Getting Paid To Travel The World (This Is How I Do It)

Paid To Travel

After 10-years traveling the world, my most common question is: “how do you make money traveling?” or “how do you get paid to travel?” So here’s my detailed answer.

Working as a professional travel blogger and photographer has been a dream come true after many years of hard work.

But I completely understand your curiosity. How am I getting paid to travel around the world so much?

It always seems like I’m on a perpetual vacation, going on wild adventures to places like Costa Rica, Morocco, Antarctica, Iceland, and Afghanistan — but there’s a lot more to it behind the scenes. Somehow I need to make a living!

How exactly do I make money? How do I fund my travels? Do I have sponsors? Who is paying me to travel the world?

I know it doesn’t seem possible, but it is. And I’m about to show you how.

Getting Paid To Travel In 2023

Want To Get Paid To Travel?

What started as a hobby is now my full-time job. Interested in starting a blog to make money while traveling?

How Do I Fund My Adventures?

There are many different ways to get paid to travel the world. For me, I make money from this travel blog you’re reading now, which I started ten years ago.

However, I’ll share other travel-friendly jobs at the end of this article too.

My own income sources can change from year to year, and some are more complicated than others. Attempting to explain how I get paid to travel in casual conversation usually takes a while.

Often times I’ll just throw out “travel writer” or “photographer” to avoid a lengthy discussion. Basically a full-time digital nomad.

But because this is the big question everyone wants an answer to, I’ll finally try to clarify the details for you today.

You’ll learn exactly how I’ve funded my travels for the past 10 years — and how I’m able to use my blog to get paid for traveling around the world.

Paid To Travel The World

It was 2009 when I first began planning to quit my job and travel. I was inspired by two friends. Both were traveling very cheaply, on a backpacker’s budget, living on less than it takes to live in the United States.

I was completely enthralled with their photos and stories from exotic destinations around the world. They had me reading inspiring books and quotes about travel, and I was hooked!

At the time, I didn’t realize you could travel long-term for less than $1000 a month! Budget travel was an entirely new concept for me.

My buddy Ferenc was backpacking through Southeast Asia, making money advertising with Google Adsense on his photography website.

My friend Katie was working on private yachts as a chef, island hopping around the Caribbean and Mediterranean.

I thought if they could make money traveling like this, so could I!

Saving Money To Travel

My family isn’t wealthy (by American standards), and I’ve never had a trust fund. According to US statistics I was lower-middle class, a single dude living in South Florida working 2 jobs earning about $30k per year.

How could I possibly save money to travel the world for a year living on that?

The answer is I downsized my lifestyle to live on even less.

I’d just finished paying off my car, so I decided to sell it. I canceled my car insurance, gym membership, and Netflix subscription. I purchased a used commuter bicycle, a rain poncho, and a bus pass to get around.

I sold off almost everything of any value that I owned. Goodbye DJ turntables, goodbye stereo, goodbye sports equipment.

I stopped going out to bars, restaurants, and nightclubs too. I cooked a lot of pasta & rice at home. Made my own cheap sandwiches for lunch.

I rented a small room for $400 in a small 2 bedroom house I shared with 2 other people in the suburbs.

These simple (but boring) actions allowed me to save about $7000 over the course of a year. It required discipline, and it wasn’t exactly “fun”.

Making Money While Traveling

While I spent a year saving money for (what would initially be) a 12-month journey through Central America, I was also dedicating my free time to developing a side-hustle to make extra money that would help pay the bills as I traveled.

I worked countless coffee-fueled nights and weekends doing hundreds of hours of research to learn about and build a small online business writing and selling digital guides (aka ebooks). My social life kind of fell apart because I wasn’t going out much… only working on my side business.

But chasing my travel dreams was more important to me at the time.

When I finally left for Guatemala in November of 2010, in addition to my savings, I was also earning $1000-$2000 a month selling three different how-to guides on various topics related to the nightlife industry.

After a few years, my ebook side-income business slowed down, as much of my success was from advertising with Google Adwords, a platform that shows ads in your search results. Google made changes that hurt my business a lot.

Luckily by then I’d begun to diversify my income streams, and was earning money from my travel blog. And have continued to ever since.

Current Blog Income Sources

1. Influencer Marketing

Companies pay me to travel by advertising on this blog and my social media accounts. It takes many forms, like sponsored blog posts, Instagram features, brand ambassadorship programs, or newsletter mentions.

I’ve built up a large loyal audience of people who are interested in travel, and these companies want access to that audience.

Examples include deals with respected companies like American Express, Momondo, Citizen Watches, or Backcountry.

I always include a disclaimer if I’m partnering with a brand and only work with companies that I admire and trust.

2. Affiliate Marketing

Whenever I share my favorite travel gear, photography equipment, books, or online courses with you, I include special affiliate tracking links to those products.

This means if you decide to click through and buy something, I’ll receive a small commission. The price remains the same whether you use my special link or not.

Examples include Discover Cars, Get Your Guide Tours, Amazon, Backcountry, Booking, Airbnb, Adorama Photo, and many more.

There are also dedicated affiliate networks like Share A Sale and Commission Junction who represent all kinds of different products.

To see my affiliate links in action, check out my Travel Gear Guide.

While individual commissions might be pretty small, this site receives 500,000+ pageviews per month. Many people are clicking on those links and buying things, which allows me to get paid to travel.

3. Freelance Travel Photography

I earn money licensing my travel photography for use in commercial marketing campaigns, or for editorial use by media outlets. Tour companies, national tourism boards, outdoor brands, magazines, book publishers and others buy my images from time to time.

I’ve even sold travel photography to National Geographic!

Selling travel photography prints is not a huge income source for me. Most photography income comes from working with brands/destinations/media outlets who find me online.

Another source of income is when I go after people using my images without permission, and force them to buy a license. Copyright theft is rampant online, and as the owner of these images, I’m legally entitled to compensation. I’m able to do this through a service called Ryde One.

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4. Destination Marketing

Occasionally a country’s tourism board will invite me to visit and write about my experiences traveling through their country.

In the past these were unpaid; but flights, accommodation, and activities were covered like a traditional media press trip.

Well, now I’m getting paid to travel on these destination marketing projects. Usually, they reach out to me, but sometimes I’ll pitch a project to them too.

A campaign usually produces a mix of blog posts, social media content, photography, and video footage.

5. Display Advertising

Google has an advertising platform called Adsense. By placing some special code on your blog, they display relevant ads within the content of your site.

You earn income each time a reader clicks on one of these ads. They can also integrate into your YouTube videos, which is how vloggers make money.

If your blog receives enough traffic, premium advertising networks like Mediavine pay more than Adsense. Rates vary between $2 – $40 per 1000 views depending on your topic.

6. Paid Public Speaking

As a blogger, you can also get paid to travel by speaking at conferences and events around the world related to your topic. So in my case, I’ve spoken about travel photography and led some photography workshops.

Teaching others with a practical and inspirational speech is a skill that many companies will pay for. If you can build up your online brand, companies will start to seek you out for these kinds of speaking jobs.

Other Ways To Earn Money Traveling

There are other ways to make money from a travel blog which I currently don’t take advantage of. Here are some additional examples.

Freelance Travel Writing

I used to write travel articles for other websites. They needed content, and I had stories and experiences to share. TravelChannel.com was once one of my clients.

It can be a decent source of income for some people, for me it was sporadic. These days I’m able to earn more working on my own site rather than writing for others, so I generally don’t chase this type of income anymore.

Link Building

In the past, I also engaged in something called text-link advertising. Companies would pay just for a backlink to their website in my older posts, or provide a full pre-written “guest post” full of links for me to publish.

Why? Because it helps those companies increase their search engine results, sending more people to their website and growing their business.

The practice is frowned upon though, because it’s against Google’s guidelines.

If you’re caught by Google, it can backfire, so I don’t recommend it. Yet many bloggers still make money this way — so I thought I’d mention it.

Leading Tours Or Workshops

Some travel bloggers and photographers run their own group tours or photography workshops to exotic destinations around the world.

Some focus on budget travel, others focus on food, writing retreats, or improving photography techniques. Basically, you’re showing strangers around an area you know well, and hopefully teaching them something in the process.

Organizing a tour is a lot of work, but it can pay well too. I’ve run one adventure travel & photography tour to Russia, and while it was fun, I’m not sure I’ll do many of these in the future. I’m not a natural tour-guide! LOL.

Selling Ebooks Or Courses

Selling digital products is another way some travel bloggers earn income traveling. Either travel guides about a particular destination, or books about how to travel on a budget, how to make money from a travel blog, improving your photography, becoming a better travel writer, etc.

I find it kind of funny that I was able to fund my first year of traveling in part by selling ebooks, yet don’t sell any now. That may change in the future, as I have a lot of tips to share after doing this for so long!

How Much Do I Make Overall?

I know, I know. You want details. How much do I get paid to travel?

Asking someone exactly how much money they make is a very personal question, and it’s not something I’m entirely comfortable posting, but I’ll give you an idea.

This travel blog earns a healthy 6-figures of income each year.

I’m not a millionaire, but I’m not living in a cardboard box either.

While I started with humble roots, and still prefer to travel the world on a budget, I’m also able to save money these days. My wife & I recently bought a house in Utah. And we can splurge on expensive experiences from time to time.

Of course, there are also many expenses with running my business. Website hosting, photography equipment, travel expenses, etc.

No one paid me to travel to Greenland or Antarctica for example, but independent travel like this is also part of running my travel blog.

And the reality is that even now, I actually have no idea how much I’ll make each month because it can fluctuate from month to month. It’s one downside to working for yourself. In exchange for freedom, you often lose some security.

But I’ll choose freedom over security any day!

There have been a few occasions over the past ten years, earlier in my travel blogging journey, when my bank account was drained to its last $300…

Embracing uncertainty and risk on a quest to do what you love can be scary sometimes. Really scary!

Hey, I know what it’s like to live in a cave if it ever came down to that. 🙂

I love what I do, and continue to learn new skills and work towards making this travel lifestyle sustainable, or at least until I no longer enjoy it.

I strongly believe that anything is possible with hard work, patience, and dedication.

You also can’t be afraid to take some risks or fail along the way.

Resources To Get Paid For Travel

I’m not going to sugar-coat this and tell you that making money while traveling has been easy. Quite the opposite actually. I work a lot more now than I did when I first started.

This income didn’t just appear overnight either, it’s taken me ten long years to get to this point.

I know these big numbers can be shocking for people who don’t understand how to blog for a living. Yes, blogging can be more than a hobby. It can be a viable business if you treat it like one.

Like all businesses though, it takes time to grow.

For the first 2 years, there’s no way I could’ve survived on my travel blog income alone.

However, if you’re determined to get paid to travel, here are some more resources I highly recommend:

• How To Start A Travel Blog: My step-by-step guide to starting your first travel blog. Or any blog for that matter (food, hiking, fashion, etc.)
• The Best Travel Jobs: Blogging not for you? Luckily there are many different ways to earn income while traveling.
• Ways To Make Extra Money: Not ready to quit your day job? Here are some ideas to earn extra money on the side.
• Vagabonding: This book by Rolf Potts convinced me to save money and travel the world as a budget backpacker.
• The 4-Hour Workweek: This book by Tim Ferriss is full of useful tips for building a location independent business.

I hope my article answered your questions about how I can afford to travel so much (it’s because I’m also getting paid to travel!).

It’s been a long and wild journey so far, and I’m thankful every day for the incredible life I’m living. ★

Want To Get Paid To Travel?

What started as a hobby is now my full-time job. Interested in starting a blog to make money while traveling?