Today I´m going to talk about how you can make money from a travel vlog and become the next YouTube top earner!
Although there are several ways you can make money while traveling here are some of the most used (and profitable) ways to earn an income.
So, if you want to learn how you can build several streams of income then keep reading…
1. Sponsorships & Brand Deals
Travel agencies, tour companies, hotels, and many other businesses are going to be really interested in having access to your audience and that you try their products/services in exchange for a percentage of the sales or direct payment.
It is probably one of the most profitable ways to make money online and get the most out of every single piece of content you create.
What´s the down side?
You NEED to already own an audience and reach a certain number of viewers/subscribers.
However, there are plenty of options for smaller channels as well as newbie travel vloggers.
For example, there are services that offer to connect brands with the right creators, that is the case of
Now, there are a number of things you can do if you want to work with brands, offer them to have an Ad (properly placed) on your website, try their products/services and then give your honest review, use the product in one of your videos, or simply giving a shoutout.
TIP! Offer solely products that you ACTUALLY like, your viewers come first, and know your numbers, how much are you going to charge for certain services, which is a great way to let your new partners know that you are serious.
2. Build Your Store
The second most popular thing you can do to earn an income is to build your own store of personalized products.
Yep, you can find lots of successful YouTubers that do this by selling T-shirts, hats, sneakers, or even a SwitchPod, what is that? It is Pat Flynn´s tripod product specially designed for vloggers.
So, while you are traveling the world you can have an e-commerce store that makes money for you no matter where you are.
Although you MUST automate the process of delivery each and every time a new customer buys from you that´s fairly easy to do nowadays.
Now, remember! If you are trying to build a brand around your business and make yourself known on ANY given industry then you have to put in the work first, provide value upfront and then cash in!
3. Blogging With Purpose
Another MUST is to have your own blog/website where people can get to know more about you and the places you visit.
In case you didn´t realized it yet the written word is not going anywhere…
…so, you should be trying to reach your audience not only through video content but also from your blog posts.
Like Dan does:
As well as creating awesome videos you can easily crank up
In addition to
What´s the best part?
You´ll be able to monetize your vlogs in several different ways!
Blogs can easily use Ads a constant stream of income you can rely on no matter what you talk about as long as there´s someone interested on reading it, also, you can add affiliate links, offer your own products, and/or link to your own e-commerce store.
Plus, you can embed your YouTube videos to get more views as well as subscribers to your channel! Great, right?
Last but not least, having your own website helps to build trust with your audience as you´ll have a reliable online presence that people know they can search for whenever they want if they like to learn more about you.
4. Adsense Revenue
Probably one of the best known sources of income online, the adsense program gives a percentage of the profit to publishers (aka bloggers & youtubers) depending on the number of clicks and impressions that an specific Advertisment gets.
Now, if you already have a successful channel and also a blog where people can easily find you then you have twice the revenue as if you were only focusing on your YouTube channel.
Basically, you´ve double your chances of someone clicking on your Ads!
Another thing to keep in mind is this:
How many visitors do you need to make a substantial income?
Once you´ve reached a certain number of page views (which can range between 10.000 and 30.000 pageviews per month) on your Blog/Site you can get in touch with Premium ad networks who can easily increase your ad revenue by paying a higher RPM, which is a page revenue per thousand impressions, as well as your CPC rates.
How can you increase your blog´s traffic?
You can simply encourage people that watch your vlogs to head over to your site if they want to learn more about your trip or get more information on a certain topic. That´s it!
BONUS TIP! If you want to increase your YouTube Adsense income you should make longer content and put ads in the middle of your video or wherever it makes sense.
The Creator Academy´s Advice
One thing way too many people tend to overlook is YouTube´s own guidelines to creater better (and more profitable) content with your videos.
Remember! The more money you make the more they´ll make!
So, be aware of some of their tips in order to effectively monetize your content to increase revenue.
Here´s a good example:
Following this sort of advice you´ll get better results when it comes to enabling monetization in your vlogging channel.
Now, this tip by itself won´t create a radical change, but if you start reading and trying out each of the zillion different tips they give for free you´ll find how they can easily compound.
5. Info Products
I would say that this is one of my favourite ways to make money online as it is something that entirely own, that you can create by yourself, and… if you´ve done a good job you´ll get rewarded over and over again.
Whether is selling your skills and tactics through an online course or by writing an e-book there are a number of ways you can make info products available to your fans.
For examplpe, a personalized guide for every city you visit, with maps, photos, and personal recommendations might work!
Now, imagine if you´d combine both on a promo, you got yourself a sure sell.
Specific Digital Aids
Another effective form of info productos is creating smaller, more specific, options for those who want to get something done or want more useful information but they don´t want to buy or even read through through your entire book/guide.
In fact.
I´ve seen a good example of this recently on a travel blog, a PDF that costs $2 but has all the information you need about train rails and how to travel through certain european countries with all the tips and tricks included.
You can make really creative products if you let your imagination fly, a personalized excel sheet to calculate costs of traveling, a PDF with weird, little-known places to go in a certain city/country, etc.
You can have so much fun with it, go nuts! 😉
6. Affiliate Marketing
So, you want to be able to make money with your trips but you don´t really want to do the heavy lifting when it comes to developing your own products or onlince courses, right?
No problem!
You can simply take advantage of affiliate marketing and sell other people´s product and services in exchange for a comission for every sale you get for them.
In fact, affiliate marketing is probably the perfect way (combined with ads) to start earning right from the start, whether you have a small, medium, or a large audience.
As long as you offer products that you actually like and trust, and you put your fans first you´ll be fine!
There are tons of great networks that have a wide variety of offers you can choose from and that can povide value to your viewers.
Now, just to name a few of the most popular ones:
- Amazon Associates – If you want to link to your camera gear, tripods, mics, or any other physical product you can´t directly link to the manufacturer in order to get a commission, you can certainly find it on Amazon.
- Clickbank – Probably the second most popular option out there, you definitively should check it out if you want to offer a digital product to your audience.
- Shareasale – They have, in my opinion, a larger variety of more specific physical products you can´t find anywhere else, and that´s why I like them so much. Plus, they have great commission percentages for publishers.
- CJ by Conversant – Finally, CJ is an older affiliate network with lots of options for those who are interested in making money from almost any type of products, no matter the industry you are in.
TIP! If you are going to use Amazon Associates then you might want to check out Kit.com as it is a great way to build “mini-stores” for your entire gear and create categories for each.
7. Consulting & Freelancing
Last but not least, you can easily trade your time for money getting clients for your consulting business and earn a sizeable income from wherever you are in the world at any given moment.
There´s, in fact, a lot of money to be made in the consulting business as there is a lot of people that can benefit from your expertise whether is if you have an specific expertise or you want to help people out with their traveling goals.
On the other hand, you can act as a freelancer by specializing on one single area/industry and provide great value to your clients.
Here´s a few good alternatives you can try…
Virtual Assistant
One of the most popular and lucrative ways to get started as a freelancer and make money from home is to work as a VA (Virtual Assistant).
Why?
Well, simply because you don´t need to have a business yourself and sometimes you don´t even need to have an expertise or a lot of knowledge about something.
There are a lot of examples of people that need something done just because it can´t be done by a machine… yet. 😉
That bein said, there a ton more opportunities out there for those who have an specific skill or some experience on a certain field of work.
For example, you could be hired becuase you know graphic design or you know about social media management.
However, there are a lot more jobs as an administrative assistant or a business coordinator, maybe an operations executive, etc.
The Creative Industry
Another thing to take notice is that creative careers are trending right now and are going to be one of the most requested jobs in the next few years.
Due to the fact that technology advancements are going so fast and that many tasks are being automated that leads to a proportional need for more creative tasks to be handled by actual people then ever before.
So, if you don´t know how to use Photoshop or Illustrator but you were thinking about it, get after it NOW!
In addition to this, there are many other examples you can be interested on, like video editor, filmmaker, motion graphics, etc.
Fiverr & UpWork
Finally, whether you want to work as a VA or you want to be hired to work with a creative team of people there are a few places you can visit if you want to act as an independient worker.
Both Fiverr and Upwork are great examples of how far you can go in terms of rapid skill monetization.
You can get a lot “jobs” done while lying on the beach and charge small amounts for each task or take a massive project that pays several hundreds of dollars from Upwork, it´s up to you.
Related Questions
How do youtubers travel so much? You probably already know this but youtubers get paid by brands that offer their services/products so that youtubers can travel and promote those same services to their audiences. They can stay on hotels “free” of charge, take a flight with zero cost, book a city tour without spending a single dollar, etc.
How much do sponsors pay youtubers? The short answer is that it depends. Now, some of the things that brands tend to look for when negotiating with an influencer is the size of the audience as well as the ENGAGEMENT, meaning if the people that watch the videos actually comment, like, or share the content, interact with the influencer on social media, and really care about the content that´s being shared. It can range between $10 and $100 dollars per thousand views depending on the sponsor. Now, if you want to learn more how much YouTubers usually charge then you can read this post.