How to Start a Travel Blog [2021] Travel Blogging Full-Time

Hey guys .

So today we're talking about how to become a full time travel blogger .

I've been working as a full time travel blogger for the past three years and over the past three years , I've made more than $200,000 getting paid to travel wherever I want .

And over that time , I've also racked up over eight 100,000 followers on social media , 1.5 million views on youtube .

I'm going to share with you my story of how I got here and all the tips and tricks that I've learned along my way that I can help pass on to you .

So keep watching to learn how you can start your own travel blog and live your dreams .

So , and , and great sunshine , hang out outside .

Hey guys , my name is Andrew Wise with Life tailored and we talk about everything that makes your life great .

Make sure to like , comment and subscribe down below and follow me on Instagram at Life tailored .

So first I want to start off talking about my story of how we got here way in myself .

Seven years ago , we moved to New York City and we were flat broke , we barely had enough money for rent .

And if you would have told me at that time that someday I'd become a full time travel blogger , I would have thought you were definitely crazy .

And looking back on that Frigid day , February , when we moved to New York , the last thing on my mind was being able to get paid to travel the world .

But the thing is that all changed about four years ago when I decided to devote myself to becoming a travel blogger and giving it a shot .

I hope that you get inspired by this video and you make that change to change your life and live your dreams and follow what you want to do passionately and work off or work your butt off .

The reason I've been so successful is I never stop grinding .

I'll tell you that this video is going to be better than yesterday's video and the videos I create a year from now are going to be better than this every day .

I'm learning something new .

I'm honing my craft and I'm getting better .

I enjoy the learning process of all of this .

I taught myself how to shoot video , how to shoot photos , how to build a website , how to edit photos , how to edit videos .

And it's because I love learning .

That's the main thing I want to get across from you guys is you need to love learning because this is going to be a hard job .

It's gonna be , there are going to be some highs , there are going to be some lows , but every day your goal is to get better because you're building your brand , you're building your business and you're living your dreams .

So now is the part of the video where I want to offer my help to you .

If you have any questions or any comments about anything I say in this video , make sure to comment down below .

I'm here for you .

I learned from watching youtube videos just like you are now and I want to be that resource for you .

Anything I can pass on to you .

Let me know down in the comments below .

I'm replying to everything you guys write and I look forward to seeing you guys down there .

So now that we've gone through my background , we're going to talk about your quick tips for how you can start your own travel blog and everything you need to know to launch a successful blog and get paid to travel .

So now is the part of the segment where you're going to have to start doing your homework .

I'm giving you an assignment .

So right now I need you to pause this video and start brainstorming your concept .

What brand are you building with life tailor ?

That was the original concept I had .

And I basically thought I want to talk about everything that makes my life great and things that I find and tailor them to the perfect life .

I was lucky enough to find life tailor but I know I went through a ton of iterations .

I tried the tailored life dot com .

Life is tailored life dot tailored , all these different things .

But basically what you need to do right now is brainstorm .

What is your brand about and start thinking about , what could I build my brand and associate that with the domain name ?

So if it's food tailored , if it's food , funny , if it's food and fun , if it's health and happy hour , whatever your concept is going to be right down right now , your concept , your topics and try to find out when the domain name is going to work .

I'm going to put the link down below so you can find out if your domain name is available and so you can set up everything at the end of this video .

OK .

So where do we get started when we want to launch our own travel blog or travel vlog ?

For me , the best place to get started where I started back in 2013 was with registering that domain and building life tailored .

Life tailored .

Originally was just a blog that I wanted to get free stuff .

Back in 2013 , we had just moved to New York .

We were broke and the all these new services we wanted to try but didn't have the money .

So I went and wrote a review about Uber Postmates Bonobos , all of my favorite servicess and maximized the refer a friend program .

I got over $10,000 in free stuff from these amazing services because I had this blog and I was writing about what's popular , what's new .

And I had my referral code down below the site itself was just a hobby for the first two or three years .

And it wasn't until 2016 when I got serious .

I said , listen , I've been doing tailored as a hobby .

What will it take for me to actually turn my side project into a reality and become a full time travel blogger .

Back in 2016 , how I started was I went on youtube and I googled how to take photos , how to shoot videos , how to edit photos , how to become an influencer .

And I watched as many videos as I could and learned as much as I could .

But the main point I want to come across on this segment is it all came from that original website with life tailored ?

I had my domain name set up , I knew right ?

My Instagram handle is going to be life tailored .

My youtube channel is going to be life tailored .

I brainstormed everything that my brand was about established that domain name and then I could build everything up from there .

So I want to reiterate why having your own website is so important .

A lot of Instagram influencers right now , skip the website angle .

They go straight for Instagram because , well , can you blame them ?

Building a website is hard .

You have to learn how to program , or you have to hire a program where you have to design a website , you have to go and do post automation admin all this sort of stuff .

It's a ton of work and that's exactly why I think you should start your own website .

All of these hurdles are basically barriers to entry when you have a website .

And another influencer doesn't it immediately raises your status in the social media sphere .

If you have your own website , it's your own personal brand .

I've been a victim of arbitrary changes from Google youtube , Facebook , Instagram .

These platforms own your content .

When you have an Instagram handle , technically , you can't even sell that account anywhere else you're locked into that channel .

But with your own website , no matter what happens , that website is always going to be there and you can sell your website .

I've sold websites for $5000 10,000 dollars , half a million dollars .

And that's an asset that I want you to build for yourself and allow it to keep growing Instagram may be huge right now .

But I remember at the time when I was starting out that myspace was really big , you probably don't even know what my space is .

But it's , and I'm telling you , Instagram is going to disappear as well .

But the one thing that's been constant is my website has always been there .

A website is an essential part of any business and you're truly building a business , not just a social media influencer flash in the pan sort of thing .

So here are a couple of reasons why starting off with a website is so important for one .

It's going to get to a professional email address .

Andrew at life tailor dot com is a lot better than influence , is a lot better than life Taylor to ig at gmail dot com .

It lends a certain amount of credibility and credence that whenever you email someone and try to get an ad or a partnership , it's going to be that extra step that puts you above other people .

Also .

Hotels and pr companies still love websites .

Despite the fact that the majority of us are on Instagram and Social and Snapchat and all that sort of stuff .

Hotels and pr companies are very old school .

Whenever I work with hotel brand , they always want to see my travel guides , my trip reports on the website .

I've got tons of free stuff simply for writing up simple press release bulletins or travel guides or anything on the website .

You can't do that and replicate that on Instagram or even on youtube .

And finally , your website is a hub for everything you do back when I started out , Instagram was tiny and I never even produced a youtube video today .

My website has everything I'm doing on Insta on youtube , all my videos and it's going to be able to house everything I produce in the future , whatever the next social media phenomenon is , or even if it's not social , it's all going to be located on my website , it's going to be an asset that I control and I have everything there .

So the reason I bring up starting your own website is because I work with blue hosts .

They pay me to tell you guys start your own website and give you the tips and resources to get you set up .

This is where I started back in 2013 when I first launched life tailored .

I didn't have much money and blue host is only $3.95 to get it set up .

And to me , if you're serious about making your own business , you need to go and set up your website .

There , there are a ton of other , more expensive , much better web host , but for $3.95 there's really not a better offer out there .

So make sure to check the link down below , sign up and do all that sort of stuff at the end of this video .

But let's keep going .

So now that you have your domain name , your website all set up , the next step you're going to do is to start your own youtube channel .

So there are a ton of videos about how to start your own youtube channel .

I'm not going to go , you know , into that whole thing .

You can Google that all you want .

But the main thing you need to know in starting your own youtube channel is what do you call it now that you've done that research and you've brainstormed your domain name and you've got that set up .

It's really easy when I had life jailer dot com .

It was easy for me to name my youtube channel .

It's life tailor .

So that's why I talk about doing the brainstorming , doing that , work up front , building that brand so that everything else kind of falls in place .

So if you're going to be a full time travel blogger , this is how you're gonna make money .

These are the techniques that I've used to monetize my blog and have made me a ton of dough .

So one is affiliate marketing where you get paid to refer somebody to sign up for a service or a product .

If you sign up for blue host , I make money .

If you buy this Canon eos R I get a commission from Amazon .

Anything you review and talk about and put the link down in your comments is a way for you to get affiliate commission .

There's also paid advertisements .

Crest came to me last year and they had these new Crest white strips , give you a great white smile like this and they paid me to talk about it and do a review .

This came after I built this massive audience .

But that's another way to monetize your channel and it's going to come as you grow .

There's also adsense revenue as you're watching this video .

I'm getting paid for every video you see in a pre roll or on the side bar or as a bumper ad .

Those are all ways and I'm getting paid by you watching these adsense clips .

You can also make adsense on your website every time somebody clicks on an ad you get 60% of that , maybe a dollar , maybe 50 cents a click .

But it's just another way of passive income coming into you .

And then finally , another technique I utilize is selling my own product .

About two years ago , I created a life tailored style guide and I really created this because if you look back to when we moved to New York seven years ago , I definitely was not well polished or well kept .

I looked like I was straight out of Gainesville , Florida and I transformed my style and I put all of my tips and tricks into a style guide .

I now sell maybe one or two copies a month , but this is recurring income that I get every month and it keeps paying me even though I created this guide two years ago .

So I'm going to do a more in depth dive into monetization .

You can check out the video up here if it's not available yet and it's going to be coming soon otherwise just know that you're going to make money from all different channels .

And the key thing is building that foundation and building your brand right now .

So as a full time travel blogger , I wanted to go over what your day to day is gonna look like .

Your main goal is going to be to create beautiful content for brands and advertisers that draw people in and make people want to follow along and join your journey .

For me , the majority of my time is spent either traveling prepping content , shooting , content editing , content , selling to advertisers , trying to monetize my audience space , reaching out to you guys and talking to you and giving you tips and tricks and interacting with the community .

And then finally the boring stuff , bookkeeping and finances .

It's a lot of work .

I will tell you that every day there is always more work I could be doing and it's a grind .

It's really hard , but I love doing it .

And that's why I'm grinding out doing this video .

And then after this video , I'm gonna edit it and shoot and produce it and do everything for you guys because this is just my passion .

It's fun for me to help people like you live your dreams .

I will say the hardest thing about being a travel blogger is managing my time .

I've learned that to focus my time on things that are going to grow my audience , grow revenue and help me produce better content and sometimes it's hard getting stuck in the weeds .

I used to edit all of my own videos myself .

But I've since hired a video editor who helps me , I also hired a photo editor .

I've hired all these different people who helped me produce better content and focus on the things that matter .

Most the things that I can't be replaced , nobody else can talk to you right now and be on this video camera .

So that's what I focus on .

I write all my own scripts .

I do all my video here .

But then I leave it to other professionals to help me edit , produce and come up with ideas for more content .

And that's what you need to learn is where is the best use of your time and you need to focus on that .

So there are a ton of travel influencers or a ton of regular influencers out there .

You're probably asking yourself , how can I compete ?

There's already thousands or millions of women who are doing a fashion blog .

There's tons of guys talking about how to start your own blog or how to travel , how to live the No Man lifestyle .

And really , that's what you need to figure out .

You need to figure out what is your specialty going to be if you are being a travel blogger .

So I've been blogging for nine years full time .

I built tiny websites that I did consulting services for seo companies and I sold that company for half a million dollars .

I've also built small tiny blogging websites for triplets mommies .

And I sold that website for five or $10,000 .

I built websites that have gotten a million unique a month , over 12 million unique a year .

So I built a ton of different websites , large and small all as a solo entrepreneur and I've handled everything .

So my expertise is in building and starting websites and then eventually selling them .

But that's why I focus on referring people to Blue Host .

I know what it was like to start back in 2009 with my first website and not knowing , not having a clue about what to do .

I've learned a tremendous amount over my nine years as a full time blogger and I lend that expertise in these videos and that's why I talk about Blue Host and that's my affiliate commission and the product that I like to push .

Now , you could go ahead and start your own blog or your own blog and talk about how to start your own blog .

But the thing is , it's hard to replicate that nine years of experience and success that I've had or also ups and downs of the hiccups I've had .

But either way , it's hard to replicate that experience .

What I want to suggest to you is to find your own specialty , your own passion .

So say you're starting out a travel blog and you're a nomad travel blogger , you're going to travel the world , go to 36 countries over 100 days or 30 countries and 30 days .

Think about the types of things that you're going to bring with you that , that everyone else is going to have to have .

So say for example , a travel backpack , what if on each different destination , you took a different backpack with you and then when you got to your destination , you talked about why this travel backpack , why this travel back pack is good .

Why it's bad how it compares to others and you build up a knowledge base about travel backpacks at the end of one year , maybe you've reviewed 50 different travel backpacks and that's become your specialty or your expertise .

Then for somebody like me who might want to try to copy that , it'd be really hard .

I would have to film 50 videos .

And by that time you have 100 videos .

So whether it's travel backpacks or travel chargers or sunscreen or bug Sprite , whatever it is , find something that you can specialize in and that's how you stand out .

You're not just one of 1000 travel bloggers .

You're the travel blogger who's an expert on backpacks or an expert on sunscreen , an expert on bug spray , you're definitely not going to get bit by bugs if you use X bug spray because it's also safe for the environment , all this sort of stuff right now .

It's another brainstorming session for you , figure out what your specialty is , what your brand is going to be about and what products you're going to talk about and you're going to be the product expert on .

If you have any ideas or questions .

Comment down below .

I'm happy to chime in on whether or not I think is a big enough market for the product you're thinking about or private .

Message me if you don't want other people to hear , you know , your secret sauce , but trust me on this , your sauce is probably not that secret .

The main thing that's gonna differentiate you from everyone else is your work ethic .

Are you gonna put in the time to create 50 videos on backpacks or whatever the topic is ?

Or are you gonna create just one and say and think it's gonna happen overnight because it's not , you're gonna need to put in 50 100 videos and become a true expert and just keep grinding .

That's what's gonna make you , you stand out from your peers and that's what's gonna make you a successful travel blogger .

So now I want to talk about some of my tips for success .

These are things I've learned the hard way or the easy way about how to be successful as a full time travel blogger .

So the number one rule is don't quit your day job .

I've seen way too many friends say I want to be a travel blogger .

I want to be an influencer .

So I'm going to quit my job and work on this full time .

And for the most part they flame out because frankly , it's really hard .

The first year I was doing this , I made close to zero income wasn't until that next year that I figured out how to actually start monetizing things .

You're probably going to be in a similar boat .

You're not going to make much money in the beginning and it's going to be really hard when you're still working and you have that full time job .

One allows you to invest that income into your side , hustle into your travel blogging .

You'll have extra money to buy good equipment to pay people to produce your videos and edit your videos .

If you're working for yourself , there's no income coming in .

It's all going to be negative coming out of your bank account .

And the other point is if you love this that much , then you need to work two full time jobs .

I run another business right now .

It's an affiliate marketing business that I work 40 hours a week on .

I also work 40 hours a week on life tailor .

And basically , once I finish my day job , I start working on life tailor .

So that's the same mentality you're going to have to have with your full time job .

Once you're done grinding at work , you need to come home and start filming videos , writing blogs , shooting photos , shooting videos doing all this sort of stuff .

Because if you really love it that much , that's a work ethic , you're going to have to put into it because it's going to be really hard in the beginning and you're going to be really frustrated .

But if it's truly something you want to do , you're going to get there and you're going to be so happy that you didn't quit your job and you have this extra money .

So that when you do have the blog humming , you need to quit your job and have a ton of income , be able to truly travel and build the brand that you want to build .

So in the beginning , your audience is going to be zero .

I started off with zero audience as well .

Life tailored was basically non existent .

Nobody cared what I had to say .

I had no expertise .

So I had to figure out how can I make money before I have an audience .

And I've got a couple different ways for you to monetize your skills and build your craft and create a side hustle income while you're building a brand .

So the first one is you can become a freelance photographer .

So there are tons of restaurants and real estate companies and airbnbs that have awful photos .

It doesn't take much to reach out to them and say , hey , listen , I can go and shoot you a better photo .

I can do a better video montage for your restaurant .

Or your Airbnb airbnb or your real estate listing .

And basically what I would do is say I find somebody on Yelp that has really bad photos of their food and say , listen , I can come in , I'll charge you 50 bucks an hour and I'll get you 25 30 professionally edited photos .

It might take some time to find some clients .

But once you do , that's going to be a great resource .

It's gonna allow you to get paid to do what you love and learn how to shoot photos for a professional client .

If you just start off with photos later , once you learn videos , you can go back to the same clients and then Upsell them the video creation services because basically what you're doing is freelancing as a social media or a media consultant .

You're helping local small businesses use your skills and knowledge as a social media influencer to build their brand .

It's a great way to build income while you're building your brand and help you invest into buying better equipment and leveling up everything you're doing .

This is how I started out back in 2009 .

I was doing seo consulting for small businesses .

I was learning how to do myself and then I lend out my hours to help other small businesses grow their brands .

So one of the key skills that you need to learn if you're going to run your own business and be a full time travel blogger is how to prospect and sell to clients .

So selling isn't like what you see on local Wall Street , you're not going to try to sell a pencil to somebody who's got a magic marker or any sort of stupid scenarios like that .

Actually selling to brands isn't as difficult as it seems .

One of the steps that I do for selling to brands is try to find out who's already advertising in the market .

It's working with similar brands to me .

So I'm going to go through a quick example of how I would find a sponsor for an upcoming travel for an upcoming trip .

I'm taking , we're going to Miami this weekend and in Miami we've got to use sunscreen bug spray , all that sort of stuff .

I'm going to focus on the sunscreen client and try to figure out how I can find a client , how I can find a sponsor for a trip .

So first I went on Amazon and I searched for all these different sunscreen brands .

There's Neutrogena , there's Chio , there's Sun Bomb and there's Hawaiian .

I went on the Hawaiian Tropic Instagram account and looked for anybody they tagged in here .

So then I scrolled down and looked for anybody who had tagged their brand and also had hashtag ad .

I found this one listing for a girl who's based out of Australia who it looks like they sponsored her to go on the trip .

So now that I figure out that they definitely have budget and they're spending money on influencers .

I'm going to go on linkedin .

OK .

So now that I'm on linkedin , what I'm going to do is search for Hawaiian traffic , the brand itself and find somebody who's going to be in charge of influence relations or social media marketing .

So the way I do that is I go on linkedin and I look for somebody who's in either sales or marketing or put in influence or social into the search term and try to find somebody who is the right fit .

Once I found that person , I'm going to send an email or an email to them and basically tell them a little bit about the brand .

I'm going to say what we do , what makes us special , why they should work with us and also offer them .

And then also end with the final question .

Are you the right person to talk about influencer partnerships ?

Ending the message on that simple note is easy .

Yes or no .

It allows them to quickly respond back to me and get back to me .

I never ask , do you have budget ?

Are you spending money on influencers ?

Anything that's going to require them to think ?

I just want a simple yes or no .

And basically yes means I'm talking to the right person .

No .

Hopefully they point me in the right direction of who is the right person to talk to .

So this is the process that I go about for Hawaiian Tropic .

I'm also going to do the same thing for sun bomb Neutrogena or any other skin care or sunscreen brand .

And basically this is the process you're going to go through as a travel blogger , you're going to be constantly going on linkedin or other sources and trying to figure out who can advertise with me , who's already advertising that I can help and be added on to an existing campaign or how can I introduce myself and what makes me special so they can work with me in the future .

I would take the same approach if I'm going on Yelp or Airbnb or anything else , I'm going to look for somebody who needs my help or is already working with people in my space and reach out to them and tell them how I can help .

I would say you're probably going to need 2030 emails or messages before you get that response before you get that successful sale .

But it's worth it .

Once you get that sale , it's just going to keep piling on .

Unfortunately , prospecting is a part of the business that I don't enjoy .

But if you want to be a full time travel blogger , I'm telling you the truth .

This is what you're going to have to do .

So get ready for it and let me give you a couple more tips on how to actually sell once you do get in touch with that person .

So I am by no means a great sales person .

My wife Stephanie is the master salesperson .

I've learned everything I need to know about sales from her .

And she's a top performer at every company she joins .

Basically what she's told me is people hate being sold to but they love to buy .

So how can we get people to buy more ?

So people buy for a couple of different reasons .

One is fear of loss if I'm talking about a local restaurant on Yelp and they have bad photos .

If I reach out to them and said , listen , you guys have bad photos and they're motivated by fear of they would think .

All right , my bad photos are leading customers to not come into my restaurant based on that experience .

Now , the same way that people buy for fear of loss , they also buy for opportunity or future gain .

So the same person that might be afraid that they're going to lose business because they have bad photos .

There's also another person who's going to think if I have good photos , my business is going to grow and there's going to be a huge opportunity for me in the future .

If I work with you .

Another reason that people buy is from competitive pressure .

So if I went to mcdonald's and said , hey , you guys have really bad photos on here , I've been working with Wendy's and Chipotle and Shake Shack and they have amazing photos mcdonald's is going to be motivated by the fact that their competitors are doing something and they're missing out .

It's almost a FOMO sort of thing where they don't want to feel like they're missing out on something their competitors are doing and the competitors they respect and then finally some people are going to buy it just because they believe in what you're doing and believe in the product .

These people are going to be the easiest ones to sell to .

So I think about like revolve the women's clothing brand who once Instagram came out , they were all over it .

They were dominating influencer marketing .

They're working with every single influencer and they had tremendous market share because of this .

These are the sort of people who are just gonna love photography , love videography and just be like , all right , I know I need this .

Let me sign up with you guys and it's going to be a done deal .

I'll say these people are going to be the first sort of clients , but they're going to dry up pretty quickly .

Over time , you're going to have to employ these other sort of sales strategies .

But in the beginning , hopefully you can find this low hanging fruit .

These people already know they need photos already know they need social media services and these are going to be your first customers .

So now that you know why people are going to buy , your goal is to uncover what their pain is .

So figuring out their pain is going to allow you to sell to them better if you talk to a restaurant owner .

And he tells you that , yeah , I think a lot of people come to my website but they leave the website without ever booking a reservation .

It might be because their photos aren't very good .

Or somebody might tell you that , hey , business is great on the weekends , but I'm not getting any regulars .

And he says that , you know , we have this great happy hour special and nobody's coming and taking advantage of it .

And there the pain is they've got this great special , but they need more marketing and something to surface this happy hour special .

That's where you would come in and say , all right .

Well , let me do a photo series or a video series or a social media push to educate consumers about this great happy hour special .

So you can get more customers in there .

Basically , you're going to be a consultant for these small businesses and you need to listen and dig into what's working , what's not working and see how you can really help them grow their business .

At the end of the day , people want to buy services and help them grow or avoid loss or do what their competitors are doing or just because they believe in it .

So that's your goal .

Go to small businesses , go to any business and start conversations and really be in the mindset that you want to help them because that's what you're gonna need to do .

You're not gonna be selling , they're gonna be buying .

Ok ?

So I know we've covered a lot in this video .

This is a long video .

Thank you guys so much for hanging in there .

I just want to recap really quickly what we talked about .

One of the main things you need to know to become a full time travel blogger .

One , you need to brainstorm your domain name , that's gonna become your brand from there .

You're gonna start your blog , you're gonna start your blog and going to start creating content .

You're going to make money through affiliate marketing , paid sponsorships , adsense , consulting , pretty much everything out there , whatever it takes to monetize your brand on a daily basis , you're going to be shooting , editing , filming , selling , bookkeeping , all this sort of stuff to run your blog .

You're going to find your specialty , whether it's travel backpacks or sunscreen or bug spray and you're going to focus on that and that's what's going to differentiate you and you're going to keep that data because it's gonna allow you to invest into your brand and really tell you if you have the grit to make it as a full time blogger because you're gonna be working two full time jobs and to monetize your blog while you're building your brand , you're gonna start local and start selling to local businesses .

You're going to do a travel blog , a travel guide about your local community and shoot your restaurants and hotels and anybody else who needs social media or photography or video expertise .

And then finally , you're to learn how to prospect and how to sell , you're going to put on your sales hat and you're going to dig into your customer's needs and their pain points .

And you're going to help solve their problems .

When you do all of this all together over time , you're going to become a successful travel blogger .

So , comment down below guys , I'm here to help you .

What sort of questions concerns feedback you have for this video or for me , I want to be you a resource to help you grow and that nothing would make me happier than a year from now .

See successful travel bloggers , I wouldn't be able to do a highlight video showing everything you guys have made and created and built .

So I can , you know , just have that satisfaction of knowing .

I helped a fellow entrepreneur .

So thank you guys so much for watching all the way to the end .

I hope this was helpful if it was , please like , subscribe and comment down below and also follow me on Instagram at life tailored and I hope you guys enjoy this and I have another video coming for you soon .

See you guys soon .

Bye .