Oh, hello there! I see you’re looking for a travel blog income report, huh? I know, they’re pretty hard to find. So I decided to reveal it all to help out fellow bloggers who are trying to monetize (it is a long and painful process, isn’t it? Ugh.)

I Am Not Special

Okay, so first things first: I am NOT showing off. Tons of bloggers make way more money than I do. I am sharing this travel blog income report to let you see what’s possible and what worked for me. 

My previous travel blog income report:

• September 2017: $2,438.70

*This post has affiliate links, which means I receive a commission if you choose to purchase through a link I provide (at no extra cost to you!). Thanks so much for supporting the work I put into this site!

Caveats (You Should Read This First for Context!)

• This travel blog income report shows what I EARNED in February 2018—not necessarily what has hit the bank yet. As you probably know, with affiliate income and advertising income, it can take awhile for the payments to process. So sometimes you earn money one month, but don’t receive that money until 60 days later.
• I started this blog more than FIVE years ago (in July 2012). I didn’t start really trying to monetize it until September 2016, when I purchased the online course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing and learned the top tips for monetizing your blog with affiliate links from the Queen of Affiliate Marketing, Michelle Schroeder-Gardner (she earns $100K a MONTH from her blog!).
• This travel blog income report DOES NOT show ALL my income. I earn the rest of my income as a freelance writer.
• The numbers might change due to refunds and cancellations! This is a big one. Sometimes people return things they ordered on Amazon, for example, and so later on, that number will be deducted from my account. Or other times someone might cancel their SiteGround web hosting, so that money might be deducted from my affiliate account months later. I can’t predict these things, but I just wanted you to know the numbers could change later.

My Travel Blog Income for February 2018: $3,575.05

Advertising:

• Mediavine: $1,108.65

Affiliates:

• Amazon Associates: $224.05 
• SiteGround: $1,100 This is the web host I use and the only one I recommend. Before SiteGround, I was using Bluehost, but ran into some issues.
• Pinterest Traffic Avalanche: $200.50
• Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing: $199.60
• Pajama Affiliates online course: $88.40
• Encircled travel clothing: $173.64 I am OBSESSED with Encircled’s multiway clothing. Check out the Chrysalis Cardi that I practically lived out of on a month-long trip from Italy to Poland.
• TrustedHousesitters: $16.59 I love using house sitting to travel for (almost) free! TrustedHousesitters is the membership site I used. You can check out my full review of TrustedHousesitters here.
• iMark Interactive: $15.30 Grayson at iMark Interactive is my go-to WordPress tech support guy! I’m signed up for his monthly membership, and I rest easy knowing if my blog goes down or runs into a technical glitch, he’ll take care of it for me.
• Creative Market: $3.90
• Booking.com: $8.47
• HotelsCombined: $0.37
• CheapFlights: $0.35
• SkimLinks: $1.56

Referral Credits

• Airbnb: $324.00 I live out of Airbnbs, so getting referral credits is helpful for me.

My eBook Sales:

• From two eBooks I wrote: $109.67

My Travel Blog Expenses for February 2018: $82.06

• ConvertKit: $29 I FINALLY made the switch from MailChimp to ConvertKit this year, and I think I like it better. Mostly because ConvertKit allows you to use their mailing address (yep, it’s legal!) rather than your own address in the email footer. Also, ConvertKit does make it WAY easier to create automated email sequences.
• GSuite: $6.06
• iMark Interactive WordPress Support: $47

My Travel Blog Traffic for February 2018: 60,273 Pageviews

The Number of Hours I Worked on My Blog in February 2018: 12.25

Here’s the crazy thing: I actually didn’t spend much time on my blog at all in February! I was really busy finding new freelance clients and starting a new gig.

What I learned from February’s income

• More traffic doesn’t always mean more money. I had less traffic in February than January, but more income in February than January.
• Many of the things you are doing NOW won’t pay off till LATER. Similar to the above point, I put in WAY more hours in January for my blog than I did in February. In February, I worked 12.25 hours on my blog; by contrast, I spent 34.25 hours on my blog in January 2018.However, I think the work I put into the blog in January didn’t pay off until February. Here’s another example: I earned $324 in Airbnb credits in February—that’s HUGE and way more than I’ve ever earned even in the course of a year. That’s because a blog post about Airbnb that I wrote in JUNE 2017 started ranking really well in Google in February 2018. So sometimes it just takes a long time for things to take off.
• Hotel booking affiliates aren’t really worth it for me. I made a whopping 37 cents from HotelsCombined in February.

My Blog Income History From September 2016 to Now

The BIGGEST Lesson I Want You to Take Away from This Travel Blog Income Report: Everything will take WAY longer than you want it to

I know you keep seeing blog income reports like mine, and you feel like your blog is hopeless. That was me literally 3 months ago. It’s extremely discouraging and frustrating, and I don’t want you to feel that way. Remember: I started this blog in July 2012. Look at the spreadsheet screenshot above: I started getting serious about blog monetization in September 2016 and it took me a FULL NINE MONTHS to hit $1,000/month with my blog. It really takes time. Be patient. You are building an asset that will pay off in the long-term. It’s something that’s all yours.

I hope this helps you analyze what works and what doesn’t. Just remember that this is what worked for ME; it may not work for you. But I hope it at least helps a little.