How to Become a Travel Content Creator (easy & actionable steps)

Becoming a full-time content creator is a dream job!

After quitting my corporate job in 2022, I’m now making six-figures a year running my travel blog and travel YouTube channel.

Whether it’s by blogging, YouTube, Instagram, user generated content or some other sneaky ways, I’m going to outline the different ways you can become a travel content creator and give you unique ideas to help you make it into your full-time career.

Follow along, because I’m sharing specific tips and ideas that you can use to implement immediately!

I’m also sharing my opinions about what’s working right now and what’s on its way out.

This post contains affiliate links, meaning if you click through and make a purchase I may make a small commission. I only share information about things I know, love and trust!

How to Get Started as a Travel Content Creator

If you truly want to make money as a travel content creator, here are the steps you need to take to turn it into a profitable career path.

Choose Your Travel Niche

People want to learn from and be inspired by experts. So you’ll need to identify what part of travel you’re interested in.

This will help you stand out from the crowd and cater to a specific audience.

Not only that, you’ll have a higher chance of landing brand deals and making more affiliate sales if you can corner a specific corner of the travel market.

Consider aspects of travel that you’re passionate about, such as adventure, luxury, budget, or culinary experiences.

Focusing on a specific destination or region is another avenue. You can also focus on specific types of travel tips.

Tip: if you can identify a type of problem or pain point someone might have when it comes to a particular part of traveling, this is your ticket to making LOTS of money.

By focusing on a particular area, you’ll establish yourself as an expert in that field, which can lead to better engagement from your audience.

Here are some popular travel niches:

Adventure travel
Luxury travel
Budget travel
Solo travel
Train travel
Food and culinary travel
Cultural travel
Family travel
Sustainable travel

If you need help coming up with ideas to choose your niche, I’ve compiled a massive list of travel sub-niches and specific topics that you can use.

Action item: Take 60 seconds and think of an area that you’re passionate about or knowledgeable in. If you can generate 10 things you could create content about (i.e., blog posts, youtube videos, guides, etc.), this is your niche. Because by the time you create 10 pieces of content, you’ll have discovered 30+ more pieces of content to make.

Bonus tip: Get immediate access to over 76,000 low-competition travel keywords that you can blog about with RankIQ

RankIQ is a massive library of hand-selected keywords that are low-competition and high traffic.

I often browse the keyword library for writing inspiration.

Choose Your Platform

Right now, these are the best platforms to make money as a travel creator:

Blogs

Travel blogs can still be highly lucrative! If you want to get into travel blogging, now is the time to do it.

In the last couple of years, travel blogs that have been around for a long-time are becoming irrelevant.

Many people who started a blog 5+ years ago (myself included) created very broad content.

With AI and new Google algorithm updates, many of these blogs are now too general and not helpful.

Tip: If you start a travel blog today, choose a highly specific sub-niche and write 75 optimized posts about that topic, you can outrank larger blogs and start making well over $500 per month.

How do I know this? After 65 blog posts on my travel blog, I was able to apply for Mediavine (an ad network) and made just over $500 in my first month.

As you can see, a few years later I made $7709.59 USD in one month on my travel blog.

The fastest way to do this and explode your traffic as a new travel blogger is to check out RankIQ’s list of 76,000 travel-specific keywords!

YouTube Channels

I also run a travel YouTube channel, and after 1.5 years, I’m currently averaging around $4000 per month.

What I love about YouTube as a platform for travel content, is that with the right video, you can start making money immediately.

A YouTube channel has a big advantage over blogging.

You can grow quickly with both search terms AND by becoming “discovered.” This is when YouTube gives your video a boost in its algorithm and shows it to people who might not have searched for it.

Another reason why YouTube is one of the best ways to make money as a travel creator is that you don’t need to worry about a certain niche being oversaturated.

You can make videos about the same topics as dozens of other creators.

With videos, there is so much more room for creativity to make your videos resonate with potential viewers.

For example, you could create a video about exploring Italy, but if your information, storytelling or cinematography is different that the others, you can still build an audience.

People enjoy watching videos because of you, your style and your vibe.

TikTok

In 2023, short-form video is exploding.

People have very short attention spans, and people want immediate answers and information.

TikTok’s quick, catchy, and engaging format is perfect for sharing travel tips, on-the-go moments, and visual experiences.

Instagram

With its emphasis on aesthetics, Instagram suits those who love capturing the beauty of their travels through photography.

In my opinion, Instagram is becoming an extremely difficult platform to grow on these days.

Unless you already have a major following, I would not focus on Instagram in the beginning.

Freelancing

Freelance writing and photography is a great way to make money quickly. This is another way you can generate income from travel without a social media or online presence.

If you travel often or have experience traveling, you can write blog posts for other blogs, write travel scripts for YouTube videos, or sell your travel photos online for other creators to use.

Tip: here are 4 places you can check that are actively hiring freelance travel writers:

The ProBlogger job board
Travel Off Path
YT Jobs
Search Facebook blogger groups – there are always bloggers hiring freelance writers

User Generated Content

Creating User Generated Content is one of the newest ways to make money as a travel creator, especially if you don’t have a social media following.

This is content that you make for a specific brand for that brand to use and show on their accounts.

This is usually a short-form vertical video of you using or demonstrating a product.

Start Creating Content

You’ve chosen your sub-niche, you’ve chosen your platform(s), now it’s time to start producing content.

Whether you’re blogging, making long form videos or short form videos, the most important thing to remember about creating travel content is that it has to fit into one of these two categories:

Informational/Educational
Entertainment

Tip: Your content has to provide value, otherwise it won’t resonate and you won’t build an audience.

If you’re creating content that is informative or educational, you need to share the best information in the most concise way possible.

You need to provide personal insights, observations and tips that no one else has shared about that topic.

If your content is for entertainment purposes, you’ll need to ensure your visuals are highly engaging and your storytelling has to be compelling and emotional.

You can also combine these, and provide educational and entertainment at the same time.

For example, share specific and helpful ‘need-to-know’ information about a destination or tourist activity but also share your opinions in a humorous way.

If you need help coming up with ideas, I have a list of 115 travel blog post ideas that you can steal.

Monetize Your Travel Content (how to make money as a travel content creator)

Here’s how you’ll make money:

Affiliate Marketing

This is where you recommend products or services to your followers and earn a commission from every sale made through your unique referral link.

For travelers, this is usually hotel stays, car rentals, and travel gear.

Affiliate marketing can be considered passive income, since once you set up your links, you can make sales as long as people are seeing and clicking on those links.

Display Ads

On your blog or on YouTube, once you meet a certain threshold of traffic, you can apply for display ad monetization.

Ad revenue on your website or YouTube channel is true passive income. Because once you hit publish, ads will be displayed on your content and then you receive money each month!

Sell Your Own Products

Arguably, this is the most lucrative and reliable way to make money as a content creator. In the travel industry, you could sell:

Itineraries
Custom itineraries
E-books
Courses (e.g., how to get free flights using points)
Physical products (t-shirts, journals)

Tip: check out Thatch – it’s a website where you can easily publish and sell travel guides and services in your own online shop. You don’t need a blog, website or social media presence to get started.

Check out my Thatch Shop for inspiration!

Sell Memberships

If you’ve built up enough of a following, you can sell memberships as an added revenue source.

The most popular way to do this is through a website like Patreon for example.

This is where people pay monthly for access to exclusive content that’s not available on any of your other platforms.

This could be behind the scenes content, ways to connect directly with you (the creator), some people send postcards or give shoutouts, etc.

Check the list of travel creators on Patreon for inspiration (and to get an idea of how much money they’re making).

Sell Your Services

Again, you’ll need a bit of an audience for this, but once you do, this can be a lucrative and low effort way to make money as a travel blogger or content creator.

You can sell custom itineraries, consultation services or just a general one-on-one chat with someone who is planning a trip somewhere and needs to consult with an expert on it. That could be you!

What Equipment and Skills Do You Need to Become a Travel Content Creator?

If you’re a beginner, you don’t need very much to get started in the world of making money as a content creator or influencer.

Equipment-wise, all you need to get started is your phone. With your phone, you can take photos and make long and short form videos.

If you do want to take better photos and videos, here’s my Guide to Camera Gear for Aspiring Travel Bloggers.

A laptop or computer is necessary if you want to write and publish blog posts.

As far as skills, writing is essential. Even if you’re not the best writer, you can use tools like ChatGPT to help fill in the blanks and massage your posts or scripts.

Becoming a UGC Travel Creator

You’ll need to reach out and pitch to brands, but once you land some deals, you’ll be making money immediately.

Here are the most popular types of user generated content for travel right now:

Promoting a travel product such as luggage, packing cubes, travel clothing
Showcasing a hotel or Airbnb
Promoting a specific destination (e.g., top things to do in NYC in the fall)

You can see in this TikTok trending graph, the hashtag #ugctravelcontent is in high demand.

Tip: If you’ve been on a few vacations recently and want to get into travel UGC, try this:

create a TikTok account, and post examples of the above types of content based on your recent travels.
Your audience is brands, so create a mix of examples of your work, as well as personal videos sharing your strengths, who you’re looking to work with, and tidbits here and there about why they should hire you.

Bonus tip: if you have an upcoming trip planned, reach out to specific Airbnb properties or independent hotels in the area and ask if you can create some travel UGC for them in exchange for a stay. Direct them to your page to see your work.

Other Insights & Tips to Consider About Being a Travel Content Creator

It will take time

You have to be patient and you have to persevere.

When I started my blog in January 2019, I worked almost every single day without making a single penny for 8 months. I made my first affiliate sale at that point, in which I earned under $5 in commission.

3 months later, I qualified for Mediavine, and immediately made over $500 in my first month.

The point is, you have to treat this like a business from day one. You have to commit and believe in yourself. You cannot give up after a month, or even 6 months.

If you put the effort into it, and give your content some time to be discovered, you will absolutely be successful in making money as a travel content creator.

You May Have to Shift

My best advice is to just start with what you know and what you’re interested in.

The best thing you can do for yourself is to practice at getting the content out there. Even if it’s not perfect.

Once you start publishing, you’ll start to get feedback, you’ll become more efficient and you’ll start to find an angle.

As you produce content and it starts to take off, you might notice that you’re exceeding in an area that you didn’t really think about.

Don’t be afraid to pivot!

Who Can Be a Travel Content Creator?

If you’ve been on a few holidays in the past, or you travel a few times a year, you can become a travel content creator.

You don’t need a following, you don’t need to be an influencer to join the travel creator community.

All you need is the ability to come up with content that would be useful to someone planning a trip.

You don’t even need to travel, here’s my guide on How to Start a Travel Blog Without Traveling (6 Ways).