Four Ways to Jumpstart Your Travel Writing Income

When I first started going to travel writer conferences back in the mid-'00s, I was just at the point where I was backing out of a "regular job" and going full-time as a travel writer. I had already been writing articles for ages, but online publishing was starting to pick up steam and I could see that there was finally a self-directed path to real income opening up.

Back then I'd hear the same lament from almost every other travel writer, in its purest form being, "The perks are great but the money sucks." Even the ones I met who were writing for much more famous outlets than me were leaning on a spouse's income or retirement savings to pay the bills. Every once in a while they'd snag a big feature story that netted them a few grand, but those big payoffs were not coming down the pike every month.

The successful site owners I met back then were doing better---Max Hartshorne, Johnny DiScala, Sean Keener, Gregory Hubbs---but there only seemed to be a dozen or two that were running a solid travel content business. Almost nobody was making real money just from running a blog.

It's a whole different world now. There are still plenty of travel writers complaining about the fact that freelance pay rates haven't gone up in two decades and that part is true. But the counter to that is there are a lot more freelance slots available than there used to be 20 years ago. You can also go create your own opportunities to write for others because the content needs are so much more widespread. There are corporate blogs, brand blogs, and tourism sites paying writers to create content regularly.

The gatekeepers have faded into the background for books too. You can now publish your own book, sell it to your tribe, and make real money. More money than traditional authors ever made unless they stayed on the bestseller list for years.

The number of bloggers making a very comfortable living has gone up exponentially, to the point where 1 out of 5 in my most recent survey on travel blogger earnings is pulling in six figures. The rest are mostly earning a solid enough amount to live on.

The good ones attract a large number of visitors every day without having to flog the site constantly on social media. Those that do have huge followings on Instagram and other platforms though have found ways to turn that into a paycheck as well through sponsorship campaigns.

The Money is There if You Have Drive and a Willingness to Invest in Your Business

In other words, this is a great time to be a travel writer. It's still tough, competitive, and tiring, yes. It still requires persistence, discipline, and goal-setting. It's not as glamorous as the bikini-clad social media stars make it look and there are some very long days in the mix sometimes. Plus now you have to be good at 20 things instead of one or two---or be making enough to hire others to fill in the gaps.

Success is now there for the grabbing though. If you're willing to invest some of your earnings instead of spending them all, you can massively increase your odds of success by learning from those who know what they're doing. Yes, I'm one of them, a six-figure travel writer who put his daughter through college on his earnings. If you trust me, I've got some options for you that are almost guaranteed to work.

Just don't sit on your hands or try to learn it all by trial and error and say... "The perks are great but the money sucks." Now that's only true for those who don't act. Or those who try to figure it all out on their own without spending a dime.

Four Travel Writing Career Investments

Here are some ways to take your travel writing career to a new level of income, and what it will cost you in comparative lifestyle terms.

#1) Two to four beers in a dive bar

If you're broke, for a mere $9 on Kindle to under $20 for a paperback, Travel Writing 2.0's third edition has got to be the best bang-for-your-buck career kick-starter on the planet for travel writers. The past two editions have gotten rave reviews and sold thousands of copies.

Besides my hard-won lessons and opinions, you get snippets of advice from more than 80 other travel writers and distilled wisdom from six years of interviews on this blog. It won't hold your hand the whole journey, but it'll give you a good map.

#2) Dinner for two at an ethnic restaurant

If you have some specific issues to deal with and we can hash them out in an hour or less, hire me for a consulting session. For travel writers and bloggers, I only charge what I earn just doing my thing: $60 per hour.

We can talk by phone or we can talk on a video call and share screenshots. Reach me at tim ( at ) timleffel ( dot) com.

#3) A used car payment

The self-study Travel Writing Overdrive course has more than 10 hours of video lessons, slideshows, and worksheets in 12 modules. It's not just a blogging course, not just a freelancing course, but an eye-opener on all the ways you can add income streams and increase what you're earning from the time you're working. Plus a lot of insider info about book publishing for profit.

There's also a private Facebook group for communicating with other students and me. If you don't make your tuition money back many times over within six months of starting this, then either you didn't finish the course or you're too lazy to make real money at this pursuit.

You see a lot of courses out there on travel writing success, but always consider the source. Learn from someone who walks the walk and has been through every business cycle, not from someone who just talks big. I only open this up three times a year. So right now you might just see a notification sign-up button on there, but get on the list and I'll be in touch when it opens back up.

4) A Spirit Air ticket to Central America

For less than you'd pay for a course from a lot of the less practical courses out there, this amount will get you into the Mastermind Tier of Travel Writing Overdrive. There are usually just 3 to 6 students at a time for this 12-week course and we spend three months together on income growth and accountability. We have weekly conference calls to go over that week's subject, participants get a private coaching session with me that they can cash in later, and there's a private Facebook group.

This is the closest thing you get to having an on-demand mentor answering your questions and a support group that will be watching to make sure you get things accomplished. This peer pressure also means you'll actually finish and you'll have meet to keep you on the right path when you start looking like you're meandering off in the wrong direction.

Hope to be talking to you soon!

The FTC figures you're too dense to realize that I will earn some money if you purchase one of these products or services, so here's my full disclosure statement: I created the books and course, so yes, I will benefit. I always try to make sure that everybody wins.