How I Make Money From My Travel Blog: What Actually Pays
I run Backpacking Is Life and MoneyHackHQ. The most useful way to explain how the travel blog makes money is to follow a reader’s decision: they need a car, a place to stay, a ticket or mobile data; the article helps them choose; an eligible booking through an affiliate link can pay a commission.
This is a working blog business, with uneven results and ongoing maintenance. A signup or a page view is not automatically income, and this article does not claim that the blogs cover every travel expense.
Disclosure: we use Travelpayouts for travel affiliate links. If you join through our creator referral link and meet the programme conditions, we may earn a referral reward. This influences our commercial relationship; the limitations below still matter.
The travel affiliate links behind the articles
Travelpayouts is one of the platforms I use to manage travel programmes and see their booking reports together. It lets me work across two sites without treating every article as a separate business. The work happens on the blog: the platform does not supply the reader, decide which recommendation is useful or fix a badly designed page.
Three examples show where those links belong:
- Rental cars: a reader planning Jeju needs to understand the route, pickup location and rental requirements before comparing cars. The booking action belongs beside that decision in the Jeju car rental guide.
- Accommodation: someone choosing a Bali base needs the difference between areas before opening an accommodation search. The Bali accommodation guide is built around that choice.
- Mobile data: an eSIM recommendation only helps after the traveller checks country coverage, device support and how much data they need. That is the job of the Southeast Asia eSIM guide.
Those are examples of placement, not claims that every visit to those pages produces a sale. A reader who skips the link should still leave with a better plan.
What the payout history actually shows
Our Travelpayouts account has paid booking commissions from programmes including GetYourGuide, DiscoverCars, Trip.com, 12Go and eSIM providers. It is a shared account for the two blogs, so its total is not a clean Backpacking Is Life income figure.
There is also a delay. The September 2026 payout history includes bookings made in earlier months. That matters when assessing a new article: the dates a visitor clicks, books, travels and receives a confirmed commission can be different. A quiet few days does not, by itself, tell me whether an article or tracking link is broken.
I keep booking revenue separate from other affiliate relationships, display advertising and creator referral rewards. Combining all three into one dramatic screenshot would make it harder to see what actually works.
Display ads pay for a different kind of attention
Backpacking Is Life also carries display advertising. That can earn from readers who are researching rather than booking, but it changes the reading experience. An advert that covers the next paragraph or competes with the main button can make a useful guide harder to use.
That is why I assess an article on a phone as well as in the editor. Can I read the comparison? Can I tap the booking button? Is an email form taking over the page? More advertising placements and more affiliate buttons are not automatically a better result.
Where creator referrals fit
A traveller looking for a Bali hotel should see relevant travel advice. A reader asking how the blog earns can reasonably be interested in the publishing tools behind it. That is where the Travelpayouts creator referral belongs.
If you already publish useful travel content, read the Travelpayouts review before registering. It covers the current referral conditions and who the platform suits. This is a referral to a creator platform, separate from an affiliate link used to book a trip.
Joining is a starting point. Earning requires relevant content, readers and eligible activity; referral bonuses have conditions described in the review.
The improvements I would make before writing another hundred posts
- Find pages readers already visit. Start with a guide answering a booking question. A large inspiration article may have less purchase intent than a small route guide.
- Check the recommendation. Make the destination and product specific, explain the trade-offs and remove outdated claims.
- Make the next action obvious. One readable button at the decision point is easier to understand than five competing offers.
- Check the phone layout. Readable tables, visible labels and a compact newsletter matter because the content has to work before the visitor can use the recommendation.
- Measure the whole journey. Visits and clicks tell me about the article; bookings and paid commission tell me about its commercial outcome.
A page with clicks and no bookings needs a different investigation from a page with no traffic. The first may have an availability, destination or timing problem. The second needs discovery and a reason for readers to visit.
The less glamorous work still counts
Running the blogs includes checking programme changes, replacing expired links, reviewing search visibility and correcting design mistakes. Content also needs updating when a transport route or provider changes. None of that disappears after the article is published.
That is why I would not describe blogging as effortless passive income. It can create an asset that earns beyond the day it was written, but that asset still needs readers and maintenance. Net income also depends on the costs of running it.
If you want to try this with your own content
Use our free first-five-articles worksheet to select a small, useful starting set. Then follow the step-by-step monetisation guide to place links and record your first baseline. You can download the worksheet without giving an email address.
If the immediate goal is paying for an upcoming trip, compare blogging with other options in how to make money while travelling. Selling an existing skill can be more direct than waiting for a new site to attract readers.