How to make money with a Travel Blog | Free Guide

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When I started Chasing Whereabouts, I had the same doubt every travel blogger has: does anyone actually make money from this? You see creators with lakhs of followers flying around the world for free, and you assume that kind of income is reserved for influencers.

Years later, I can tell you — it's simply not true. You don't need millions of followers. You need content that helps people already planning a trip, plus an affiliate setup that turns that help into bookings.

The platform that made the biggest difference for me is Travelpayouts. I've been using it on Chasing Whereabouts for years to monetize destination guides, itineraries, pass reviews, and activity posts. Dig through this site's travel links and you'll find Travelpayouts-network links (trainline.tp.st, hostelworld.tp.st) across 25 posts — that's how long these have been part of the setup.

So far I've generated [YOUR_TP_BOOKING_VALUE — e.g. "$X,XXX+" total booking value] in travel bookings through Travelpayouts, across [YOUR_BOOKING_COUNT — e.g. "X+" reservations], earning [YOUR_COMMISSIONS — e.g. "~$X,XXX"] in commissions. Below I'll share the programs that earn the most, the AI tools that save me time, and the posts that drive the most bookings.

This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to book or sign up for a program, I may earn a commission. I use affiliate links to keep this content free to read. Should you choose to book through any of my links, thank you so much!

TLDR: My Travelpayouts Results at a Glance

• [YOUR_TP_BOOKING_VALUE] in travel bookings (activities, hotels, rental cars, and more)
• [YOUR_BOOKING_COUNT] bookings generated
• [YOUR_COMMISSIONS] in commissions earned
• [YOUR_TP_VISITS] unique visits to pages where Travelpayouts is enabled
• [YOUR_MONTHLY_SESSIONS] average monthly sessions
• 897 published posts, 218 destination pages
• 6,466 clicks, 1.2M impressions in the last 12 months
• 1,318 Tiqets links live across 568 posts — the pass-review backbone

What is Travelpayouts?

Travelpayouts is a travel affiliate platform that works as a one-stop shop for travel affiliate content. You earn commissions by referring travelers to hotels, tours, rental cars, travel insurance, airport transfers, and other travel services.

Instead of applying to dozens of separate programs, it brings hundreds of travel brands together under a single dashboard — you discover partners, create tracking links, monitor bookings, and track earnings in one place. When you run a site with 900+ posts, you don't want to log into ten affiliate panels to check the month. One login, all programs, done.

Who is Travelpayouts For?

Anyone who writes or creates travel-focused content — a traditional travel blog like this one, a newsletter, or social media content. It works best for content targeting travelers actively planning a trip: people looking for places to stay, things to do, or ways to get around.

The Travelpayouts Programs That Generate the Most Revenue for My Blog

I've experimented with several partners over the years, but these are the ones that consistently perform on a site like Chasing Whereabouts.

The booking values below come from the Travelpayouts dashboard, so I've left them as [YOUR_PROGRAM_BOOKING_VALUE] placeholders for you to paste your own. What I can show you from the site itself is the affiliate-link footprint each program has built up here:

Tiqets — the pass-review backbone

Tiqets is easily the biggest program on Chasing Whereabouts, and it's not close: 1,318 Tiqets links across 568 posts — the backbone of our city-pass content.

The reason is simple: we publish pass reviews like "Milan Pass Review" and "Athens Pass Review". A reader searching "is the athens city pass worth it" is in the decision stage — they've shortlisted the pass and just need a second opinion. Recommending the ticket on Tiqets is the natural next step: helpful, not promotional.

Our Google Search Console data backs this up. Pass-intent queries ("city pass worth it", "pass review") account for 80 clicks and 10,110 impressions in the top-1000 export alone, and the Milan pass review already pulls 99 clicks at position 31.78.

[YOUR_TIQETS_BOOKING_VALUE — booking value from Tiqets in your TP dashboard]

GetYourGuide

GetYourGuide is our second tours-and-activities partner, with 344 links across 118 posts. It fits the things-to-do guides perfectly — the same posts that answer "what should I do in this city" can carry a booking link for the top experiences. It's strongest for structured experiences: guided walking tours, day trips, museum visits with a guide. Where Tiqets wins on tickets and city passes, GetYourGuide wins on experiences people book in advance.

[YOUR_GYG_BOOKING_VALUE]

Viator

Viator has the deepest reach of our activity programs — 174 links across 167 posts. It's almost everywhere, and that's deliberate: things-to-do guides and day-trip posts are exactly where Viator performs. I cross-reference Viator and GetYourGuide because the same tour often exists on both platforms — I pick whichever program fits the post better.

[YOUR_VIATOR_BOOKING_VALUE]

Booking.com, DiscoverCars & TripAdvisor Experiences — the supporting cast

Three more programs round out the setup. Booking.com carries 503 links across 91 posts — hotels matter inside itineraries, where a well-placed hotel CTA at the overnight stops makes the whole guide more useful. DiscoverCars has 61 links across 48 posts and earns where travelers need transport after arrival — rental cars are a high-ticket booking. TripAdvisor Experiences is the newest layer: in one cleanup pass we updated 148 older posts, injected 501 affiliate opportunities, and roughly 60 of those posts picked up TripAdvisor-family links. The lesson there wasn't about TripAdvisor specifically — it's that old content can earn again. More on that in the lessons section.

[YOUR_BOOKING_COM_VALUE — booking value from Booking.com] [YOUR_DISCOVERCARS_VALUE — booking value from DiscoverCars] [YOUR_TRIPADVISOR_VALUE — booking value from TripAdvisor Experiences]

How I Use Travelpayouts Drive to Save Time

Travelpayouts Drive is the AI-powered system that analyzes your content and visitor behavior to find monetization opportunities across your website. For a site with 900+ posts, this is huge — I can't manually check every page for new affiliate opportunities. Here are the features I actually use:

• Automatic affiliate link conversion: Drive detects eligible travel links on your site and converts them into Travelpayouts affiliate links automatically — you can even exclude programs you're running elsewhere. This is the Emerald script, already live on Chasing Whereabouts from our site layout.
• Keyword linking: Drive identifies travel-related keywords and adds affiliate links where they make sense.
• Insert Recommendations: Drive displays relevant hotels, tours, and rental cars that match the page topic, with a UI that stays consistent across all my posts.
• Smart previews: Readers see extra details about a travel offer without leaving the page.
• Behavior-based optimization: Drive adapts to visitor behavior and surfaces offers when travelers are most likely to engage.

I've applied the same idea myself: in one automated pass this year we modernized 148 older posts and injected 501 affiliate CTAs. Old pages earning again, without writing a single new post.

Which Posts Generate the Most Revenue for My Blog?

One pattern stands out: high-intent content beats high-traffic content, every time. Here are the three archetypes that convert for us.

Archetype 1: Comparison guides (pass reviews)

Our pass reviews are the top earners. "Milan Pass Review: Is It Worth It?" gets 99 clicks a month at position 31.78 — pure bottom-of-funnel. The reader already wants the pass; they're just confirming the choice, and the Tiqets link is a natural part of the verdict.

[YOUR_MILAN_BOOKING_VALUE — booking value from this post in your TP dashboard]

Archetype 2: Things-to-do guides

We have 118 things-to-do posts — the workhorses of the site. "Top Things To Do in Frankfurt" pulls 99 clicks with 20,081 impressions: big traffic and bookable intent.

[YOUR_FRANKFURT_BOOKING_VALUE]

Archetype 3: Itineraries with hotel CTAs

We have 31 itinerary posts, and this is where the hotel stream comes in. "Day Trips From Metz" gets 30 clicks at position 28.16 — comparison intent. When an itinerary includes overnight stops, recommending places to stay is a natural extension.

[YOUR_METZ_BOOKING_VALUE]

My 3 Biggest Travelpayouts Lessons

• Lesson #1: Bottom-of-funnel beats top-of-funnel. Our most-clicked post is "Bruges Instagram Captions" with 930 clicks. It gets traffic, but captions content is inspiration — those readers aren't booking anything. The pass reviews with a fraction of the clicks are the ones that earn.
• Lesson #2: Don't fear AI — make it work for you. Drive-style automation let us update 148 posts in one pass. Without tools like this, a 900-post site stalls.
• Lesson #3: Small improvements to high-traffic pages beat new posts. Adding the right affiliate CTA to an already-ranking page is faster and more profitable than publishing something new that may never rank.

How to Get Started with Travelpayouts

Getting started is free and takes a few minutes. Create an account, browse hundreds of travel affiliate programs, apply to the ones that fit your content, generate links, and track bookings and commissions from one dashboard. And enable Travelpayouts Drive — that's where the AI tools live.

💡 Bonus: Earn up to $600 by referring other creators to Travelpayouts

Travelpayouts runs a creator referral program. Invite fellow bloggers and earn up to $600 per creator you refer as they hit earning milestones. And right now there's an extra $25 bonus for new partners who register by August 7, enable Drive, and book within 30 days.

Join Travelpayouts & share your referral link →

Ready to get started? Create your free account using my referral link below — you'll be eligible for the current new-creator bonus.

GET UP TO $600 PER CREATOR + $25 BONUS BY AUG 7 →

Read More From Chasing Whereabouts

• How To Start A Travel Blog
• Travel Backlinks For SEO
• Instagram Travel Hashtags
• How We Migrated Chasing Whereabouts From WordPress to React

Best Tours & Experiences

For guided tours and experiences, I recommend checking Viator — they have a huge selection with free cancellation on most bookings. You can also browse TripAdvisor Experiences for more local tours, day trips, and attraction tickets with real traveller reviews.