When I first started blogging, it was just for fun.

I went on an epic backpacking trip in Europe with a good friend, and from that moment forward, I *knew* life wasn't what everyone was trying to convince me it was.

After blogging as a hobby for a few months, I quickly realized that bloggers were making money doing this.

And I'm the kind of person that thinks, "if they can do it, so can I."

So I regularly sought out blogging success stories.

And since this was 2014, there were very few blogging success stories; or at least not many who were writing about it.

But the ones that I found changed my entire perspective.

Again, if they could make money blogging, umm same!

If you're anything like me (which if you don’t already believe “if they can, I can," I’m begging you to start. Because seriously, in this universe, there are infinite possibilities), you like a good success story or two.

So in today's newsletter, I'm highlighting four Scale Your Travel Blog students who took the leap, built a blog from scratch, and turned it into a money-making business:

⭐ Success Story: Monica, The Boho Travels​

Monica started The Boho Travels back in 2012 as a way to document a two-week trip visiting Indigenous communities in the Philippines (super cool, right??).

For years, it was basically an online journal.

Last year, she decided to turn it into a business that makes money.

Here are a few things she's done:

• Joined Scale Your Travel Blog
• Learned SEO*
• Focused on posts that help people actually plan trips in the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and Europe

💡Laura's Tip: Yes, SEO still works for bloggers, but it can’t carry your blog alone. Since the beginning of Scale Your Travel Blog, we’ve emphasized that retention is what truly sustains your business.
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Use SEO and other traffic sources to bring readers in, but use email marketing to keep them coming back. Skip it, and you’ll regret it later.

Here are some of her results:

• Hit her first 10k sessions in April
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• Accepted into Journey in August (ad income $$$)
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• Affiliate income has also held steady at ~$100 - $200/month since July
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• Landed her first content collaboration with a local tour agency and hostel

On top of that, she’s worked through a lot of anxiety around simple “business” tasks like emails, and is now pursuing this full time.

What you can borrow from Monica:

• Treat blogging as a long game. She took a five-month break, came back with a simple plan, and still hit 10k in about a year after joining SYTB.
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• Focus on posts that genuinely help readers plan meaningful trips (not just trip diaries).
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• Don’t wait on “perfect” before hitting publish. Done posts brought her traffic, brand deals, and getting accepted into the ad network, Journey.

⭐ Success Story: Jade, Well and Good Travel​

Jade started on Wix in 2022, writing personal essays with no real strategy.

She knew she wanted to make money in travel but didn’t know how. After joining Scale Your Travel Blog, she rebuilt her site (one WP.org) with a clear focus: wellness + travel.

Here are some of her results:

• Sessions fluctuate between 6,000 - 8,000 per month
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• Got into Journey with 8,000 sessions (before the new 1,000-session rule)​
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• Average monthly income: around $700
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• Best month so far: $1,400
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• Journey ad revenue = roughly $80 - $120/month on top of affiliates

Her blog is still “small” by internet standards, but it’s earning and growing.

What you can borrow from Jade:

• Quality over quantity. She usually publishes 1–4 posts per month, but they’re thorough and actually answer what readers search for. Don't feel like you need to be publishing every day for strong results.
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• Avoid burnout. She didn’t try to turn into a content machine; she chose consistency she could maintain.
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• SEO + solid posts + time can be enough to qualify for an ad network, even before hitting 10,000 monthly sessions.

⭐ Success Story: Katie, Kate’s Crossing​

Katie’s an ER nurse with 20 years under her belt and a big dream: she wants to buy a sailboat with her husband and travel the world.

Blogging is her exit plan.

She started her blog, Kate’s Crossing, in September 2023, and honestly, the first year was rough.

Here's what she did originally:

• She built on Squarespace
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• Tried to learn everything from free content
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• Made “all the mistakes,” as she puts it

Eight months in, she joined Scale Your Travel Blog, realized what needed fixing, and spent six months rebuilding.

Here are some of her results:

• Went from ~1k views/month to 15k views/month in 4–5 months
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• Email list grew from 20 people (January 2025) to 320 subscribers in 9 months
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• Email stats: ~59% open rate and 9% click-through rate
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• First year income was $292.50 total. This year, she's consistently earning $400 - $700/month and growing.

She qualifies for the ad network Journey now, but she’s choosing to wait and hold out for Raptive Rise or Mediavine because her affiliate sales are doing well.

What you can borrow from Katie:

• Invest in help early. She’s very clear she wishes she’d started with a course instead of patching together free tips.
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• Stop chasing only “easy” keywords. She started asking, “What does my reader need to know to plan this trip from A to Z?” and filled the gaps.
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• Batch and systematize. Tailwind + batch pinning freed up time to write, and batching blog tasks helped her publish more consistently.

⭐ Success Story: Sarah, SaltySarah.com​

Sarah was born in Barbados and raised in Florida. She’s always loved the ocean, sports, and travel.

She’d wanted to blog for a while, bought her website in 2023, and posted a few non-SEO-friendly pieces while working a corporate job.

Then she unexpectedly lost that job.

After a month of dead-end applications, she poured her energy into blogging and joined Scale Your Travel Blog.

Here are some of her results:

• January 2025 sessions: 1,956
• June 2025 sessions: 13,319
• August 2025 sessions: 10,803 (a dip, but to be expected, and still strong)
• Best affiliate month: $926 (May)
• August affiliate income: $390
• Top programs: Stay22 and Viator

She hasn’t joined an ad network yet. Her initial plan was to wait until 50k pageviews and go straight to Raptive.

She’s been hesitant about Journey because of user experience concerns, but she’s still open to it.

What you can borrow from Sarah:

• The first six months are often quiet. Her numbers were “basically non-existent” for about half a year.
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• A clear strategy builds confidence. Scale Your Travel Blog gave her steps to follow, and her traffic started to snowball.
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• Don’t rely on just one traffic source. Most of her traffic came from Google; now she’s layering in Flipboard and Pinterest so she’s not as vulnerable to algorithm changes.

💡 Laura's Tip: Algorithm changes can happen anywhere, not just on Google. The key is diversification. And no, that doesn’t mean working four times harder; it means repurposing your content so it works across multiple platforms.

What All Four Bloggers Have in Common

Different niches, backgrounds, and timelines, but there’s a clear pattern:

1. They treated blogging like a real business, not a hobby.
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2. They invested in learning instead of guessing.
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3. They wrote posts that help readers make decisions (where to stay, what to book, how to plan), not just “fun recaps.”
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4. They focused on consistency they could actually sustain.
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5. They were willing to feel uncomfortable: fixing old content, applying to ad networks, reaching out to sponsors, raising their standards.

Want to Be One of Our Next Case Studies?

As mentioned, all four of these bloggers are students inside Scale Your Travel Blog.

Inside Scale Your Travel Blog, we walk you through:

• How to set up your website from scratch, even if you aren't very tech-savvy.
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• How to create blog posts that people are searching for.
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• How to plan posts that keep earning (with both affiliates and ads).
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• How to grow traffic from Google, Pinterest, Flipboard, and email marketing, without doing 4x the work.
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• How to avoid the common mistakes that cost you months (or years) of progress and income

You'll also receive:

• Done-for-you blog post outlines, reviews, and topic suggestions (customized for you and your blog)
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• 3x/month group coaching calls
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• Several live Q&A calls each month
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• Free access to in-person mastermind meetups
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• Challenges that'll push you to stay motivated (and earn some extra cash if you're a winner)
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• Virtual coffee hours to connect and network with other bloggers
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• ... And so much more!

I’m not opening doors to Scale Your Travel Blog again until January 2026, but..

.. if you join our waitlist, you'll be the first to know when it's available!

👉 Join the Scale Your Travel Blog waitlist here​

See you next week,

Laura

P.S. If someone sent you this newsletter, and you want to receive more from me, click here to join 30,000+ bloggers already subscribed!​

Scale Your Travel Blog is currently CLOSED for enrollment until January 2026. To join our waitlist, please click here!​