Looking for something to supplement your income or looking for a change of pace in life? Times are uncertain, and having an online business is looking more appealing to people worried about their futures. Our step by step guide on how to make money blogging shares the route we took to earning a substantial income from the comfort of our home.
This article follows the journey we took to become successful bloggers. We started from scratch with no online or web background and within 7 years were named one of the top influencers in travel by Forbes Magazine. If we can do it, you can too!
Table of Contents
How to Make Money Travel Blogging
When we first decided to make travel a career we had no idea how to be a travel blogger. We didn’t have the slightest clue how people made money on the Internet. All we knew was that we had a dream. I daydreamed about writing from a coffee shop with my laptop in tow and Dave dreamed of taking photos for a living. We had no idea how we could actually get paid to travel but we knew that is what we wanted to do.
Our Story – The Early Days
When we started The Planet D, we had already spent most of our winters traveling the world for extended amounts of time. We knew in our hearts that one day we wanted to be a voice in travel, we just didn’t know how to turn that dream into a sustainable business.
But we knew we needed to do something epic to stand out and get attention, so we signed up for the Tour d’Afrique; the world’s longest cycling race from Cairo to Cape Town. We hired a publicist to get us media attention, we pitched articles to the Toronto Star (a large newspaper in Canada) and we started our blog writing about our planning and then writing about life on the road in Africa.
After returning from Africa, we weren’t suddenly a huge success. In fact, we were broke, confused and unsure of our future. So we went back to our jobs in the Toronto film business to save money. We worked for a year to save money and to make plans. During that year we focused on raising our online profile on our blog and building our readership and following.
Every spare moment we had, we learned as much as we could about the business of blogging, we got to know fellow bloggers in our niche of travel, we absorbed stories about how others achieved success. One year later we were back on the road with a dream and a plan.
Build Expertise
It is important to build expertise in your niche so people can feel confident that they are getting honest information and top notch advice. You can’t start giving advice, if you don’t have any way to prove it.
We built our expertise in our niche – travel – by traveling intensively on our own dime for years. Before starting The Planet D, we had already travelled to 40 countries. We had done adventures around the world and we had learned how to budget for travels, save for long term travels, and we had been to the countries that we were writing about.
By the time we launched The Planet D, we had already built expertise in our field, and people were already seeking our advice.
Because we cycled Africa and did something epic, people took notice and approached us for radio interviews and TV appearances. We stood out from other bloggers in our field because we did something different and people wanted to hear about it. That experience helped us built a presence online.
Perseverance and Patience
But it didn’t happen overnight. Even though we had done something epic we weren’t millionaires with unlimited amounts of money to advertise. It took another year of building our brand.
We saved a good chunk of money by living frugally for a year after Africa. We got rid of our apartment and lived in a trailer outside Toronto while working full time to save on rent. We worked full time during the day while working on our blog at night. It was then time to take the plunge.
We quit our jobs and set off for India to travel and share our experiences in South Asia. For another year, we blogged every single day telling stories. It was exhausting and we weren’t sure if it would pay off. But we were determined to make that happen no matter what.
Baby Steps
About 8 months into our travels, I remember sitting at a cheap guesthouse Sri Lanka having a bit of a breakdown. We only had about 2 months left o our travel budget.
So we stopped doing excursions and focused on writing and networking online to make our presence known. It was then that we sold our first ad. They weren’t paying much, it was something like $40 a month, but multiply that by 4 at 12 months, and we suddenly had $1920 USD.
This was enough to fund another month of travel in South Asia! We were feeling good. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to boost our confidence and open our minds to new possibilities. We could make money at this travel blogging thing.
Do What is Right For You
At that time, we didn’t know the first thing about selling text links on our blog. But we soon learned that it was frowned upon. People were outraged by anyone that sold ads accusing them of “selling out.” This is how it was in the early days. I’m glad we didn’t know better because we would have never made our first thousand dollars blogging, and probably would have had to fly home instead of continuing on.
After that, we had a small revenue stream that sustained us for a few more months of travel. Once we sold one ad others followed. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was enough to give us a few more months turned into a year.
Give Your Readers Value
“The key to a successful blog is putting your audience first.”
I remember going to conferences and reading articles where people kept preaching, “write good content.” Whenever people asked, “How can I make money travel blogging?” the answer would always be “Write Great Content.” This answer frustrated me because “Of course I was going to work at creating great content!”
What they didn’t explain was the reason you need to write great content. Everyone always focuses on how to make money blogging, but you need to focus on creating content that is of value to your readers before you even begin to think of monetizing.
People came to our blog to seek out travel advice. They came for inspiration and they came to see Dave’s beautiful photos. As our readership grew, people started to take notice. More people started to share our content and a snowball effect happened.
When people start to know about you, brands and companies will know about you too. By creating great content and building our audience, we eventually had opportunities come to us. Doors opened and people wanted to work with us.
Network
Our next opportunities came from networking. We built an online community through social media and every time we heard of a travel gathering or conference, we attended.
We joined Toronto Travel Massive, we Attended the TBEX Travel Conference and we joined communities to meet fellow travelers. When we were in New Zealand, we met up with other bloggers, when we were in London, we went to gatherings where bloggers and PR mingled. We had our ears to the ground and made ourselves noticed.
The more people we met, the more contacts we had and the more we exchanged ideas and success stories. Soon, everyone in our industry knew our names, and we knew the other key players in our blogging niche.
Seize the Moment
As we attended more conferences and meet ups, we took advantage of opportunities. We came with ideas and looked for the people who could help us.
I’ll never forget going to a G Adventures meet up in Toronto. G never wanted to work with us, but we attended the event to mix and mingle. It was there that we met their competitors from Intrepid Travel. We hit it off talking with them all night and the next morning, while we were still fresh in their minds, we sent a pitch idea. We ended up working with Intrepid Travel for two years!
This happened several times over the years. We’d see the same bloggers at events enjoying the free food and drinks, but we seemed to be the only ones getting contracts out of these meet ups. That is because we always had an innovative idea to share with the people in power.
We ended up working as brand ambassadors for companies like Expedia and American Express for years. All because we kept offering fresh ideas to work together.
Create Multiple Revenue Streams
But these partnerships weren’t the only way we made money blogging. Our business has grown more than we could ever imagine. By thinking outside the box, we eventually figured out how to create all kinds of different revenue streams with our blog. When one income stream dried up, we had others to fall back on.
Soon, we found that the possibilities to make money blogging were endless.
Brand Ambassadors
This was our biggest money maker in the early years of our blog.
Since we didn’t have a huge readership or social following at the time we leveraged making money from companies that looked to us to help humanize their brand. The paid us to share ad campaigns with our targetted audience. As the Intrepid Travel people once said, “I’d rather have 6000 targetted readers at The Planet D than 100k readers of the Toronto Star who may or may not be interested in travel.
For 5 years we worked as brand Ambassadors for several companies. They paid us a monthly retainer, and we shared how we used their products with our readers and followers. We made thousands of dollars a month. At one time we had 5 full time brand ambassadorship on the go.
During that time, we also had short partnerships where we’d get paid per project. It could be a destination contract, a social media chat, or simply writing an article about a place that we had travelled to.
Affiliate Marketing
The possibilities were endless. But these could all easily come to an end. Ambassadors only in demand if you are popular. The next “big thing” will always come next. So we looked for ways to make money blogging that would give us more control.
In the early days of blogging, we didn’t look into affiliate marketing because we thought you had to have millions of readers to make money. But we learned that having a handful of targetted articles, can make you thousands of dollars a month.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a process where we recommend a hotel, piece of travel gear, or even an idea for travel gifts and send people to a website to buy the product we recommend. If they make a purchase, we earn a commission.
We promote their product, they make a sale, and give us a percentage of the profit. We now make thousands of dollars a month on affiliate income. But affiliates for us took time. We built our readership and following before even thinking about putting in links and advertising. By writing articles that rank well on Google, we can reach a targetted audience who comes to our blog post looking for a specific product. Chances are they will make a purchase.
There is no extra cost to the consumer, they would have bought the product regardless, we now just get a slice of that pie. When it comes to affiliates, we’ve used the products, companies and booking platforms we recommend and we did our research.
AdNetworks
Once your blog has enough traffic, you can join something called an ad network. Ad Networks pays money you per thousand views of your blog.
Mediavine is a popular ad network for travel bloggers as you only need 50k readers a month to your blog to qualify. We started with them and loved them. We are now with AdThrive and I honestly cannot say which one is better. AdThrive focuses more on food blogging, but require 100k views per month to qualify.
There are many other ad networks out there, and I wish I knew about these sooner. We had 50k readers at The Planet D for several years before signing with an ad network and could have been making money blogging this way much sooner.
Ad Networks have become our main source of income. After 10 years of travel blogging full time, we have finally achieved that “passive income” dream that so many people yearn for.
Other ways to Make Money Blogging
As bloggers, you can leverage your expertise to earn money outside of your blog. We have always diversified in our lives. Our investments are diversified, so why wouldn’t we diversify the way we make money with our blog.
If we lose traffic we still have other ways to earn a living. And here are some ideas for earning money outside your blog, by leveraging your expertise.
Video Production
Dave and I are constantly working to add more dimensions to our blogging. Video has become a large part of our revenue stream when blogging. We make money monthly on YouTube. We don’t have 100k subscribers, but we make a solid monthly income because our videos rank in search engines and we earn money through advertising. Because our videos appeal to an appealing demographic, our videos earn a good commission.
But we also make money from companies hiring us to create videos specific to their brand, product or destination. We create videos for YouTube, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. We have also created videos for companies to use on their own channels.
We even sell video footage to be used in ad campaigns.
Social Media
Because we have always focused on diversifying, we also have social media followers in all aspects. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are big for us and we are often hired for social media campaigns.
We are hired to share hot deals or seasonal sales on Instagram. And we are hired to repurpose content to create buzz or interest in a destination. We are hired for Twitter and Instagram campaigns such as giveaways and contests. And we have helped leverage announcements through Facebook.
Sponsored Posts and Articles
When the content fits and it is to a relevant website, we will accept sponsored posts. Companies approached us to write about a specific brand or destination and they pay us a fee. We usually write them ourselves and they are always based on our experience.
We charge quite a high fee because our policy is to not clutter our website with dozens of sponsored posts. But many people we know put several sponsored articles out on their website monthly.
TV Appearances
TV Can be a great way to make money. You can leverage your fame on your website and parley it into TV appearances. We’ve been lucky enough to have an interesting story that people want to hear about. We have made TV appearances to not only talk about travel, but to inspire others, talk about relationships, and motivate people to change their lives.
We’ve been paid to go on media tours to talk about travel health and safety, Certain programs pay a daily ACTRA fee (SAG in the US) to appear whereas others don’t pay anything, but the brand we are working with pays us for a mention.
Get Paid to Write for Other People
We sometimes write for companies outside ThePlanetD blog and we are doing it in the exact way that we wanted to in the first place. Since we have built a strong brand, people approach us to write for them and pay us. If you grow your blog enough, leaders in your industry will want your voice on their page.
You can leverage your successful blog to write for others. But while you are building your blog, you can write for people as well. Contrary to popular belief, people stay pay people to write.
Even we have paid people to write for The Planet D. This can be a great suplemental income. So search for magazines and websites in your field and pitch them ideas.
Public Speaking
Nearly every niche of blogging has a conference. If you are a thought leader in your field or an expert in a certain aspect of your field, you can get paid well to speak.
When you are first starting you may not get paid, but as you gain more popularity you will. For example: In our field, Certain big conferences like TBEX (Travel Blog Exchange) don’t pay us to speak but they do raise our profile and status in the travel blogging world and offer post and pre tours including flights and accommodation. Plus, because we are speakers at the conference, the brands that attend want to work with us. So, it is worth it for us to attend.
But we do charge a fee for other conferences. Public speaking takes a lot of preparation and we have valuable information to share, so it is only natural to require a fee.
Photography
If you are in a blogging niche that is visual, you can sell photography. This works especially well for travel blogging. We earn money from selling photos and for sharing photos on Instagram. Photography is also a large part of our packages when we are hired for a campaign. The fee may include a few photos that they can use for advertising purposes or on their social media. When companies hire us, you can guarantee photography is part of the package.
Contest Judges and Contest Hosts
We’ve been paid to be judges in photography competitions, to host contests on our social media and website and we’ve done short one off campaigns promoting a trip or product. Like all freelancers in different businesses, the possibilities are endless.
Final Word- Invest in Your Business
Treat your blog as a business. Like any other business, it needs to be nurtured and you need to put money into it. Hire professionals to help you with what you can’t do. Hire assistants to help with menial tasks. If it can be done by someone else, have them do it so you can concentrate on larger ideas.
We spend money on:
- Social media advertising.
- We hire people to audit our website to find ways to make it more efficient.
- We hire people to help with social media
- We hire writers to write about topics that we don’t have expertise in.
- We hire people to take care of our back end and technical problems with our website.
By hiring people to take care of what we can’t or what. we don’t want to do, we are free to focus on what is important to us.
Achieving our Dreams – You Can too!
We cannot believe that we achieved our goal and are still going strong. We love this business and when people ask us what’s next. Our answer is it will always be The Planet D.
It will just evolve into something different. We love the challenge, we love the industry and we love to travel. Even though 2021 has been a huge challenge and we lost 95% of our income, we are okay. We love what we do and we know we can rebuild. Our goal has always been to be able to do what we love for the rest of our lives. And when you love what you do, you’ll always find a way.
Read More Inspiration about how to live your dream
- How to Travel the World – The Ultimate Travel Resource
- 21 Ways to Get Paid to Travel
- Our best travel tips from years on the road
- How to Start a Travel Blog in 11 Easy Steps
- How to Be a Professional Travel Blogger – 12 Steps to Financial Freedom
- Travel Resources
- How to Make Money Blogging
- How to Teach English Online Without a Degree
- 7 Common Travel Mistakes First Time Travelers Make
For more on the business of travel blogging, visit our Travel Blogging Advice Page
Disclaimer: We do receive an affiliate commission from the books and courses mentioned, but like everything here on ThePlanetD, we wouldn’t recommend them if they weren’t great. We get affiliate offers all the time that we never accept and these people that we mention are at the top of their game.
PS. Thanks GirlGoneTravel for the above photo with attitude. This was taken by our friend Carol while in Mexico.
Hi Dave,
Thank you for sharing your experience. I learned new things from you and I hope that it will also help others.
Have a good day ahead.
I really enjoyed this piece. It’s great to hear a nice honest story of how 2 inspiring bloggers got started. I found the advice really inspiring and useful. I can now see how building great content and telling a story is key and that monetization comes further down the line. Starting a blog and social channels from scratch in this day and age seems quite daunting, but advice like this really helps to keep the motivation levels up. Thanks for sharing and safe travels.
Feeling so blessed that I bumped into this blog. Very inspiring! Thank you. Great job to you both! I am starting mine… reading this is of great self-boost. Hahahah!! #happy Thank you once again
Greatly said to make money from the blog, your content should be good. It will attract an audience. Very inspirational post!! the great example of settings the goal. Keep it up, guys. Doing a great job!
You advices are gold thank you so much! I am currently trying to foccus on traveling and to work only from my computer but it is a bit harder than I thought haha! Thank you so very much! What you are living is my absolute goal! It would mean the world to me if you could check my blog and giving me your feedback… thank you again!
You guys are really inspirational. Every time I feel slightly dejected in this industry I read one of your posts and I really do feel inspired.
You guys are an absolute inspiration!
Amazing article, love your honesty & how you’ve detailed everything that you make money from! For newbie bloggers like us it’s so great to have people like you to aspire to & learn from.
It’s interesting how you’ve talked about the ads & affliate links & building an audience first as it’s something we are thinking about at the moment, we have a few affliate links but no ads & are really trying to figure out what & when would be right.
Also really love how you have focused on building a brand, which by the way we love & feel like you guys really shine through wherever we see you!
A lot to think about for us from this, thanks so mcuh for sharing ?
Thanks Kelly. I think affiliate sales have changed quite a bit over the years. When we first started blogging, we signed up for everything, but didn’t see a sent. We were let go of commission junction after a couple of months for making no sales. It took us years before we decided to do affiliate sales again. I’ve talked to people now with far less traffic than us that are doing amazing in affiliate sales though. So it’s worth trying.
For the first few years, all we kept going was Amazon links and we really missed out on proper money. So, it’s good to get started sooner than later. We’re playing catch up now. Beset of luck to you!
Rereading this post and you guys are amazing. Some of my very faves! <3
This is awesome! So inspiring to read about your success and your incredible adventures. Look forward to following your journey!
Thanks for the nice article was great
It is not so easy to take travel full time and also earn your bread and butter from your passion. Being a tour operator I know a bit about this business. One get success when he is passionate about it. What you guys was, passionate about your travel blog. I really admire your effort and wish you luck with your next assignment.
Hi Sinh, thanks for the comment. I can imagine a tour operator is a very fulfilling business, congratulations. It’s the key to life I think, Find what you are passionate about and follow your dreams.
Great blog !!! I want post some Of my picture from Everest. How it is possible i don’t know.
You need to email us for our price list at theplanetd (at) gmail (dot) com Cheers
Great blog! Enjoy following you. Hope to meet sometime…
First, I would like to congratulate you for making a grand success in your travel business. Thank you for the blog, it was very inspiring and helpful. I am a freelance writer and do digital marketing for living. Though I love travelling, I can’t afford to take it full time and travel twice in a year. This make me feel a bit low. Your blog inspired me to become a full time traveler and chalk out my plans for future. Right now I am doing digital marketing for Travel Projects. Hope gradually I’ll be able to start my own.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Not many people can earn by doing things that they love most. You have done that. You are really an inspiration. Best wishes.
Thanking you for sharing your journey in life. I am glad you visit India and nearby countries. It was an inspiration to all of the Guided Tour people. Your dedication towards your Travel dream was good. Its give me an inspiration to stablish the company well. Please visit this site for Tour Guide http://www.guidetrip.com/
What an amazing journey! Very interesting to read your story. You definitely do pickup lots of new skills!
Thank you for sharing your story. I found it to be inspirational. It is good to remind everybody about the hard work you have put into your brand. Got to get back to working on my blog.
Thanks for sharing. You guys are super stars – celebrity bloggers indeed. Do you think being from Canada/US works in your favour?
Hi Erin, I do think that being Canadian has helped us. We took advantage of working with companies here and there is a smaller pool of bloggers in Canada than the US. When we first started, we marketed ourselves as Canada’s Adventure Couple and really used the fact that we are Canadian to our advantage. We always tell people to focus on working with their own country. If you are from Australia, target Australian companies or the Australian branches of a company. We don’t work with American Express USA, we work with American Express Canada and Intrepid Travel started out with the Canadian division of the company. So to answer your question, Yes. Even with Ontario and Alberta we focused on being Canadian and showing the destinations off through Canadian eyes.
Oh if only American Express was accepted everywhere as I get more qantas points with that card. Unfortunately it is only accepted in Australia about 65% of the time (if that) – same in NZ
Too bad about Amex in Australia, hopefully that changes soon.
Hi Dave and Deb, you both are a real inspiration to young people like us who want to travel d world. Hi, I am Ankita from Mumbai,India. I love traveling and so my fiancé. We both have plans to travel places and we will be going through your blogs and videos to get required information. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with us 🙂 God bless you both!
Thanks for stopping by Ankita and good luck with your travels. you are lucky to have someone to travel with and that both you and your fiance love to travel. You are half way there! Let us know when you start your plans!
Incredible! Well done guys ????
Hmmm, smiley face turned into some random question marks…
Ha! That’s ok. We’re in the middle of a major blog fix, so it’s definitely a problem on our end. Sorry about that!
You two are on the list of my heroes in travel. We started blogging around the same time but in the few years since you’ve managed to achieve almost everything you’ve ever wanted while I still struggle (and probably because I get in my own way). Thanks for always being so transparent and so conversational. I’m grateful to know you personally as well as as “The Planet D”! Keep inspiring us all.
Aw, that’s so nice of you Kirsten. Man, you’ve been there through so much of our travels. We’ve met up with you in so many places and I think you are doing amazing. Your Instagram work is inspiring! We’ll see you soon somewhere I’m sure and give Dante a big hug for us!
Wonderful journey and so inspirational. Also I want to thank you for sharing your journey of not only the blog but how you made the blog into an income stream while doing what you enjoy the most. Truly the stuff dreams are made of. All the best, keep traveling and keep inspiring…
Thanks Prasad. It’s been quite a fun ride with many ups and downs, but in the end if you do what you love, it’s worth working hard for.
Congratulations on achieving your 5 year goal, that’s awesome!
Although you both have a lot of skills and savvy, what you are ultimately selling is yourselves — you are the brand — and you are two amazing and incredibly nice people with a joie de vivre. And your huge audience of devoted followers (which is part of what appeals to your brand partners) is obviously responding to that., as well as to the high quality of your adventures and your product.
Wonderful story! I love how dedicated you were to making a sustainable life as travel bloggers, and how enthusiastic you both are about travel and blogging. That said, I could NEVER do this! I really enjoy blogging, but I’m happy earning a small amount of money from my two sites while focusing on freelance writing as the bulk of my income. I wouldn’t enjoy being in the spotlight as much as you guys seem to enjoy it. Anyway, thanks for being so upfront about all of this, it’s really interesting to read.
P.S. I hope Dave is recovering quickly!
You are right Ali, it’s definitely not for everyone. We went the opposite direction of you as we avoided freelance work to focus on the blog. But that’s why you are a success at what you do as well, you followed your own path and passion. If we pursued freelance work, I’m sure we would have given up. It is so much easier to pursue what is right for you and not try to follow what others do.
Congratulations on all of your success! I sat on your panel at TBEX Cancun and was inspired by your story then and even more now. My goal is to also blog full time and share my travel stories with others. Please continue to share your stories!
Thanks Jessica and thank you for coming to our TBEX panel, we love chatting travel blogging as you can probably tell 🙂
Wow! What an inspiring post! I love traveling, and I love blogging. I’m finally making an effort to take my blogging seriously and treat it like a business so that one day I can do exactly what y’all are doing. This post has definitely made me feel like my dreams are achievable. Of all the posts I’ve read from successful bloggers about “how to make money blogging” blah blah blah, your post is definitely the most down-to-earth and relatable. Hard work pays off. Kudos to y’all for following your dreams and inspiring others to follow theirs!
Thanks so much Jessie. I had been sitting on this post for awhile waiting for the right time. I think that the beginning of the year is a great time to get people motivated. Best of luck with the next level of your blogging career. It sounds like you have a plan and you are ready for more! Cheers.
This is an excellent synopsis of how you’ve put all the pieces together to make this work for you and turn it into a career for yourselves. Both inspiring and realistic. Also on a personal note, reaffirms my gut instincts on how to make all this all work and follow your passions.
Going to be sharing this with my students in the course this Term. Thanks Deb and Dave!
Glad we could reaffirm your instincts Erica. I know that you’ve been staying focused and following your own path and it’s definitely working for you too. Thanks for sharing with your students! Cheers
This is very fascinating…. its a dream come true!
Thanks Rohit, it really has been a dream come true for us. We never thought we would accomplish what we set out to do and we’re excited making new goals and dreams now too!
It’s funny you mention Ian Wright, that guys kills us. We recently watched ‘An Idiot Abroad’ which is in the same vein. Really funny.
Nice to hear an honest commentary on the advice other bloggers give. We’ve encountered much of the same and I guess everyone wants to protect their own turf. We’ve met a few very nice bloggers though who we can exchange feedback and notes on what works/what doesn’t – in the end that’s sometimes all any of us want. There’s a lot of traffic out there and different gendres of travel blogs that will cater to different crowds, I don’t know why some people have to be nasty.
It’s been 6 months since we left Canada for our travels. We’ve never been happier. Every day is a new experience and we could never go back to the 9-5 routine at work. Travel blogging for us is a way of documenting our lives and sharing our experiences, every day there’s a quirky little story that we would never have experienced if we had stayed back home in our routine 9-5.
Congratulations on your hard work and continuing success!
Frank (bbqboy)
Glad there is another Ian Wright fan. It’s great to have a strong circle of friends to be able to exchange ideas with. Congratulations on following your travel dream! These travels are going to change your life. All the best to you and good luck with the travel blogging!
Hey Dave & Deb,
Kelly K sent me the link and it’s fantastic to see two great people I knew from set make the life they wanted. Such a great overall telling of your plan and how you hit all the points of keeping your brand strong. It’s a great plan to emulate.
Looking forward to seeing what other adventures you get up to.
Cheers!
Hi Michael, thanks so much for stopping by and we really appreciate you saying hello. I checked out your website and it looks like you are doing great as well!
congratulations Dave & Deb,
Love reading your posts on your adventures, you have been successful at achieving your dream which most people never realize.
From a fellow Toronto photographer keep up the great work
Always great to see
Hi Dough, great to meet a fellow Torontonian! Thank you for the well wishes and best of luck to you in your future travels as well.
You come across so well, as genuinely lovely and engaging people and I think that makes a huge difference to the success of a blog.
I also think that having transferable skills from your day job, is of real benefit and having a genuine passion for what you are doing is SO important. Your journey is really inspiring, thanks for sharing your experiences and I wish you many continued happy travels.
Thanks Shell, we try to be ourselves on the blog so that when people meet us, they aren’t shocked to discover we aren’t who we seem 😉 It’s definitely about trying to keep it real and let our personalities shine through. I have been so disappointed when I have met some of my favourite bloggers in the past and they were nothing like their blog. I had to stop following them because of that. (honestly I was so upset, I felt like I had been duped) I’d hate for people to feel the same way about us. Besides, it’s really the only way we know how to write and blog, we only know how to blog in our own voice and I think that is the key. I think everyone should try to be themselves. It’s much easier that way.
Thank you!!! And well done 🙂
Cheers!
This is one of the best blog posts I’ve read anywhere is quite a while. Thank you for your honest and in depth story. We want to blog and we are still finding where we find and how much we can do while living normal life (for now). But I always love reading about the trailblazers! You are certainly inspiring!! I hope Dave is recovering well. Best wishes for you both!
Thank you for the kind words. Dave is recovering nicely thanks so much for asking. We’ll be back on the road by the beginning of March, yay!
Such an inspirational post. You guys have done so many amazing things by putting in the hard work and creating a blog that inspires others- I know I have been.
At the moment I’m not even thinking of my blog as something that could potentially make me money- it’s really just about me being able to share my passion from travel by doing something I love, which is writing. But you give even this newbie hope.
Next time someone asks me what I want to be when I grow up I might just say you guys 😛
You are thinking the right way Britt. It’s about sharing your passion and experiences first and then working on monetization. It takes time but if you focus on your writing and your love of travel, success will come. Ah, thanks Britt for the kind words too.
Dave and Deb, congrats guys!
“Once we stopped concentrating on how to make money, and instead focused on building our brand through storytelling the opportunities started coming in.”
Amen! As a guy who has Blogged from Paradise for the past 45 months I can assure you that folks, these 2 D’s are dead on in what makes the pro, full time, blogging engine go. My blog’s all about how to retire to a life of island hopping through smart blogging and you my friends summed it up in that quote; focus on telling epic, inspired, funny and authentic stories and the money making opportunities follow.
Keep up the great play guys!
Ryan
Thanks Ryan! Congratulations on 45 months of blogging from Paradise. You are living the dream. I think so many people want what you have and you made it happen. It’s people like you that are an inspiration. Thank you and keep on inspiring!
Great break down you guys! I am so happy for you that you are living the life of your dreams and loving every minute of it and you are having so much success!! You know I’ve always been a fan way back since 2009 and you always leave me in awe and inspire!! Good luck to the future of the Planet D and I hope Dave is feeling better now! 🙂 xx
Thanks Cailin, We’re fans of you too!Wow! We’ve known each other for a long time eh? You were one of our first travel blogging friends!
I like this story! Not many people in travel/blogging business would be so honest about their struggles. The success often looks very glamorous. Perhaps it is easy to forget about hardship when a success eventually comes. But the important part of your story is never stopping to try new things, embracing opportunities and keeping your aspirations high. Thank you for sharing!
Hi Agata, thanks for the comment. You are right you have to keep embracing new opportunities and working towards new goals. If you have a plan and a dream, you can make it happen.
Congratulations on your continued success guys — very well-deserved. You’ve upped the travel blogging game for all of us! 🙂
Thanks Raymond and you’ve had great success as well
This was a great article! I am a newbie travel blogger and this gave me some great information on how to build my brand and some inspiration to keep at it. I’m looking forward to reading more of your posts and hearing about your travels. I start an extended trip (probably 6-9 month minimum) in 5 weeks, so I’m sure I’ll find some helpful information here. Thanks!
Hi Tara, I’m glad that we could help. All the best to you on your journey ahead. It’s a fun ride and if you don’t give up, you’ll do great! I’m excited for you and your upcoming travel plans. 5 weeks is going to fly by! Make sure to keep in touch with us and update us on your travels and blogging. All the best. Deb
Firstly, love your blog, and interactions on social media. Without knowing it you’ve helped people like me who are about to set off on their own RTW journey. I’m nervous, but so so excited, and three weeks can not come soon enough. I am unsure what the future holds for me, but I do know one thing, and that is, I’m going to enjoy every month and not stress out too much. Like you, I’m not thinking about making money from my Youtube channel (which is my main focus), it’s all about sharing the travel experiences and helping others.
Hi Darren, Thanks for the message and the kind words. I’m excited for you! It is the most exciting thing to anticipate going off on an adventure. I sometimes think it’s more exciting than the adventure itself. The waiting and the counting of the dayys is so much fun! Just three weeks away, congratulations. I subscribed to your Youtube account to follow the journey.
Living the dream! It’s been great following your journey. I remember when you guys were on the Nepal/India trip many years ago! You’ve guys have played a big role in how brands have embraced new media – all newbie bloggers have benefited from your tenacity, patience and professionalism.
Thanks Cam, you two are living the dream too! I remember us both starting out around the same time and it has been so awesome to see you two rise to the top and the rest of our Canadian pals be a force in the travel blogging world.
Great tips guys! You’re right, it is very interesting to hear about your whole story and learning curve!
Thanks Emily. It has definitely been a learning curve and also a very fun ride! Cheers
Dave & Deb, you are such an inspiration to us and this post could not have come at a better time. We are still at the beginning of our blogging journey and reading your words fill us up with hope. It was lovely meeting you in Sri Lanka last November, and I hope we get to meet somewhere in 2015.
Happy and safe travels,
Paul & Karen x
Thanks Paul. I had this article in drafts forever and we thought it was a good time of the year to post it. It can be difficult finding a focus at first when blogging and the lack of money when starting out can be disheartening. But I’ve met you and see how determined you are and you let your personality shine! I also know that with your life experience you are going to be a huge success. I can’t wait to see where it goes! Great meeting you in Sri Lanka too and I hope our paths cross again soon!
Congratulations on all of your success! Thank you for sharing the details of how you make money, it’s really interesting, and inspiring 🙂
Thanks Christine! Glad we could inspire a bit. January is always a tough time of year for everyone, so we’re trying to have some informative posts go out to keep people (including ourselves) motivated. Cheers!
Congratulations guys! I have watched you grow over the years with a determined focus on a directed path and have really enjoyed seeing the successes you have realized along the way. You are a great example of setting a goal and working hard to achieve it. You should be proud!
Thanks Gillian! It’s hard to believe how time flies isn’t it? I remember all our early conversations and have seen you grow too and it’s amazing. I cannot believe all the people that have found success in Travel Blogging. Who would have thought we’d all still be here?
What an amazing and successful journey your love of travel has brought you. A really interesting and educational blog post on how it can be done. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences.
Thank you Lyn. I think that is the key to love what you do. Our love for travel started it all and then the love for blogging and everything that goes with it, kept us going.
Thanks for sharing your story! It’s great to read such an honest post about your journey and nice to see that it’s possible to make a living with a travel blog.
Thanks Edwina. Yes, it is possible and that was something we didn’t know in the beginning. It was a lot of trial and error, but we eventually figured it out and for those trying to figure it out now, if you stay true to yourself and your goals, it will happen too!