glad you found it useful.
thanks a lot for sharing these tips blogging can prove to be best career option
Nice post. I have been blogging professionaly from last two years. But I have a very different experience to share here. Though I have been earning from my blog, but it is only sustainable. I don’t think that I can live a life by only doing blogging and earning such flexible and uncertain amount of money each month. I took a break from my job one & half years back and now when I see myself financially I am nowhere close to where I was two years back. Travelling Blogging seems quite interesting and glamourous from far, but reality hits you hard when you have to maintain your lifestyle in a city like Delhi where from house rent to electricity bills, you have to pay them each month. I am sharing my thoughts from my own experience. So, I don’t mind having a fix income from a job and also continuing travel blogging.
Lovely to get to know both perspectives! I am a beginner – a month old blogger and got addicted to blogging already! (if I may say so) I was contemplating taking a break and devoting full time to blogging but I have quite a few EMI’s to take care of! After reading through Dev’s articles I realised that there are a plethora of options but they aren’t easy to bag, and the need for a fixed income like Parnashree says is also crucial at this stage of my life. I wish there was an awesome way to balance both! Sigh!
I have been following the lifestyle you describe since 2015 and have visited and photographed 59 countries and counting now. The only thing I make money from you did not describe is photography work 1. Selling photos for other travel bloggers to use in articles they write if they are not proficient with a camera. Putting photos that are of poor quality hurt you readership. 2. My wife and I are over 65 and get a small pension each month that lets us live on a tight budget but does let us see the world.
This is great John. I also tried selling photos on platforms like Shutterstock and 500px, among others. Though I did manage to make a little, I’d not count it as a source of income. Can you please share your insights and experiences how to see your photos and make good money out of it? How do you do it? Thanks 🙂
hi, good one. How can I start over travel blog and can travel like you sponsored by travel agencies? plz guide me.
this is mindblowing. 2 months at such price!!! kudos!
I got you in this! I’m doing freelance thingy and that helps me support my travel as well. Affiliate links could be great but you really need to expend effort on those but then again, they’re a great source of income. Most travel bloggers would get their free travel via brand campaigns 😀 we love this job!
haha. Love the way you said, “we love this job”. Sure we do!
You’re living the life that I want. But I have loans so I choose freedom over security right now I’m not gonna make it. It’s good to know some options available though should I decide to become a nomad for real. I have an Agoda affiliate but I don’t earn that much from it. I get sponsored posts sometimes but they don’t really pay that much. Would look up some of the options you mentioned like the skyscanner affiliate.
a very informative read. Often people think making money blogging is easy. But I know it’s not. There has to be a lot of hard work put behind it. I have been exploring some of these channels but not all. And I know how much you would have worked to reach till here 🙂
Wow! This is an interesting read. Ive been blogging three months now and am yet to monetize so you have given me some great ideas! Thanks for sharing and well done on your success!
Cheers Emily. And good luck with your blog. I hope you’ll make good living out of it 🙂
Dev – I had read this one after reading about the awesome 70K trip to Europe. Very sound information. For newbies, is there recommendation on which affiliate programs worked best for you ? I would like to start seeing the blog make money 🙂
Hi Swati, thanks for stopping by. For affiliate programs, I think it totally depends on what kind of audience you have. For a quick answer and an assurance, check how many repeated users you’ve. If your blog has good retention rate, and same readers and coming back to your blog again and again, then it means you should definitely invest some time in affiliate programs, because your readers have faith in you, and they’re going to buy products recommended by you. But if this isn’t the case with your blog, then affiliate programs are a waste of time. I hope I made a point.
Moreover I’ll definitely recommend Amazon and Booking.com… if you’re into travel blogging. 🙂
That is great, Dave! You have such an amazing job, keep on creating quality content.
Thanks Mihaela
Traveled to Europe for just 70k? This is amazing…
Thank you for sharing your story and experience. I think it’s great that you have built your income sufficiently to cover costs of doing something you truly love. Plus now that you have reached this point, it can only get better from here and you will shortly be making money for other things as well. Best of luck to you in following your passion and sharing with others.
Cheers Nicole. Thank for an inspiring comment 🙂