It is 100% worth it to start a travel blog in 2023. There are 5 reasons for this.
Travel continues to grow despite world events. And big demand can mean big profits. Travel blogs have some of the highest ad revenue earnings of all the big blog niches.
Third, even when the world goes into a recession, we still see people wanting to travel. When world travel virtually stopped because of the pand***c, people still traveled, just closer to home.
This also means that as more people discover main tourist attractions, they’ll be seeking more off the beaten path places to visit.
Further, with remote work being a viable option for many employees, digital nomad vacations are on the rise.
Another reason – the rise of the baby boomer generation reaching retirement age means a large pool of people will be traveling over the coming years.
Additionally, once you’ve got an established blog and you start to see a good number of monthly visits, it’s mostly passive income.
And finally, with artificial intelligence writing software changing the way we create content, one thing is for sure – travel experiences is one thing AI hasn’t been able to replicate yet.
Compared to creating how-to guides or developing recipes, writing about the emotional side of travel experiences cannot be touched.
Plus, it’s easy and inexpensive to get going and well on your way to being a professional travel blogger in no time.
In my opinion, there’s never been a better time to jump into the travel blogging world. In 2022, I made $110,000 from my travel blog and was able to quit my full-time job because of that.
So let’s get into the specific reasons why you should start a travel blog in 2023, how profitable it can be and how to ensure it’s successful.
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!
Why It’s Worth Starting a Travel Blog in 2023
Pent Up Travel Demand
As you know, the entire world’s population stopped traveling for almost two years. Now that we can hop on planes, trains and cruise ships again, revenge travel is exploding.
Between travel credits that have to be used up, postponed honeymoons and people who no longer want to be cooped up, the tourism industry is seeing a rebound like never before.
There are also a lot of people out there who are now looking at life from the YOLO (you only live once) lens.
Wannabe travelers are no longer wannabes, they’re choosing to take the trips they’ve always wanted without wasting anymore time. No more ‘maybe next year.’
Hidden Gems are In Sought-After More Than Ever Before
With more and more people traveling, the demand for hidden gems, undiscovered places and off the beaten path experiences are in demand like never before.
If you can write about a specific destination that you know well, you can easily capture the search traffic for it.
As larger audiences explore and exhaust the main tourist attractions, they start to seek out unique experiences.
Increase in Remote Work
More than any other time in history, more people now work from home or can work remotely.
This is creating a new cohort of travelers – those who want to relocate somewhere ‘nicer’ to work for a month.
This is another form of tourism and travel blogs that focus on digital nomad tips, remote travel destinations and other similar tropics will see and increase in traffic.
Readers Still Like Personal Recommendations
Another reason why I think there is still so much room for new travel blogs is because everyone has different experiences and puts their own unique spin on things.
For example, there are thousands (if not millions) of blog posts about Las Vegas or Disneyland, but you don’t just read one person’s opinion about a certain tourist attraction there.
People love seeking out and finding people they love and trust, and one day you could be that person.
A Massive Amount of People Will Be Retiring Over the Coming Years
As baby boomers retire (those aged 56 to 75), many of them will be looking to travel. And this generation has the money to travel.
There is potentially a large untapped market of travel blogs targeted specifically at baby boomer travel which could be quite lucrative.
If you look for opportunities like these, the possibilities are endless for finding a topic for your travel blog.
Travel Blogs Have Some of the Highest RPMs
Blogs about personal finance, food and travel have some of the highest RPMs in the industry. RPM means revenue per mille, or revenue per 1,000 visits.
In 2022, I reached an all-time high of $75.00 per 1,000 monthly visitors. This means if you have a blog with a premium ad network that receives 50,000 monthly visits, you can expect to make $3750 at that RPM rate.
However, RPM rates fluctuate significantly throughout the year.
At the beginning of the year in the first quarter, RPMs are extremely low as advertisers haven’t set or approved their budgets for the year. As the year goes on, RPMs tend to climb.
To give you a range for my travel blog which receives over 250,000 monthly visits, my RPMs range anywhere between $25 and $75 throughout the year.
Passive Income is Attainable
Once you’ve got an established travel blog, you’ll start seeing passive income roll in.
Yes, there’s a lot of work up front. But once search engines trust your website and agree that it provides users exactly what they’re asking for, you will continue to see your traffic grow.
This means you’ll make money every day, regardless of whether you work or not.
The passive income dream is easily attainable with a travel blog.
Travel Blogs Will Be Less Affected by Artificial Intelligence (AI)
It’s true, AI writing tools like Jasper and ChatGPT have the potential to entirely replace certain types of written content and writers.
But the reason travel blogs are virtually untouchable by AI (for now), is because travel blogs are highly personal. In addition to accessing information about a particular destination or hotel or itinerary, readers also want to know personal experiences from the author.
This personalized emotional storytelling by a human is still the best kind of content that’s produced.
Is Travel Blogging Profitable?
Travel blogging can be very profitable. Like anything, you get out of it what you put in.
You won’t become profitable overnight, but if you put the work in and keep your end goal in mind, you will get there.
Blogging about travel can be very lucrative. Generally speaking, travel is not cheap and many people tend to spend a lot of money on vacations.
When you’re able to monetize your blog through display ads, advertisers pay a lot of money for ads in this category.
This means that a travel blog with the same number of monthly visitors as a blog about a different topic (let’s use plants as an example) likely would make significantly more money through ads.
This study, by RankIQ, a leading keyword research tool, shows that travel blogs are the third highest niche of blogs that receive over 50,000 monthly visitors.
Another way travel blogs are profitable is through affiliate marketing, specifically with hotels and other types of accommodations.
Again, these are generally higher cost services, which means you’re making a higher commission on each booking someone makes through your links and recommendations.
It’s not uncommon for me to make anywhere from $10 to $100 for a single hotel booking made through an affiliate link from my website.
Tip: Get started today with immediate access to over 76000 low-competition keywords for travel blog with RankIQ
How Much Money Can You Make as a Travel Blogger
To give you an idea about how much money travel bloggers make, I’ll give you a real world example – myself.
I was able to quit my cushy government job (that I had worked at for 10 years) to be a full time travel blogger.
At the time of quitting, I was making more than double of what I was making each month working for the government.
After 2 years of travel blogging, I started making 5 figures per month in the later months of 2022.
And in that year I earned over $110,000 as a travel blogger.
It’s not uncommon for a new travel blog to start making $1,000 per month after about a year. Many established travel blogs (3+ years) easily make over $5,000 per month, with many making five figures or more.
Can a Travel Blog Be a Full-Time Job?
Not only can your travel blog be your full-time job, you can make double or triple what you made at your previous job.
I quit my full-time job when my monthly travel blog income was more than triple what I made at my corporate job.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to how much effort you put into it.
Many people start a blog and are happy with making a small side-income off it for virtually no work other than the initial setup.
Others have created multi-employee teams after scaling up their travel blogs.
Let’s say you want to make $4,000 per month on your travel blog for it to be considered a full-time income.
With a high-quality travel blog you can expect to see an RPM of at least $30 to $45. Hypothetically, let’s say your travel blog has an RPM of $35.
To reach $4,000 per month just in ad revenue, this means you need 114,000 monthly sessions per month.
To reach that, you’ll need between 50 and 150 SEO-optimized blog posts.
The good news is that you can reach a total of $4,000 in monthly revenue a lot sooner if you also implement affiliate marketing.
This could mean you make a commission off of affiliate links that lead to hotel booking websites or tour agencies.
Does Blogging Have a Future?
People will always be seeking out information and experiences to the questions they have. And while other forms of content can accomplish this, blogs are still relevant and therefore definitely not dead.
The decade old type of blogging in the form of lifestyle blogging where someone essentially publishes an online diary is most definitely dead.
But blogs that teach someone the ins and outs of travel credit card point hacking or every single type of hike you can do in Yosemite National Park are going to live on.
The sharing of information will always be in demand, and blogging is one of the best ways to do that.
I think the only significant way that blogging has changed is that to be successful, you’ll need to supplement your blog with other forms of content so that your audience can choose their most preferred way of consuming your information.
This means you should have social media accounts where you can post short-form videos which provide snippets of information from your blog.
A YouTube channel is also becoming more and more important to help you get your points across to your audience in a different format.
Are Travel Blogs Still Popular?
Travel blogs are still very popular, but they’ve changed a lot since the early days of blogging. Daily travel blogs written in the form of diary entries are no longer popular.
You’ll need to write your travel posts in a way that provide useful information, educational content or entertainment value. The first two being the most important.
Readers are looking for specific types of travel information and less about you as the blogger.
For example, let’s say you’re writing a travel blog for a cruise vacation.
Instead of telling the reader what you ate for breakfast, tell the reader about the different breakfast options on the ship, especially if there are any options for those with dietary considerations.
How Hard is it to Start a Travel Blog?
If you’re considering starting a travel blog, you could realistically get up and running within a couple of hours. There are only a few technical steps to walk through, and then the rest is all up to you and your creativity.
If you want more information, I’ve written a more detailed guide with step by step instructions to start a travel blog.
But in a nutshell, all you need is a few things.
Buy a Domain
Buy a domain name. This is what your website will be called.
I always purchase my domains through NameHero – they’re usually about $12 for the year. Ideally, your domain should be something easy, catchy and memorable.
But in all honesty, it’s not that important. Search for something that’s available and then purchase it. The shorter the better.
Purchase Hosting
After you purchase your domain, you need hosting – this space you’re renting on the internet.
If this is your first blog and you’re testing the waters, you can go with the cheapest hosting company which is Bluehost. If you sign up here, it should only be about $3 per month. I actually still use Bluehost for my main travel blog over 3 years later.
If you’ve made the decision to commit to starting a travel blog and want to be as successful as possible, I would spend a little more money and go with a better hosting company.
NameHero is my preference and recommendation and who I use for all my new websites.
Spending more on hosting means your website will run fast and smoother, and this is important for user experience.
Choose a Theme
You want your website to not only look great, but be user friendly, fast and optimized for search engines.
Within WordPress, there are thousands of themes to choose from.
My recommendation is to not spend too much time on choosing your theme at this point. It’s more important to focus on populating your blog with content.
However, you still need a theme to get started.
Blossom Themes has already selected a list of travel blog themes that will engage visitors and help your blog stand out from others.
Start Creating Content
Then, install WordPress.org (not the .com version), connect your hosting and you’re up and running. This is where the fun part begins.
At this point, it doesn’t really matter what your website looks like, don’t spend too much time adding colors and making it look pretty. You can do that later.
This is when you start writing. And writing some more. And more. Start producing content.
Create Specific Travel Niche Content
While travel is a niche topic, it’s still quite broad.
If you can narrow down to focus on a specific type of travel, you’ll be more successful earlier on.
I’m talking about cruise travel, honeymoons, traveling with young children, adventurous outdoor travel, etc. These are sub-niches within the overall travel niche.
Think about your own experiences and the way you travel. This is usually the best starting point.
The best types of travel blogs are the ones that are the most genuine. Don’t try to fake anything, people can see through that pretty quickly. You want your audience to trust you.
If you need help coming up with content for your travel blog, I’ve brainstormed dozens of travel blog post ideas here.
Learn Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
When it comes to creating content for your travel blog, you do have to be strategic about it.
You won’t be successful if you just write 500 words about how much fun you had on your family camping trip last weekend.
You’ll need to write about what people are searching for and asking for.
You need to completely answer what the user is searching for.
You have to give the user exactly what they’re looking for, as fast as possible and in the most comprehensive way.
This is called search engine optimization, or SEO. Learning SEO is one of the most important things you can do to ensure your travel blog is a success.
If this is your first time hearing about SEO, I recommend you go and learn as much as you can to grasp the subject.
There’s a lot at play between understanding search intent, optimizing a blog post to cover that query, link building, ensuring your website offers a user friendly experience and making sure Google knows that you are trustworthy, authoritative and expert on the topic at hand.
My favorite free resource is the SEO Academy by Travelpayouts.
There are dozens of modules targeted specifically at travel blogs.
I recommend reading through this free resource first so that you have a basic understanding of SEO.
SEO Courses are Essential for Fast Track Success
Once you do, you’ll need to take those basic concepts so you can better understand the nitty gritty details that will fast track you to the top of search engine results.
The two courses I’ve used are SEO Fast Track and Fat Stacks.
If you’re just dipping your toes into the travel blog world, then I recommend SEO Fast Track.
However, if you’re in this to make money (which you will as long as you work), you’re going to need something more comprehensive. Fat Stacks covers everything you ever need to know. Even 2 years later I still go into the course to refresh myself on certain modules.
If you need some ideas to get your started, here are some of my best travel blog post ideas that you can use.
If you’re still reading and I’ve convinced you to start a travel blog, here are some resources you’ll need to get started.