Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. The common saying is not exactly true – chasing your dreams takes a lot of hard work. However, that work feels meaningful. It buoys you, rather than dragging your spirit down. That experience is what every ‘professional traveler’ loves. Turning your love of travel into a business might sound like a dream that is too good to come true, but it’s actually not that difficult. The key is that you need to be patient and measure your expectations. You're unlikely to get rich quick this way, but you can build a business that at the very least funds your lifestyle.
In this day and age, you do not need a physical headquarters. You just need to create a website and use some of the many free business tools you can find online. This will help you start and maintain your business.
So, what types of businesses can you do? Consider the following ways of turning your love of travel into a business.
Travel Blogging
Travel blogging is the first thing most people think about when considering making money from traveling. Anyone can start travel blogging. As long as you have a knack for writing, your experiences can resonate with readers around the world. The bigger your following, the more money you can make from writing about your travels.
There are a number of ways to monetize your travel blog. Google and other services will automatically provide ads for your site, giving you payments for views and clicks. These payments become significant at scale. Alternatively – or in addition – you can use affiliate marketing to make money. This refers to writing posts about products and services and getting a commission when your readers subsequently make a purchase.
You can also allow businesses to pay you to post guest articles on your website. However, you need to ensure that you do quality control, or readers will stop trusting your blog.
Tour Planning
There are 3 types of travelers. Some like to turn up with no plan and live spontaneously. Others like everything to be perfectly planned in advance. Most people fall somewhere in between. You can make money by providing tour packages for those who want to do some planning in advance.
You might be wondering how you can provide tours in multiple locations without any sort of regional headquarters. It’s quite simple. When you travel to a place, build relationships with the tour providers there. Many tour providers in popular locations get customers primarily via walk-ins, but you can help tourists book in advance. You take a commission while securing business for the tour company.
By charging a fee for late cancellations, you can ensure that you never do the tour provider a disservice by booking a space.
In each place you visit, try out the various tours. Design packages that get the best out of all of them. Different packages will appeal to different people, who will be glad to know that no time on their trip will be wasted hemming and hawing.
Photography
If you love taking photos of scenic locations, you can ply your trade as a travel photographer. One of the great things about working online in today’s world is that there is always someone looking for very specific services. Wherever you go in the world, you will always find someone who wants photos from that location and is willing to pay a good price for them.
Becoming a travel photographer will require that you get a good camera as well as some training in how to take professional photos. You can find courses online that are free or low-cost. Then you can design a website that sells your services, with a portfolio of all your best work. You can use Google Ads to make your services easy to find online.
Photography also lends itself perfectly to Instagram marketing. Social media marketing is a cheap and easy way to reach clients around the world. Since your Instagram page is going to look incredible, advertising will simply require that you promote the right posts with captions that will convince people to use your service.
This is a great way of making money because once you have paid for equipment and training, you have very few costs. Since you are traveling anyway, you get to balance out your travel expenses, rather than spending in order to provide a service.
Turning your love of travel into a business is a great way of making extra money while living the high life. You have tons of options, only some of which we have covered here. Your dream job can become a reality, and it certainly does not require a miracle.
