This post stems from the need to answer the many, if not many, questions that come to us about how we get live from the blog or where we get the time and money to travel so much and lead the life we lead.
What do you work on in order to live on the blog? But do you work while you are traveling? How do you have so much free time? o Where do you get so much money to travel so much?, are just some of the many questions we would dare to say, they come to us on a daily basis and that we believe, the time has come to put on the table.
Understanding that this is a topic broad enough to not be able to summarize it in a few lines through an email or on social networks and that even, considering that many people ask us to know a little more about the subject, we have decided to write This post in which we explain what we work on, why we have so many days free or where we get the money to lead the life we lead, which are ultimately the questions we have been asked most in recent months.
How we get to live from the blog
What we work on in order to live from the blog
This is probably the question they ask us the most and that with their answer, we hope to answer directly to the rest, since they are closely related.
As we explained at the time in the post "New Year, new life", we are currently dedicated full time to the blog, that is, to maintain and make it grow, our Street Travelers page.
At first glance it can probably seem easy or even a I do not work. In the latter we have to give you a little reason and it is that as we always say, when you dedicate yourself to what you like, it is much easier to work and be happy, although that does not mean that we do not dedicate hours; Moreover, we confess that we dedicate many.
To give you an idea, we leave you a simple reference so you can intuit in a matter of time, what it means to keep the blog currently for us:
- Generate content: This means for us, to write for the blog a minimum of 3 posts per week, which currently in 2020 have been expanded to a minimum of one per day and there are even days that we publish two. When we are at home this is easier, but when we are traveling it is not so much, so the time we are "still" We try to leave everything written and programmed so that traveling, we can be in a certain way, calmer.
This entails working many more hours when we are without traveling, since in a month that we are at home, we have to generate content for that month and also, for the month or two months that we are away.
In addition to these posts, we also write the practical guides of the trips we make and that you can find on the blog. That means that for each trip we write as many posts as we have been on the road, plus a post about hotels and one about tips for traveling to the destination.
As an example, the trip to Mexico in 45 days was written in about 1 month and a half and there were 47 articles. Does it still seem that we don't work to live on the blog? - Generate content for customers: This is another of the jobs we have for live blog And it is that in addition to generating content for our blog, we also write for other websites. Although in this case, we have to say that we are currently much more selective with the projects we accept, since Street Travelers take almost 100% of our time.
- Answer client emails and proposals for collaborations: As you can imagine, our work being online is managed mostly by email. So you can already get an idea of the emails we receive daily and that logically, we must answer.
- Answer emails readers / followers: This is another of the most important parts of our I work in the blog: answer the questions of readers and followers. And also, one of the parts that takes more time.
Keep in mind that we always answer everyone and also try to keep it up to date. Even, on many occasions, we answer questions that are already explained in one of the practical guides or complementary articles that we have already written, but for those who continue to ask us and to whom we will always refer and explain, even if that is already written in the Blog.
Not to mention the questions we receive type "I'm going to New York, what do you advise me?". This would be another broad debate, but we imagine that you can also get an idea that it is impossible to answer this question in an email also having a super guide to travel to New York published, right ?. Well, we also respond to these types of emails, trying to make a short introduction and always trying to answer, in the best possible way, any questions or queries they ask us.
As a summary we can tell you that we receive an average of 20-30 daily emails from readers, which we answer (almost always) a day. Can you imagine how long that takes us? - RRSS content: Social networks are another of the most important aspects for Street Travelers. Currently the ones we use are Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, although we are also present in some other, which we do not use regularly.
For each of them, we must schedule or publish content daily. That means you have to think what to post, select photos, think of a text ... - Answer RRSS: And after posting, you have to answer each and every comment. Just to give you an idea, two hours is the average we dedicate daily to this part of our work and that of course, has to do with live blog. Even more time when we travel and publish stories, which is probably the aspect that receives more comments today.
What we work to live on the blog
We imagine that if you have come here, you will understand that live blog It is not living on air and also requires work, right? With this we do not want to justify ourselves much less, but it is true that some comments we receive, type: "Hey, but you are rich or what?", we are not pleasant at all.
Our work while traveling
You may think that all of the above is only done when we are not traveling. Error.
Traveling, in addition to everything discussed above, except to generate content, which we only do in a very timely manner, when we have a project, we also have other works such as:
- Selection and editing of photos: Every day we download, select and edit an average of 100 photographs, which will help us to generate the content of the trip, write the practical guide and publish in RRSS.
- Write down trip details: Our heads do not give for more, so while we travel, throughout the day, we are writing down all the details and practical data, so that later they serve us at the time of writing the practical guide, which you will then consult.
Maybe now, seeing it like that, you rethink to think that live from a travel blogThe less is easy, isn't it?
In a very short way, we can only tell you that having a blog is very easy, the job is to keep it and make it grow. That said, we also have to say that for us, undoubtedly there are many more advantages than disadvantages, and that of course all the work we do compensates us 1000%.
We will never get tired of saying that we feel the luckiest people in the world and that we are truly privileged to live as we live.
How do you have so much free time
This is the easiest question to answer. If you have read all of the above, you will have seen that everything that our work entails can be done from anywhere in the world, since we work 100% online. That's why we can travel so much, do it whenever we want and for as long as we think we should do it, although logically keeping a work order and always, trying to keep our tasks up to date.
Easter Island
Where do you get the money to travel so much?
And now is the time when we arrive at the key question, the one that we are most asked and perhaps, we will not deny it, the one that is hardest for us to answer, not only because of the personal nuance that it entails, but also because of the difficulty of do it without having explained all of the above.
It is already clear that we can live blog, we would like to clarify, before giving more details, what it means for us to make this statement:
- Maintain exactly the same (currently much better) our standard of living when we were employed.
- That means that with our work on the blog, we continue paying a mortgage, maintaining a car, carrying our day to day when we are at home, paying bills, meals, dinners, weekend departures ... In addition to paying all trips what we do, something that we will also talk about later and that represent a very high% of our annual expenses.
To get an idea, think that in recent years we have spent more than 6 months traveling. For example in 2018 we were a month and a half in New York, a month and a half in Bali and practically two months in Japan, in addition to the trips we made to Greece and those we have on the horizon for this 2018, which are a month in South Africa and two months in Thailand.
But what are our sources of income to live from the blog
That said, we go into the detail of what are oursources of income to live from the blog, because so far we have said thatwe make money with the blog, but we do not specify where the income comes from, the concept that perhaps is more difficult to understand, if you are not in this world of blogs.
- Advertising: Summing up this aspect, we put advertising on the blog to brands that pay us for it. At this point Google Adsense would also enter, for example, which is one of our sources of income.
- Affiliations: The affiliations are links that take you to different services that we recommend in the blog and that generate income for us, without the traveler who hires them, entails no extra cost.
- Content authors: As we mentioned before, sometimes we also write for other websites, which pay us for it.
Where do you get the money to live from the blog?
These are, in general, our sources of income through which we can say that live blog It is possible for us.
In addition to this, on occasion, we receive invitations to stay in a hotel or try some service while traveling, something that also impacts our income, although indirectly. We save paying for this service, although in no case do we accept money from any accommodation, restaurant or agency, for making a good assessment of their services.
This is currently something we do rarely and very selectively, since we prefer to pay and choose the places and activities we do traveling so that we can be totally free to explain them on the blog or through social networks.
In any case, if we accept any proposal, you can always see it in the reviews we publish, so you know at all times that it is a collaboration.
So do you get paid to travel?
We could say yes, although qualifying that travel is not paid as such. By this we mean that our project is based solely and exclusively on one objective: to earn enough money to travel and live as we like and then tell you on the blog.
This means that we want to travel without the obligations which means that some company or brand pays us for the trips, so that later we can promote or recommend it on the blog or on social networks.
That is, we do not accept to be paid for a trip and in return, flood our publications, either on the blog or in RRSS, with mentions of the company x or to the Tourist Office x and that these take us to manufacturing workshops, x tastings, regional dances ... or any activity of this type, which we understand, are not of interest to a traveler who travels to that destination for the first time.
The same example would serve to travel to a destination through an agency because they pay us, when it is usual to do it for free. As we said before, we want to travel only as we like and for us and the Viajeros Callejeros brand, it is much more important to maintain that transparency ethic, which continues to allow readers to believe in us. Although it may seem a lie, that is much more important than free travel.
Today we can say that we are so sure of what we do, that we have decided not to carry out this type of collaboration. Also, considering that they annoy us and we don't like to see other blogs, why should they like you?
After several years working, we have understood that traveling and living as we like it, you only get a lot of work, being very transparent, very sincere and above all having very clear that we want to travel as we want.
We are not worth the all for the all, we prefer to work hard in aspects that we know are going to give us money and thus be able to travel as we want, not to wait for travel to be paid and travel as the brand wants, since normally that means doing things that we would never do and that Therefore, if we want to be honest, we would never recommend our readers.
We are not going to deny that it is very attractive that you contact a travel agency and offer you free travel to any destination and that of course it is hard reject it, we tell you from experience, but currently, as we explained earlier, it is not something we consider since We want to tell you and give you information about the trips we make, not what other people want us to do, and decide what trip we want to make and tell it in the most personal and close way possible.
It is for these reasons that we do not make this type of travel and reject any proposal that includes these terms, either from a Tourist Office or from a private company. And in case we accept any proposal, it will always be after studying it to the millimeter and that this adapts to a route that we would do for free, that leaves us free to speak and create the content that we always create.And of course, not it forces us to flood our hashtags and mentions channels, which we have always considered to be more harmful than ineffective.
We want to explain and give practical information about trips or activities that we would do, not what the brands want.
So, summarizing the question of whether they pay us for traveling, we can say that they do it in a certain way, since our work implies doing it, but it is not something that happens directly.
At present the best investment of Street Travelers is travel and we have always believed that for a brand to work we must invest in it.
Besides not forgetting thatIf there is something necessary to have a travel blog, it is to travel.
Live from the blog
Do you live traveling?
Today we have to say that this is something that we do not consider for the simple reason that at this time in our lives, we need to keep coming back to House from time to time, to confirm that everything is fine.
It is not something we rule out doing in the future, much less, but currently it does not fall within our short-term plans. Today we propose trips of a couple of months, then return home, stay a month and go again.
In the same way, we have to say that with this approach to life, we have managed to reconcile the longest trips with our work, being able to enjoy both to the fullest, even when the trips imply being on a continuous route, something for which we also feel incredibly lucky ones.
Purposes to continue living the blog
Our main purposes are to continue working very hard so that Street Travelers remain a personal brand that our readers continue to trust. See how month after month visits are exceeded, we are already in more than a million and a half a month, a figure that is said fast, but we have to confess, it causes some vertigo, it is something that makes us feel truly happy and keep trusting that we have taken the right path and that we are doing well.
We want and strive to create and maintain a long-term project, which is not only tied to a source of income or to travel for free, something that as we discussed earlier, we are guaranteed to have our diversified income. We know that if at any time something fails, we have the peace of mind of having many more options, in addition to several projects that are always in our head, that are brewing and that we hope to be born at some point.
In addition to this, we are in the process of assimilating that after postponing it a lot, a couple of years, the time has come to increase the work team and we hope, soon, to start working on it and to have some more people than we Help keep Street Travelers, creating more content and starting to realize different projects parallel to the blog.
Working at Kafé Ubud in Bali
Can I dedicate myself to the same thing and earn money with a blog?
This is another one of the questions you ask us the most and to which we also have a hard time answering. Sincerely, we have no idea. Unlike the gurus What they say they live on their blog and what they earn with it (which in the end they earn by selling you the course on how to make money with the blog), we cannot tell you to jump into the pool. This world is not easy and much less fast, as we commented in the post we wrote on how to create a travel blog step by step.
We assure you that there are no magic formulas or established guidelines to achieve this. And if someone tells you otherwise, be clear that he is lying to you!
There may be guides, recommendations, advice, but never absolute truths. And always, if you want to start in this world, be clear about one thing: When someone doesn't live on your blog, it's impossible to explain how. I tell you what I tell you and I want to sell it to you as I want to sell it to you.
This also applies to people who intend to explain how to succeed in social networks and buy followers or only get comments and likes for belonging to organized groups, who comment among themselves to get interaction. In addition this is easily detectable since they all follow the same pattern: it has 100,000 followers, 5000 likes in each post and 250 comments. If you look a little you will see that all comments (or the vast majority) are from bloggers and of course% of real followers It is minimal.
Using unethical tactics or techniques to increase followers or reach is probably the fastest and easiest practice, but we also assure you that in the long term, it is the least stable and beneficial for your brand.
By doing this you may get a sporadic collaboration, even if they invite you to take a trip, it is more, they may even pay you to publish a photo, but as we said before, it will only be for having numbers, which are also not real.
Today these types of brands are doomed to long-term failure, keep that in mind! If you want something fast, go ahead. This is the best option. If you want a long-term job, forget it. Focus on doing things well, generating interesting content and above all, being honest and transparent with your readers and followers.
Live from the blog It does not mean going to 10 events every month and eating for free, that will invite you to tour a country in 7 days, that you would normally travel in a month, or that 100 bloggers (included in a group), retwee you or comment on your photo. Really, that doesn't mean living on the blog. Having contacts will help you (to be invited to more events), but you probably won't pay your bills. Do not forget.
Can I dedicate myself to the same thing and earn money with a blog?
We have never used them and we dare to say that we are doing well and we are fulfilling the objectives we had and we set ourselves when we started. You can not imagine the satisfaction and luck we feel when we answer hundreds of comments on the blog and social networks of real readers, travelers who really care about what we do and what we publish. That is the true meaning of our work and for which we strive daily.
You can not imagine the illusion that makes us see that readers and followers care only for destinations and do not care about our lives or what we do when we are not traveling. Street Travelers was created with the aim of being a channel in which to talk about trips not about us as characters while traveling. And today we can say that we have achieved it and it has been thanks to the incredible community that has been created around the brand.
As an example we will explain a very summarized anecdote, which we believe can be very significant.
While in December in Mexico, we stayed one day with Alan, from the Alan x el Mundo blog. We made several posts and stories and he did the same, including several mentions to our blog, to the Instagram and Facebook account.
The day he did it, we had an increase of 10,000 followers in one day. Yes, you read correctly, 10,000 followers. 10,000 REAL followers who are still there today and with whom we talk whenever we can.
When you ask us how you can succeed with a blog, we always explain this anecdote. That is being a true influencer. That is to generate content that catches people and that interests. That is WORK WELL, have a solid project, a community that you care for behind, and most importantly, generate TRUST with what you have.
We tell you this so you can see that you don't have to use any kind of unethical technique to grow. It must only be you and offer your readers what you would like to read. Nothing else.
Having said that, Can you dedicate yourself to the same and earn money with a blog?. We would not know what to tell you. What we can assure you is that if you manage to live on the blog, you will be the happiest person in the world and maybe just for that, it's worth a try, don't you think?
The really important thing is to be happy with what you do. Life is too short to regret.
Thank you very much to all who make Street Travelers continue to grow. YOU ARE BRUTAL!
