I'm going to be completely honest here: I sometimes avoid telling people that I'm a travel blogger when I first meet them.

This isn't because I'm ashamed of what I do, or because I try to keep it a secret. I just hate the inevitable follow-up question that always comes whenever I tell someone that I blog as a career.

It's the number one question I get as a travel blogger:

“How do you make money doing that?”

Sometimes it's phrased more delicately. Like, “Sooo… you, like, make a living doing that?”

Sometimes it's much more blunt, like, “How much do you make doing that?”

To be honest, I sometimes want to tell people that it's none of their business. I don't go around asking my accountant or nurse or teacher friends how THEY make money, or what their paychecks look like.

But I get it. My “job” is an unconventional one, and people are curious.

So my short answer is, yes, I make a living doing what I do. But as for the larger question of HOW I make that living, the answer is not so short or simple.

Up until late 2015, I almost always had some sort of steady income coming in along with what I was making from my blog and other related side-gigs. When I started blogging in 2010, I was working full-time at a newspaper as a copy/layout editor. Then I was in grad school working as a graduate assistant and freelance writing and editing on the side. And after that, I was working part-time for a social media startup.

It wasn't until late 2015 that I decided I was comfortable enough to leave behind the safety net of a steady paycheck to fully work for myself.

Though even that is a bit misleading. When I say “work for myself,” I mean that I am fully in charge of how I make money. I get to choose how I monetize both of my sites and which projects to say yes to, and in most cases get to set my own rates. But I still sometimes work for other brands and companies, and make money in ways that aren't “traditional.”

To fully answer the question of how I make money as a travel blogger, I have to write you a list.

I don't make money in just one way. In fact, the thing I've learned from building this sort of career is that it's important to make money from a variety of sources, in case one of them suddenly dries up. (Or, you know, in case your entire industry shuts down for a while due to a worldwide crisis. Ahem.) Diversification is the name of the game.

I also have to point out that the digital publishing world is changing rapidly as AI has swooped in to scrape our content and replace many of our jobs. I'm not actually sure how much longer this will be a viable career – but for now it's what I'm sticking with! (Read more about how Google and AI are killing blogs like mine.)

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How I make money as a Travel Blogger in 2025

In order to give you a true overview of my income streams, I made this nifty pie chart to show you how my income broke down in 2024.

At this point, I run two websites that make money: this site, A Dangerous Business, which I started back in 2010; and Cleveland Traveler, which is a niche site about Cleveland, Ohio, that I started in 2019. I report all of my income together, as I'm the only owner of both sites.

Here's a look at how my income broke down in 2024:

This pie graph of mine is always changing, since the ways I approach my business are always changing. For example, back in 2017, advertising only made up 29% of my income. I was selling courses (10% of my income), doing more freelance writing, and posting more sponsored content.

These days, I'm trying to work smarter, not harder. I've dropped most of the low-paying freelance writing work I was doing, and am very picky about the sponsored work I do now. My passive income streams are strong, and so I spend more of my own money to travel these days. Meaning when I take on paid campaigns, it's because I really want to do them!

(And, PS, these income charts never tell the whole story. It costs money to run a business – especially when you're in the business of traveling! My monthly expenses in a “normal year” usually tally in the $2500-$5000 range when you add up website/business expenses and travel expenses, but can sometimes be higher if it's a big travel month.)

To get a better idea of how this all shakes out, here's a more detailed look at all these different income streams:

1. Advertising

In 2017, I signed up for Mediavine, an ad network that now places all the advertisements you see on this site. I was unsure about doing this (would the ads look awful? would people stop reading my site because they hated them?), but in the end it was by far the best business decision I've ever made.

I've been producing content on this site free-of-charge since 2010, and I won't apologize for wanting to be paid for all that work. Adding ads to the site was the easiest, least-intrusive way to do that (and still keep everything around here free for people to read!).

My second site qualified for ads at the end of 2019, and so Cleveland Traveler is also monetized with ads now, and it's the main way that site earns income.

How much? Ad earnings were down for me in 2024 when compared to previous years, mostly because traffic to blogs like mine has plummeted in the last 2 years thanks to changes at Google. On average, I made about $8,000 per month from ads in 2024 (though of course some months are better/worse than others, and that number will likely drop a bit in 2025).

2. Affiliate sales

I've worked hard in the last couple of years to increase the amount of money I make passively each month. And one of the best way to earn passive income is through affiliate sales – which basically means that I often earn a commission if you click through to something you see linked on this site and buy or book it. It doesn't cost you anything extra, but it's a steady income stream for me.

Over the past few years, I've been growing the amount of affiliate links on my site, and have happily seen an increase in sales, too. While I used to rely heavily on Amazon links (like in all my packing posts) to recommend products that I use and love, I make more now through recommending hotels, tours, tickets, and other items through other affiliate platforms and programs.

I only recommend things when they are relevant and fit in naturally with the content I'm writing – and I only recommend things that I have tried or would personally spend money on myself.

I use a variety of affiliate programs and platforms, including some that aggregate a lot of travel companies/brands, making creating links and tracking sales a lot easier. Platforms like Travelpayouts are great for bloggers like me, as Travelpayouts is an all-in-one affiliate platform with dozens of brands like Booking and Viator that I recommend to readers all in one place. (Work smarter, not harder, travel bloggers!)

How much? The amount of passive affiliate income I make varies depending on the time of year. I averaged around $5000 per month from affiliate sales in 2024, which is an improvement from previous years, mostly thanks to me being more strategic about adding valuable affiliate links to my content.

3. Sponsored content

Branded content is essentially another form of advertising or advertorial content. But I count it separately since it's not passive income – when I run sponsored posts or participate in a sponsored social media campaign, I create 100% of the content myself.

I’m really picky about what branded content I will agree to run these days (my audience always comes first!!), and turn down most of it. But in 2024, I did a a handful of sponsored campaigns – all for my @clevelandtraveler Instagram account.

I worked with both local and international brands on several projects throughout the year, making video content for all these partnerships. Here's an example of one:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Amanda the Cleveland Traveler (@clevelandtraveler)

How much? This one varies a lot, since it totally depends on what kind of offers I get each month (and which of those offers I accept). In 2024, if you average it out, I made just over $2000 per month from sponsored projects – but I didn't actually create sponsored content every month.

4. Paid campaigns

As this industry evolves, brands and destinations have started to hire people like me to promote them. Contrary to popular belief, these campaigns do NOT mean that someone is paying me to spread or promote a specific message.

During a paid campaign, there are clear marketing goals defined (like maybe brand awareness, or promoting a new offering), and a certain amount of contracted deliverables (like a specific amount of blog posts, photos, social media posts, etc.). I NEVER promise positive coverage, and usually have complete freedom in what I want to write about and how.

These campaigns are usually well-paid, but I don't do very many of them throughout the year because they are a TON of work. Like, we're talking at least 12-hour days during the campaign, and then days or weeks of work after the trip in order to complete all the deliverables.

I actually only did 2 paid campaigns that involved travel in 2024 – and they both were within Ohio! My goal is to do one of these per quarter, but I didn't meet that goal last year.

How much? When I do this kind of work, it can pay anywhere from $2,500-$10,000 per campaign, depending on the length and deliverables. (Some creators make much more, but those are the average rates I've personally been paid.)

(For more about this sort of work, check out my Work With Me page.)

5. Other

The “other” category in my income breakdown consists of a lot of random things; things like course sales, product sales, consulting/speaking, photo licensing, etc. I don't make a ton doing any of these things, but they still factor in to my overall income.

a. Social media

This category is different from being paid to create sponsored content on social media. This is more for “creator fund”-type payments that come from opting in to bonus programs on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

I don't make very much from social media, as I don't really have huge audiences or make viral content. I also focus more on my blog, which means my consistency on social sometimes suffers.

How much? I didn't make a ton – $50 per month on average.

b. Product sales

I started selling some physical products on Cleveland Traveler in 2020, and also usually make a little bit of money each year selling photo prints in my Smugmug shop (here are all my most popular images, in case you're curious).

In 2022, I also launched a Gumroad shop to sell printable versions of some of my more popular road trip itineraries, and that turned out to be a nice little pursuit that I've been expanding since then.

How much? It's still a really small amount, only averaging about $240 per month in 2024. But some owned-product sales are better than none!

c. Consulting/speaking

I didn't do any paid speaking gigs or consulting in 2024, but it's something I'm available for!

How much: It really depends on the project or event!

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So how much DO I make as a blogger?

I won't share exact numbers with you, but I made over 6-figures in 2024. (That's of course before factoring in business expenses, travel expenses, and taxes, which can reach into the thousands each month.)

And I don't share this to brag. Rather, I share it to prove that this is still a viable, successful, full-time career for me.

I do want to point out, though, that the ways I've decided to monetize my site and make income are not necessarily the ways that all other bloggers/content creators go about it. Blogging is a relatively new field as far as careers go, so there's no “one size fits all” way to go about making money.

There's also no guarantee that another blogger who tried to make money in the exact same ways would have the same amount of success. I'm very lucky that I've been able to turn what started out as a hobby into my career, but it's taken a lot of time and patience – my blog turns 15 this year!!

If you're thinking about starting a travel blog, just know that you have to be in it for the long haul; success (and money) definitely does not come overnight, and I still work incredibly hard each and every week to keep learning and growing.

READ NEXT: Turning a Blog into a Business: 7 Things I Did Right

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Did I cover all your burning questions? What else do you want to know about what I do?

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