How DOES a Travel Blog Actually Make Money? (Hint: It’s Not Sponsorships)

When I’m out there on the travel trail and I tell someone I’m a blogger, 9 times out of 10 the first question they ask me is how I make money. It comes up so often that I basically have my prepared responses ready to go! Since this topic is clearly of interest to many, I thought I’d share more about the behind-the-scenes workings of Indie Traveller. Most people guess that travel blogging hinges on sponsorship, but for me at least that’s almost never been an income source. Indie Traveller makes money in a couple of other ways, but the biggest is affiliate links. These links will give a commission to a creator if you book something through them (for instance, a hotel or tour booking). They’re my favorite way of monetizing the site; I get to make valuable recommendations, you benefit from my travel advice, and any commissions I receive will help fund the content that I make. By far the most important tool I use for this is Travelpayouts, a platform that makes it easy to integrate affiliate links. Travelpayouts recently did a Q&A with me for one of their case studies, and the following is a lightly edited version of my answers. What follows is a little ‘peek inside the kitchen’ on ...