How Do You Actually Get to “Multiple Streams of Income”?

In my course, in my book, and on this blog there’s one recurring theme I keep hammering on that really separates the long-term success stories from the flashes in the pan: the need for multiple streams of income. If the bulk of your travel writer earnings are coming from one source, you are in a very precarious position. If your income pie chart looks like you’ve got a family of 14 to feed with one pie, however, you’re probably doing just fine.

As many have found out the hard way when a crisis hit, one steady and reliable income stream can become very unsteady in a hurry. Many creators got mortally wounded when Facebook started suppressing outbound links, when Instagram stopped showing their pics and videos to their followers, when Google decided we should get all our information from big brands and Reddit, when AI results started showing up in search above the articles they stole from.

All of these very real happenings can kill your earnings in a hurry if you were relying on that one platform to pay the bills. If you had diversified travel income that didn’t depend on one platform, it was a different story.

I’ve suffered at least a little from all of those downgrades, as well as from Twitter turning into a messy cesspool and me leaving my 17,000 followers behind there. (Most of them probably left too though, to be honest.) I’ve also suffered a little from editor layoffs, from declining pay and opportunities at traditional media, and a host of other shifts that are just part of a changing media world.

But so what? I brushed off the debris and got back to work.

I’ve been at this full-time since 2006, so I just shrug when something doesn’t work like it used to work. That’s just the way it is in this business for travel bloggers, travel writers, and video creators.

Nobody owes us a living for this dream job we picked. You roll with the punches or you get knocked out. It’s your choice.

So what are you doing to create more income streams?

The main goal of my Travel Writing Overdrive course is to get people into the mindset that there are dozens of ways to make a buck as a travel content creator. Most of the students who have graduated and implemented what they learned, especially ones who were in the mastermind level with regular calls, have gone on to do great things and are still thriving. Grads like David Nikel and Marco Ferrarese are running blogs, getting book deals, getting freelance assignments, and doing speaking gigs.

I’ve hired a bunch of my past students over the years, contributing another income stream to their mix, and one will be the next president of SATW.

I am not just a coach on the sidelines though. I practice what I preach. In just this most recent quarter, here is where my income was from:

– Direct advertising/partnerships and sponsored posts from 20+ clients
– Display ad revenue from Mediavine, Journey, and Adsense (I run multiple sites)
– Aggregated affiliate revenue from Stay 22, CJ, Awin, Avantlink, Impact, and Travel Payouts
– Direct affiliate revenue from SafetyWing, Amazon, and GetYourGuide
– Profit from leading two group travel tours
– Book royalties from Amazon, Ingram Spark, and direct
– Substack newsletter revenue from paid subscribers, direct advertisers, an e-book, and affiliate ads
– Paid consulting calls
– Freelance writing assignments
– Travel Writing Overdrive course
– Savings interest and investment income

Some of these buckets are much larger than others, of course, but I don’t think any one category was more than 20% of the total last quarter. Probably not even 15%. Because of that, I didn’t get too worked up about all the Google algorithm changes and I kept sleeping very well at night.

There’s one important thing to remember about every single item on that list above though: none of these income sources happened overnight! You can’t just read this post about creating multiple sources of income and say, “Great, I’ll do 10 of them tomorrow.” Some of these took years to get going, just in the creation phase alone. Never mind the time it took to market them and make them a success.

If you’re going to write a book or start a new blog, expect the payoffs to start years from now. It’s hard to launch a course or get sign-ups for a tour you’re leading until you’ve built up a good e-mail list and that’s going to take time and effort, maybe even some ad money.

You can’t get people to pay for consulting until you’ve built up a body of work and demonstrated expertise. The same applies to getting well-paid freelance writing assignments from an editor. You probably can’t get a client to pay $thousands for your videos until you’ve got a great reel of past work to show off.

You won’t make much from display advertising (or even get accepted by some programs) until you’ve built up a history of solid traffic for your blog.

Some of these can happen faster than others, which is why I tell early stage travel writers to always think about the now, the soon, and the future. Don’t neglect the long-term projects because they can pay the most eventually, but in the near term look into freelance writing, affiliate links, and your own products like e-books and travel itineraries.

If you’re looking to totally replace the income you got or would get from a white-collar office job though, it’s probably going to take roughly three years for that to happen from a travel blog or newly launched freelance career. There are exceptions of course, but plan for the norm, not for the lightning bolt. The more you diversify those projects, the better your chances of success.

Where to Go for Side Hustle Ideas

Many side hustles turn into enough to pay the mortgage or rent, but you have to start at zero before you’ll ever get to that point. Some paths will lead to a pot of gold, others to a pile of crap, but it’s hard to know in advance which paths are right for you and your audience. Experiment and try things out; it’s usually the only way to know for sure.

There’s a wealth of info for free online or for cheap at the bookstore about going for multiple streams of income. Hubspot has a free report on 100 side hustles you can start and there’s a book from Chris Gillebeau called 100 Side Hustles. There’s long-running site called Side Hustle Nation, and a book from the blogger behind Clever Girl Finance called The Side Hustle Guide. They talk about side hustles every week on the Niche Pursuits podcast.

You’ll get a ton of ideas if you attend TBEX and you’re paying attention and even more if you step out of the narrow travel space and see what other entrepreneurs are doing.

Facebook groups can be great for discussion, both the public ones for travel bloggers and the private ones you get into by joining someone’s course. I’ll be glad to discuss every idea you’re thinking about if you’re in my Travel Writing Overdrive group.

Then if something starts working, double down until it doesn’t. Pour more resources into it, either time priority or money, until you can take it where it leads. This is an especially good attitude for things that can be juiced with advertising through Facebook or Amazon. If you can put in a dollar and get out four, then keep scaling up until the formula breaks down.

Just remember that a side hustle is an experiment, something that may or may not pan out. As in sports and sales, you have to take a lot of shots to make sure some of them pay off. If you keep putting off those attempts for months or years, the time you’ll spend waiting for something to happen will increase as well.

If you find yourself continually posting “Woe is me” complaints on group chats and blaming billionaires’ algorithms for your problems, it might be time to turn off social media for a week and go start a few new projects. Then in a year or two you can ignore the external factors that will take down less diversified creative businesses.

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