How to Quit Your Job and Travel The World In One Year (Or Less)

Chances are, you travel. A lot.

But are your travels limited by a lack of time or money?

It sucks, right?

Believe me, I’ve been there.

This lesson outlines how to break the cycle. It shows how to start building a profitable travel blog which will help fund your travels indefinitely.

But first, a little backstory…

Act #1: The Grind

My wife Darcie and I were working like crazy in San Jose, CA. She was working 60 hours a week with one job, while I worked as a travel agent by day and waiter by night. It sucked.

But it was worth it. We ultimately saved enough money to take a year off and travel through Southeast Asia, India and Nepal.

During this time we did something different: we began building websites which produced passive income. Now please don’t get me wrong. It’s like we’re internet millionaires or anything. At the time we were probably making $600 a month passively.

Act #2: The Beach

But $600 a month takes you pretty far in other countries. So we lived on our passive income and dipped into savings for the rest each month.

The whole time, however, we kept working on building more websites. It wasn’t all just work… we had a damn good time. Scuba diving in Thailand and Indonesia. Trekking in Nepal. Meditation courses in India.

Then we headed home…

Act #3: The Return

We returned to California and got “real” jobs for awhile. Darcie did marketing for a toy company and I worked as a marketing analyst for Google (and doing copywriting on the side).

We kept building websites, but to be honest, most of them were crap. Looking back, I wasn’t interested in helping people… I just wanted to make money.

And it showed.

It wasn’t until we launched Trekity (and now TBA) that I loved working on a website. And you know what?

It shows.

This is the key to a successful travel blog. You have to LOVE working on it. You should improve your writing, build your traffic, write guest posts, monetize your site… and love every minute of it.

Journalist Maria Bartiromo famously said:

Don’t ever, ever, believe anyone who tells you that you can just get by, by doing the easiest thing possible. Because there’s always somebody behind you who really wants to do what you’re doing. And they’re going to work harder than you if you’re not working hard.

Put simply: passion drives success.

So does planning. So with this in mind, let’s take a moment and review what we’ve discussed in this course so far:

Choose Your USP

Find out what makes you different than other travel sites. Choose a region (unless you’re stupid ambitious like me and cover the whole world) then determine what it takes to stand out.

Travelfish rocks in Southeast Asia - could you do something similar in Central America? How about Africa?

Or instead of choosing a region, select a few interests like scuba diving or cooking. Then write about your travels where you actually DO these activities and offer advice about it.

Perhaps the best example of this is Fluent in 3 Months, which covers language learning around the world. Benny (the site’s creator) sells his own Language Hacking Guide from the site.

This is a smart business model. He provides killer free content targeted to a specific demographic (people who want to speak another language) and sells a premium guide once they’ve learned to trust him and his content.

All this comes from having a strong USP.

The next step is to…

Use WordPress.org

Host your blog on your own server (instead of WordPress.com) so you own your real estate. Then, install the necessary plugins and carefully select a few additional ones to serve your needs.

Create Killer Content for Your Readers

Every piece of content you write serves a higher purpose. It should answer your readers burning questions and build trust with them. Then, when you create a paid product they know what level of value your bring to the table.

Of course, killer content takes time. This one took me fifteen hours of work. But it shows a level of commitment and really helps you stand out. Stealing from yourself doesn’t hurt, either.

There are still two main ingredients: getting traffic and monetizing your travel blog. We’ll discuss these in later tutorials… for now, focus on getting your USP, blog and content up and running.

By the end of the year, you’ll have one helluva travel blog set up.

I promise.

To your successful travel blog,

Adam Costa

Editor in Chief, Travel Blogger Academy

P.S. This is part of a 24 part course on travel blogging. If you haven’t already, sign up for it now.