How do I become a Travel Blogger?

How do I become a Travel Blogger?

“How do I become a travel blogger?” is one of the questions that I get asked quite often.

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I could just answer: “Open your own blog and blog about traveling now you’re a travel blogger”. But of course it isn’t that easy 😉 I would say that fulltime travel bloggers are those who can live of blogging and get paid for traveling. I’m definitely not one of them (yet) 😀 But I don’t only blog about traveling but also about fitness, recipes and fashion. And more and more about personal things 😉

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Like you guys I’ve always been fascinating about how some people are traveling all the time and even get paid for it 😀 Although I’m just a blogger newbie (I opened my blog in October) I understand more and more how that works. Hence, I wanna reveal a few secret about travel blogging today 😉

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Traveling is like clothing, cosmetics etc. a product that needs to be marketed. Blogs offer a great chance for travel companies, hotels and other firms who are related to traveling to present their “product” in a better way. Nowadays most people do not trust catalogues, artifical ads or professional pictures anylonger. They rather wanna hear the opinion of “normal” people. I am the same. I prefer looking at pictures of a blogger who I like instead of pictures of the website of a hotel or travel company. Good bloggers not only talk about the pros but also about the cons of something. Hence, they are much more trustworthy than commercials 🙂

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For this reason hotels like to invite bloggers. It’s funny that most of them are luxury hotels which a blogger could never afford throughout his or her entire life 😛 The simple reason for that is because those hotels have a higher marketing budget. Of course being a blogger you can also write to hotels yourself if you plan on traveling somewhere. You just need to keep in mind that most bloggers pay for flights on their own. Of course there are also airlines who collaborate with bloggers but that is mostly the case when you are a bigger and more established blogger or if you have really good contacts. In my case I’ve mostly paid for my own flights. But I find that totally fine considering that you don’t need to pay for accomodation 😀

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And it’s also not the case that all travel bloggers get all of their travels sponsored. I’ve read an article by one of the largest travel blogs who revealed that they pay for approx. half of their travels themselves. If you are “only” a travel blogger there is also the pressure to constantly produce content. Hence, you are almost forced to spend lots of money on traveling. Therefore, I’m happy that I not only blog about traveling so I only travel when I want to (and when I can afford it) 😀 haha

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Big travel bloggers are lucky that they get paid for some of their travels in exchange for a certain coverage. This hasn’t happened to me very often yet. Most of the times you just get invited to stay a few nights in a nice hotel. But if you’ve been a travel blogger for a long time you get more and more paid offers. Hence, some people can really live of traveling. But then traveling also becomes their job and they will surely not just sit on the beach sipping on a cocktail 😛 Behind those tropical pictures and holiday feeling there is also a lot of hard work. I talk about that a bit more in my blogpost “How can you afford everything?” which you can read here.

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Otherwise it’s also helpful having good social media accounts. Although I believe that the follower count isn’t the determining thing for hotels etc. It is more important that you have nice pictures on your blog and social media channels. Hence, it might be worth investing into a new camera (Read about which camera I’m using and how I edit my pictures here). I for instance offer the hotels always to give them my entire video and camera footage so they can use it for their own social media channels or website. This saves them high costs for a photographer 😀

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And the most important thing is that you appear as a pleasant person in your pictures. Hence, do not only post landscape pictures but also pictures of yourself sometimes 😉 Otherwise it will not only get boring for your followers but it also wouldn’t be beneficial for collaborations. Most hotels really take care of you. You will for instance have dinner the day you arrive with the hotel manager and the social media manager. And of course they don’t want to sit at the table with a person who is arrogant or really picky 😛

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So if you have a passion for something (it doesn’t need to be traveling), then your own blog offers a great chance to express and share it with other people. If you blog because you love it and not for the money there is a high possibility that you will actually be successful with it. I for instance decided not to have advertisements on my blog because I find it really annoying at some blogs switching through tons of lousy ads before you can actually read the blogpost 😛 To me my blog is almost “therapeutical” because I really enjoy sharing my thoughts and pictures with so many wonderful people. I blog with my heart and my soul because I also write about personal things and I reveal a few secrets on here sometimes. I always get excited like a little child on Christmas about your sweet comments and I love sharing parts of my life with you 🙂

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If you believe this also would be something for you then nothing should stop you from opening your own blog 😉

If you have any questions regarding blogging etc. feel free to ask them on here 🙂

Xoxo

Maddi

10 Comments
  • Kritika Goel
    Posted at 21:12h, 21 August Reply

    Really enjoyed reading this post! 🙂 And it’s so true what you said about blogging because you love it and not for the money 🙂

  • simplysheleece
    Posted at 10:10h, 19 February Reply

    What do you do as your normal day to day job? 🙂 x

  • simplysheleece
    Posted at 10:42h, 19 February Reply

    By the way I love love love your blog you’re my inspiration in the world of travel blogging xo

  • packingwanderlust
    Posted at 16:35h, 30 May Reply

    I’m starting a blog and I would love to hear from you how do you manage the copyright issues with the pictures and with the videos. Could you maybe post about that or just answer me. Thank you so much and please, keep blogging because I just discovered this blog a few days ago and I’m in love with it!!!

  • Virginia
    Posted at 20:24h, 01 April Reply

    I’ve been following your blog for sometime and love the content you produce! I’ve travelled to over 21 different countries now and I’ve decided to start writing about my experience. This advice is really helpful!

    So when you first started did you contact hotels and ask to represent them in your blog if they offered you accommodations? Did you do the same for experinces? How established were you before you started asking?

    Thanks!

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