HOW ARE WE LIVING FROM OUR TRAVEL BLOG?

Quite simply by transparency (indeed, we have not hidden from you since our beginnings that this is our professional activity), but also because it is the question, we are asked the most about our profession of the dream! (And that Uncle Maurice still does not manage to understand how we can live with a “blog” and by “wandering” in the world). We discuss clearly and simply the different ways that allow us to pay ourselves today. This corresponds to our situation; it will not necessarily be the same with other US travel bloggers. This article is also an opportunity to explain to you (for the new ones) how we got there. Certainly, by working (a lot), there is no mystery! But our story is somewhat atypical.

Full-Time Travel Photographers and Bloggers,

our history…

It was in 2013 and thanks to a huge competition in which we (dared) to participate that our life changed. We were initially a little mocked, no but frankly why apply for a global competition alongside more than 300,000 candidates from all over the planet, we had no chance…! Does French pessimism speak to you?

By flying to Australia for a year as part of the Best Job in the World, we discovered a whole new world. Certainly, the island of greece continent was a daily change of scenery, but this experience also allowed us to put a foot in the blogosphere and social networks. A few years ago, the environment was still very different, rather confidential, and the people who lived in it in the world were a privileged few.

We discovered a new vocation there. For me, that of writing and sharing experiences on our travel blog. If I have never really in my life been able to answer the eternal question “what do you want to do later?” », I knew deep down that I loved traveling, meeting people, and speaking foreign languages. Becoming an Australian Ambassador for 1 year was my luck, I now felt much more at my place than behind a Parisian office writing emails all day for a major brand in the tourism industry… I had found a meaning of what I was doing: to inspire. Max, meanwhile, loved to move from the rather superficial world of fashion to that of the great outdoors. Adapt your photographic eye to natural light, to nature.

6 years later (already! Like what life goes even faster when you do what you love!), We are still here with a travel blog that is now among the most important in the French-speaking world and social networks which have more subscribers every day. We still can’t believe this life change and we thank you! Know that all was not easy, that there were galleys, big moments of doubts, and especially a big leap into the unknown on the return from Australia! We wanted to take the risk of living off our passions and no one understood how we were going to make a living by “walking” around the world!!

It is in these precise moments that you must listen to the depths of yourself, forget about others and go for it!!

“In 20 years, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did”

We have listed the different activities that are part of our job today, you will see that we do not live from our travel blog. You must be versatile to succeed, a real Swiss army knife as we like to say! Being creative, hardworking, and passionate are other essentials.

1. Content creation for the blog, our RS and white label

With our various current projects, we are required to produce content, whether visual (photo, video) or editorial (writing articles). By relying from the start on the profession of Max (photographer) and his talented eye (we must admit he is gifted even if he will never say it), we were able to sell our images to brands in the travel sector. and regional or national tourist offices around the world. Photos used for their communication (print/digital). The same goes for videos.

We started by canvassing and then over the years, word of mouth and our visibility on the web means that we are contacted a lot today.

We are therefore fortunate to be able to choose our collaborations, which is essential. In our opinion, this is what makes and will make the difference in the long run with those who accept anything and everything under the pretext of being paid. We’ll talk about it again later.

Among all our content creation missions, some will be visible on the blog while others will be carried out in white-label, ie on behalf of a brand. We are not in these cases, not hired as family travel bloggers, but as a production agency for photo/video. Sometimes we show you behind the scenes, but these missions are not found on our blog.

2. The influence side

Brands and destinations approach us for the visibility we can offer them. Bloggers and influencers have become a real medium, reaching a target that is difficult to reach by traditional advertising.

As I told you previously, each project and request are studied on a case-by-case basis. It is very important to choose your collaborations and partnerships well so that they have meaning for you and for us. It must bring something to everyone, otherwise no, trash!

We need to feel proud and comfortable telling you about a certain product or service. Otherwise, we refuse, even if sometimes the remuneration is very attractive. Our image and your confidence are more important than a ticket. We owe it to ourselves to respect our values and to be demanding in our choices. If these are relevant, then it doesn’t really matter whether we get paid or not. You shouldn’t even notice it in our posts. It must be natural and spontaneous.

Because we read more and more often in the press that brands buy the voice of influencers, we wanted to clarify that when we go on a trip in collaboration with a tourist office, for example, our partner has no rights. look at our publications. We prepare a lot before our stay to identify the places where we want to sleep, eat, activities, and places that we do not want to miss. The goal is to prepare an itinerary that resembles us and that we will want to tell you and share. Avoid falling into “tourist trap” attractions that will put us in an uncomfortable situation with our client and towards our community. All this takes a lot of time and requires several round trips with our partners,

In any case, we want to remain free to transcribe our trips according to our personal feelings and our own appreciation.

It is important to keep your objectivity and your critical sense, which is why we do not hesitate to tell you the flaws when there are any during our travels. Safety, scams, environmental issues, all of this again is only related to our personal experience and may vary from person to person. You must be aware. These are the joys of travel…

3. Our travel blog

Very occasionally, we may agree to place sponsored links when it does something to you, our readers. Concretely, this involves receiving remuneration for inserting a link to a product/service in one of our blog articles. If it’s more info, why not.

For example, a service helping famous world travelers to apply for a visa in a foreign country can be difficult to cope with on our own if we do not speak English or do not have time to do the paperwork. On the other hand, we will not tell you about a consumer credit or an anti-wrinkle cream (even if we start to need it lol) in the middle of a travel article. We sometimes receive aberrant requests, you can’t imagine! You must be careful not to turn into a billboard, to be careful of the drifts that can happen quickly, as we can see in some…

Thanks to the flow of visitors to our site, we can supplement our annual income with what is called affiliation… It is quite simply the insertion of tracked links on our blog referring to booking platforms that we also use on a personal basis for our trips (booking.com, Skyscanner, rental cars in particular). In all transparency, we assure you that for you, this does not change anything in the final price paid for your hotel night or your rental car, for example, whether you book them via our blog or directly on these platforms. On the other hand, by booking via our blog, you help us to keep our site up to date since these platforms pay us a small commission per night/car reserved. It’s a bit like a business introducer system.

We have also developed the affiliation for important services when traveling, namely travel insurance. We offer you on the blog the two companies that we use regularly for our stays abroad, namely Chapka and ACS. They are tested regularly by us, and we have always been satisfied with them.

Again, we wouldn’t affiliate with anything and everything. We validate the tools/sites that we know and use personally.

4. Be a speaker at specialized conferences

Over the past few years, we have been and have been approached to come and testify about our experience as World’s Best Job winners and how we managed to transform the essay into becoming full-time travel photographers and bloggers…

Attending conferences and trade fairs specializing in the world of tourism and influence is exciting and when we can be speakers to share our experience, it is even more exciting! In Australia, Paris, Switzerland, or even recently in Berry for the Tops of Tourism, we take great pleasure in these presentations and these moments of sharing.

5. Copyrights

Last year, we published our first book “Australia, our 100 favorites, The Adventure of the Best Job in the World”. A step that was particularly close to our hearts to tell our extraordinary story in the land of kangaroos, an episode that changed our lives!

If we did not do it for the money, the sale of our books online and in bookstores brings us additional income in copyright, but our name is not yet Marc Levy. this is rather anecdotal knowing that in general authors earn 5% of sales revenue.

6. Sale of photo prints to individuals

If we have never taken the time to develop a real online store to sell our photos, you can now find a nice selection on the Wonder Road Travel website to make beautiful fine art prints with our traveler photos to decorate your interior and offer. Think about it, the quality and the service will be there.

Here we are, we have listed the different sources of income in our life as influencers, travel blogger, and travel photographers today.

If we can make a living from it, it is by investing ourselves 300% from the beginning in our hectic life. In all fairness, we must tell you that we have never worked so hard since we started our travel blog! We show you the glamorous side daily, but there is a lot of work behind it. Being an entrepreneur is not always rosy, you must fight and give everything to live your dreams!

In any case, we thank you for your trust and loyalty over the years and know that we take our role of “dream sellers” very seriously. Know that your comments and feedback are our greatest reward.