The revenue that a travel blog actually generates in Year 1 (approximately £0-£2,400 from most blogs that launch), Year 2 (approximately £2,400-£18,000 from the blogs that are still publishing), and Year 3+ (the range where the blogs that have built authority diverge dramatically — some earning £3,000/month, some earning £30,000/month, most earning something in between). The income streams that work, the ones that are marketed as working but don’t, and the specific version of travel blogging that BGGD represents — honest about costs, specific about recommendations, funded by affiliate commissions and digital products rather than brand relationships that require saying things that aren’t true.
Reading time: 12 minutes | Last updated: 2026
The standard “how to make money travel blogging” article tells you that you can earn six figures writing about your travels while sipping cocktails on a beach in Thailand. This is true for approximately 0.3% of travel bloggers. It is the version most people imagine when they type “travel blog” into a search engine. And it is not the version that this guide describes.
This guide describes what actually happens, what the realistic timeline is, which income streams work at which scale, and what the difference is between a travel blog that earns £200/month after two years and one that earns £2,000/month after two years. Both exist. The difference between them is specific and learnable.
The Honest Year-by-Year Timeline
Year 1: The Reality
Most travel blogs in Year 1:
- Publish 20-60 posts
- Receive 500-5,000 monthly visitors by the end of the year
- Earn £0-£2,400 in total revenue
- Spend £200-£800 on hosting, tools, and courses
The blogs that earn at the upper end of the Year 1 range are almost always the ones that applied a specific keyword strategy from the first post — writing content that people are searching for rather than content the writer wants to write. The difference between “My week in Bali” (searches: negligible) and “What to pack for Bali — the complete list” (searches: 8,100 per month) is the entire Year 1 traffic strategy.
Year 2: The Divergence
The blogs that are still actively publishing in Year 2 (approximately 30% of the blogs that launch in Year 1) divide:
The 70% that stall: Consistent publishing, growing slowly, 5,000-20,000 monthly visitors, earning £200-£800/month from display advertising and occasional affiliate commissions. These blogs are real travel blogs doing honest work. They are not businesses yet.
The 30% that accelerate: Strategic SEO implementation, link building, digital product launches, and affiliate programme development that compounds the traffic. 20,000-80,000 monthly visitors, £800-£5,000/month. At this level the blog is a business.
Year 3+: The Realistic Range
The blogs that reach Year 3 with a consistent publishing schedule and a strategic approach to SEO and monetisation are in the £2,000-£15,000/month range. The £30,000+/month travel blogs exist (the Income Report bloggers, the big travel media properties) and represent the top 1-2% of the category by revenue.
The median successful travel blogger at Year 3: £2,500-£4,000/month. That is an achievable target with the correct approach. It is not passive income. It is a job.
The Income Streams That Work
1. Affiliate Marketing — The Most Scalable
How it works: You write a guide to the best travel credit cards. The reader clicks your link to the Chase UK card. They apply. Chase pays you £30-80 per approved application. You receive the commission whether you’re sleeping or travelling or writing the next article.
The affiliate programmes worth building:
Booking.com: 25-40% commission on the booking profit (not the booking value — the profit, which is approximately 15-25% of the room rate). At a 3% click-through rate from a traveller-intent page and a 10% booking conversion: a page receiving 10,000 monthly visitors can generate £100-400/month from Booking.com alone.
GetYourGuide: 8% commission on activity bookings. The city activity guides (the best things to do in Kyoto, the best day trips from Lisbon) are the correct content format for GetYourGuide affiliate.
Airalo (travel eSIMs): 10-15% commission. Every “what eSIM to use in Thailand” article is an Airalo affiliate opportunity.
Amazon UK: 3-5% on most travel gear categories. The packing list articles are the correct content format.
Travel insurance (World Nomads, Battleface): 10-20% commission on the first year’s premium. The travel insurance comparison article is a reliable affiliate earner at modest traffic volumes.
The realistic affiliate revenue at scale:
- 50,000 monthly visitors (18-24 months with consistent publishing): £800-£2,500/month from affiliate commissions
- 100,000 monthly visitors (24-36 months): £2,000-£6,000/month
2. Digital Products — The Highest Margin
How it works: The BGGD model. The Thailand 7-day itinerary at £9. The Japan 10-day itinerary at £12. The full guide at £47. Each product costs nothing to deliver after the first sale. The margin is 90%+ (minus payment processing at 2-3%).
The timeline: The digital product becomes viable when the audience exists to buy it. At 5,000 monthly visitors: a product launch converts approximately 0.3-0.5% of monthly traffic to buyers — 15-25 sales per month for a £9 product is £135-225/month. Not transformative but real.
At 50,000 monthly visitors: the same conversion rate produces 150-250 sales/month — £1,350-£2,250/month from a single £9 product.
The product development approach: The BGGD product development model is to write the free version first (the 7 Days in Japan blog post), observe what readers ask for in the comments and emails, and build the paid product to answer those specific questions in the depth the free version doesn’t provide.
The platforms: Gumroad (10% commission, simple setup, correct for the first product), LemonSqueezy (the Gumroad alternative, 8% commission), or a direct Stripe integration through a Notion or PDF delivery system for zero commission beyond payment processing.
3. Display Advertising — The Volume Game
How it works: The Mediavine or Raptive (formerly AdThrive) advertising networks pay based on RPM (revenue per 1,000 page views). The travel niche RPM on Mediavine in 2025: approximately £20-40 per 1,000 sessions (the RPM varies by traffic source, season, and audience geography — UK and US traffic earns significantly more than the same traffic from India or Southeast Asia).
The gateway: Mediavine requires 50,000 monthly sessions minimum. Before that threshold: Google AdSense (RPM: £2-5 for travel content, not worth prioritising over affiliate links) or Ezoic (lower RPM than Mediavine, but accessible from 10,000 monthly visitors).
At scale:
- 100,000 monthly sessions with Mediavine: £2,000-£4,000/month from display ads
- 500,000 monthly sessions: £10,000-£20,000/month
The display advertising revenue is the most passive of the income streams (after the content is written, the ad network handles everything) and the most volatile (algorithm changes, seasonality, and traffic fluctuations directly affect the revenue). It is the correct income stream to layer on top of affiliate and products, not the first one to build toward.
4. Sponsored Content — The Complication
How it works: A tourism board, hotel group, or travel brand pays you to write content featuring their destination or product. The payment: £300-£3,000 for a blog post, £500-£5,000 for a social media campaign, depending on your audience size and engagement.
The complication: The FTC (US) and the ASA (UK) require disclosure of paid content. The reader’s trust is the travel blogger’s only real asset. The sponsored content that is transparently disclosed and genuinely useful is acceptable; the sponsored content that is disguised as independent recommendation is the income stream that destroys the asset it’s monetising.
The BGGD position: Sponsored content is available at the correct audience size (the 50,000+ monthly visitor threshold is where brands begin to approach). The BGGD approach: disclose everything, only accept content that aligns with existing editorial, and don’t say things that aren’t true regardless of who is paying.
5. Freelance Travel Writing — The Bridge Income
How it works: Writing for other publications (magazines, travel websites, other blogs) while building your own audience. Rates: £0.05-£0.30 per word for mid-tier publications, £0.30-£1.00 per word for top-tier (Condé Nast Traveller, Lonely Planet, the broadsheet travel sections).
The correct use: The bridge income between launch and the point where the blog generates its own revenue. Not a long-term goal — the publication owns the content, the SEO value goes to the publication, and the reader relationship is with the publication rather than with you. Write for publications to develop the craft and to pay the bills while building the owned asset.
The Traffic Sources That Build a Blog
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) — The Foundation
The travel blog that grows without SEO is the exception. The travel blog that grows through deliberate keyword targeting, internal linking, and consistent publishing to a content plan is the rule.
The keyword research process:
- Identify what potential readers are searching for (Ahrefs, SEMrush, or the free Ubersuggest for keyword research — the search volume and the keyword difficulty metric)
- Identify which of those searches you can realistically rank for (the keyword difficulty below 30 is accessible to a new blog; above 50 requires established domain authority)
- Write the best version of that content that exists on the internet
- Build internal links from related content to the target post
The content types that rank fastest for travel:
- “Best [destination] [activity]” — high search volume, specific intent, affiliate-ready
- “[Destination] in 48 Hours” — the format that ranks for the visitor-intent search
- “[Destination] budget guide” — the practical search, the highest affiliate conversion
- “Is [destination] worth it?” — the decision-stage search, high conversion to action
Pinterest — The Evergreen Visual Traffic
Pinterest is the traffic source most often underestimated by travel bloggers who focus exclusively on Google. The Pinterest user is in the planning stage — exactly the stage where travel content and affiliate links are most effective.
The Pinterest strategy for travel blogs:
- Create 3-5 pins per blog post (the vertical image format, 2:3 ratio, text overlay with the post title)
- Post consistently (the Pinterest algorithm rewards consistent posting — 5-15 pins per day including repins)
- Join group boards in the travel niche (the collaborative boards that extend reach beyond your own followers)
Pinterest traffic is slower to build than Google traffic (6-12 months before meaningful volume) and more stable once established (Pinterest traffic doesn’t disappear with an algorithm update the way Google traffic can).
The Tools Worth Paying For
| Tool | Cost | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs | £99/month | Keyword research, backlink analysis, competitor research — the single most valuable SEO tool. Worth it from Month 6 if publishing consistently. |
| WordPress + Kadence or Elementor | £80-200/year | The blog platform and the theme. WordPress is correct; Squarespace and Wix have ceiling effects on SEO. |
| Mediavine | Free to join (revenue share) | The display advertising network. The goal, not the start. |
| ConvertKit or MailerLite | £0-£29/month | Email marketing. The email list is the owned audience that no algorithm can take. Build it from Day 1. |
| Canva | £12.99/month | The design tool for the Pinterest images, the blog graphics, the social media content. |
The BGGD Model Specifically
BGGD World is funded by:
- Affiliate commissions — the Booking.com, GetYourGuide, Airalo, Chase UK, and Amazon links throughout the guides. Every link is to something genuinely recommended; the affiliate relationship follows the recommendation, not the other way around.
- Digital products — the paid itineraries (the Thailand 7-day at £9, the Japan 10-day at £12, the bundles at £29-47). Written after the free content proved that the audience wanted the depth.
- Email list — the 9 lead magnets (the Thailand Vault, the 50 Places PDF, the SE Asia Budget Calculator, and the others) that build the email list, which converts at 2-3× the rate of cold traffic to the paid products.
What BGGD does not do: Sponsored posts that require recommending something that isn’t genuinely recommended. Brand deals that require saying things that aren’t honest. Affiliate links that are added regardless of whether the product is the correct recommendation.
The realistic BGGD Year 3 projection:
At 100,000 monthly visitors (the target for Month 24-30 with the current content plan):
- Affiliate commissions: £2,500-£5,000/month
- Digital products (5 itineraries, 3 bundles): £800-£2,000/month
- Display advertising (Mediavine, at 100k sessions): £2,000-£4,000/month
- Total: £5,300-£11,000/month
That is the honest projection. It is not £30,000/month and it is not £200/month. It is the result of writing 100+ high-quality guides, building the SEO authority, and maintaining the affiliate and product revenue streams consistently.
It is achievable. It is a job. It pays better than most jobs if you do it correctly.
