Laura Peters is the owner and author of Mike & Laura Travel, a blog that helps travelers find unique destinations and travel experiences on a budget. She is also the CEO of Scale Your Travel Blog, a coaching program that helps travel bloggers start, grow, and scale their travel blog income. When she isn't writing blog posts about her favorite travel destinations, she is serving her audience through Scale Your Travel Blog and her live/virtual events, Travel Blogging Summit.
How this 6-figure travel blogger grows her email list
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You know I love a good blogging success story. Especially one that doesn’t come from someone with 500K Instagram followers or a perfect Pinterest account (though that's cool, too). This week, I want to introduce you to Samantha Hamilton, a Scale Your Travel Blog student and the full-time blogger behind New England Wanderlust. She’s a perfect example of how leaning into what your audience is already asking for can unlock major momentum without needing to go viral. From Casual Blogger to 6-Figure Business Owner When Samantha realized her full-time job might not be around much longer, she decided to finally go all in on the thing that lit her up most: helping people plan unforgettable trips around New England. She niched down, launched a new site, and after a little over a year (and about 80 blog posts), she qualified for Mediavine. Now, about 2.5 years in, she’s built a $100,000+ per year blogging business, and one of the smartest things she’s done is.... Start growing her email list. (Yes, yes, yes, you're hearing me talk about this AGAIN - and that's because it's THAT important 😉) 🌟 Quick Pause Before We Dive Deeper... Before we get too deep into Samantha’s story, I want to share something. 🎉 The Monetize Momentum Challenge is about to kick off inside Scale Your Travel Blog (May 1st)! This is our 4-month challenge to help you increase your blogging income fast through affiliate marketing, ad revenue, sponsorships, your own products, or a mix of all four. Whether you’re just getting started or already making $5,000 a month, the challenge is set up to reward growth. We’re tracking income percentage increases, not just total dollars, so everyone has a fair shot at winning. And we’ve got $400+ in prizes up for grabs, community check-ins, and a ton of momentum-building support along the way. This is a free challenge for all SYTB students, whether you're in the course-only option or the full coaching program. Not a Scale Your Travel Blog student yet? Now’s the perfect time to join us: 👉 Click here to enroll in Scale Your Travel Blog Course & Community ($797) 👉 Click here to enroll in Scale Your Travel Blog Course, Coaching & Community ($2997) Okay, let’s get back to Samantha and her email list wins! How She Grows Her Travel Email List Like many bloggers, Samantha started with a few generic freebies: packing lists, hidden gems, that kind of thing. But her audience wasn't interested. Then she noticed something... She kept getting emails from readers asking: “Do you have a printable version of this itinerary without the ads?” So she made one. A simple, no-frills PDF version of her post, cleaned up in Canva (which is completely free, by the way). People wanted it. Immediately. Samantha's Step-By-Step Process (That Works)
Her conversion rate is... ➡️ Consistently 3–7% (and sometimes higher with Grow Spotlight Forms) Even smarter, she has an entire Free Resource Library that her audience can easily access from the homepage, which helps new readers discover more value and stick around even longer. What She Sends Her Email List Samantha emails her list once a week, and keeps it personal, useful, and light:
It’s thoughtful and it’s consistent. That’s why her open and click rates are strong, and her audience keeps coming back. Her #1 Tip for Email Growth? “Your audience is already telling you what they want; just pay attention to what they ask you for.” Samantha’s big shift didn’t come from copying what was working for other bloggers. It came from tuning into what her audience was already asking for, then giving it to them in a helpful way. Living the Blogging Dream “I still have to pinch myself every day that this is what I do for a living.” A few years ago, Samantha had no blog. No readers. No clear plan. And now she’s a full-time blogger making six figures, growing her blog and email list every single week, and getting heartfelt messages from readers who used her itineraries to plan their dream trips. The blogging world isn’t just for influencers or people who got in early. It’s still very real, very possible, and Samantha’s story is proof. This newsletter reaches over 30,000 bloggers, creators, and digital entrepreneurs each week, and with a 53% average open rate, it’s one of the few emails people actually look forward to. From time to time, I team up with brands that genuinely align with what my readers are looking for, whether that’s tools to grow their blog, boost their income, or simplify their creator work. I keep it honest: sponsored content is always disclosed. So, if your company supports the travel blogging or digital creator space and you’d like to sponsor this newsletter, reply to this email and we can chat. 🚨 How To Monetize Your Blog Like a Funnel (Without TONS of Traffic) 🚨 How To Turn Your Blogging Skills Into Income, No Matter What the Economy Looks Like 🚨 Learn how to design a blog you’ll LOVE, without sacrificing user experience or site speed (without Elementor, Beaver Builder, or Divi) Talk to you soon, Laura P.S. Here are my top recommended blogging resources. ✔️ #1 Travel Blogging Course + Coaching + Community: Scale Your Travel Blog |
Laura Peters || Travel Blogging, Affiliate Marketing, Email Marketing
Laura Peters is the owner and author of Mike & Laura Travel, a blog that helps travelers find unique destinations and travel experiences on a budget. She is also the CEO of Scale Your Travel Blog, a coaching program that helps travel bloggers start, grow, and scale their travel blog income. When she isn't writing blog posts about her favorite travel destinations, she is serving her audience through Scale Your Travel Blog and her live/virtual events, Travel Blogging Summit.
In 2018, Mike and I decided to start traveling full-time. At that point, I had already spent a few years bouncing around: teaching English in Thailand, backpacking through Europe on a budget, and living out of a campervan in New Zealand. So going full-time wasn’t a huge stretch. What made it possible was teaching English online with VIPKID (they’re hiring again, by the way). I was pulling in around $2,500–$3,000/month, which was enough to fund our life in places like Southeast Asia and...
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💡 Travel Blogging Success Story 💡 How Tanya Grew Her Blog to $800/Month with Just 4,900 Sessions(After Less Than 1 Year Blogging) One of my favorite things lately has been sharing success stories and behind-the-scenes tips from real bloggers inside Scale Your Travel Blog. And if you’ve been wondering whether it’s still worth starting a blog, or whether you should keep going, use this success story as proof that it absolutely is. Today, I want you to meet Tanya from The T Word on Travel. When...