Travel blogger job

Becoming a professional travel blogger has been a dream come true for me in so many ways. I’ve found a way to get paid for my favorite hobby, and do so while following my dream of traveling the world.

Sometimes I can’t believe this is my life. Six weeks ago, I was invited on a monthlong press trip to Australia — and had to turn it down, as I had prior commitments. Until recently, never in my life did I believe that I would be offered a free monthlong trip to Australia out of the blue, much less turn one down!

Not surprisingly, people ask me all the time how they can do what I do. The short answer I give them is that travel blogging requires a tremendous amount of work, as well as a tremendous investment of time and effort before you begin to see any benefits.

There are a number of posts about travel blogging telling people that if they can dream it, they can do it! While encouragement is nice, many of these posts are short on reality.

The truth? Almost all of you who start travel blogging with the hopes of doing it full-time will have given up a year from now.

Having been a blogger for ten years, a travel blogger for two years, and a full-time, professional travel blogger for a year and a half now, I’ve put together a list about the reality of this career.

Note: The following list is about being a professional travel blogger — not necessarily someone who makes his or her income online and also happens to be a travel blogger, nor someone who uses travel blogs primarily as link farms.

You will work harder than you ever have in your entire life.

If you dream of having a four-hour workweek, this is not the career for you. Look into passive income. Don’t become a professional travel blogger.

It might seem like I do little more than write posts. That’s just a small part of it. The rest is spent responding to potential advertisers, reaching out to would-be advertisers, editing photos, editing videos, assembling promotional materials, pitching travel and tourism contacts, writing for other sites, Facebook group networking, tweaking site design, tracking financials, link building, doing keyword research, reading other travel blogs, and maintaining a presence on social media. To start.

When you’re a travel blogger, the work is never done. There is always something else that you could be doing, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

Your travel blog is your life.

You will not succeed at travel blogging unless you produce content prolifically – at least at first. This means that you will need to work at least a few hours each day. Working this much means that you will be miserable unless you genuinely love it.

I don’t love everything I do as a blogger, and I’m not always in the mood to do the things I do enjoy – but as a whole, this is something that I love. I love the work. I love the people. I love the conferences and events, and I love the seminars that teach me more about this field. Travel blogging exhilarates me, and that’s what keeps me going.

This translates into a bit of workaholism, and it’s hard for other people to understand this, especially my family and friends. When your career and passion are the same thing, you need to point out — often with frequency — just how necessary it is for you to work all the time.