How This Website Makes Money
When I tell people I have my own travel blog, they always ask how I make money. This is not surprising; while the space is well-established now, it can still feel mysterious if you’re not a part of the space.
Since I like to be honest and transparent, I thought it would be a good idea to show you the precise ways I make money. I expect this to evolve over the future, and of course, I will update this page as it does.
Ad
I’m very aware that ads aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I do think you can monetize with ads in a tasteful way. I’m partnered with Raptive, who manage the ads throughout my blog. These go a long way to helping me keep the lights on and continue running this small business.
While ads are incredibly useful for monetization, I am constantly aware of the need to strike a balance between making money and not destroying the user experience. For this reason, I have taken several measures to find a middle ground.
Some of the measures I’ve taken include:
- Turning off certain sensitive categories, such as politics.
- Asking to have ads I don’t want on my site removed.
- Maintaining a reasonable ad density.
This is, of course, a work in progress—and over the long run, I will experiment to improve the user experience while also generating revenue from ads. I work closely with Raptive to ensure ad quality, and we have a good relationship; I believe we both have the user experience at the forefront of what we do, which is why I chose them.
Affiliate Sales
Affiliate revenue is another way that I make money on my blog. When you purchase an experience, book a hotel stay, sign up for a bank account, or book flights through my links, I earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
Again, I work very hard to maintain a balance between making money from affiliates and maintaining a good user experience. First and foremost, I only promote products I actually believe in. For what it’s worth, I reject 99% of partnership offers that land in my inbox—and there are a lot of them—because I only want to work with brands I align with.
The amount of money I make from affiliate sales depends on the purchase amount and commission rate. My commission rates typically range from 5-20%. I mainly work with Travelpayouts and Stay22 to manage my affiliate programs, but I have some direct partnerships—such as with Guide to Faroe Islands.
Digital Products
I don’t think it’s a good idea to rely solely on ads and affiliate revenue; for me, these are the bases that keep the lights on. Income diversification is important, and for this reason, I also sell some digital products.
All digital products are created by me and are based on first-hand experiences. I sell these through my online shop.
Why I Care About Monetization
While it’s good for me to show you the ways I make money, I also think it’s important to talk about why monetization is important in the first place.
Let’s start with perhaps the most obvious one: Travel blogging is my full-time job. This is what I do for a living, and from a work perspective, it’s frankly the only thing I want to spend my time on. Since I live in Copenhagen, a notoriously expensive city, I of course need to make it work through generating a steady income.
The second thing to remember is that while I occasionally work with brands, I pay for most of my travels myself. I have spent thousands of dollars booking my own flights, hotels, and tours to give you first-hand guides that help you plan bucket list adventures. Actually being in these places is important; without visiting places, I can’t write about them in any reasonable detail.
Tying into the above, creating good travel guides in general is expensive. Yes, I could use my phone, but let’s be real—beautiful photos with a proper camera are much better. Once you want to scale beyond the hobby phase, you also need to pay for good website hosting. I pay for a premium and responsive theme, too, meaning that you get the information you need without waiting ages for a page to load.
I’m very open about monetization because firstly, it’s important to be. You’re trusting me with planning a trip that likely costs a lot of money, and you are also dedicating PTO to it. To not be transparent would be disingenuous, in my opinion.
Secondly, I still like to think that it’s possible to make money ethically. For some reason, some people automatically think a creator is a bad person because they want to make money in a non-conventional way. This, in my opinion, is not true. On top of that, being transparent deters the people who think that; to be brutally honest, I don’t want people who discourage creators from making money in my audience.
I will likely diversify my income streams further, but I’m still growing my business without a huge team. For now, these help me continue creating in-depth guides. And if you’ve already supported my business (or plan to), I’m eternally grateful.
How I Pay for Trips
Most of the trips I take to write these articles come out of my own pocket. Before becoming a full-time travel blogger, I also had already accumulated a lot of knowledge about Northern and Northwestern Europe from trips I took during my annual leave and as breaks when I freelanced. Today, I still pay for most of my trips; your support when you buy my digital products, share my articles, or purchase via my affiliate links allows me to keep creating ultra-detailed guides. 🙂
Sometimes, I partner with aligned brands on sponsored trips. These can include paid-for hotels, free tours, or something else. When I have been invited on a sponsored trip or asked to try a product (like a city card), I am always transparent about what these partnerships entail. I turn down over 95% of collaboration requests, since I only want to work with a small number of brands that share my values.