How To Monetize Your Travel Photos – The Lowdown

Sure I have been offered numerous, and sometimes attractive, monetary packages. But as with everything in life, with the good comes the bad. In order to get the cash, I would have to display some seriously ugly adverts in a prominent position on my homepage, and the adverts would be by far-from-ideal companies such as Casinos and Penis enlargers! Thanks, but no thanks.

I have also been contacted by PR agencies who are willing to write guest posts on my blog, which will include subtle links to extremely irrelevant products, in return for some cash. Again, I was not willing to lose readers and fans, who I knew would probably hate the ‘Guest articles’, just to make a quick buck. Thanks, but no thanks.

I have been offered free press trips to various luxury hotels, from Scotland to Ibiza, and while everyone LOVES a free trip, it always seemed to be a destination at the other side of the world from where I currently was. Oh, and often the flights were not even included! Also, no remuneration was involved. Thanks, but no thanks. I have had companies try to send me products, like travel towels and gadgets, extensions for GoPro cameras or some sort of protein shakes. As all were totally and utterly irrelevant to this blog, I said (yes, you guessed it!!) – Thanks, but no thanks!!

So the question is, How am I supposed to make money from my blog?

Travayl.com appears to be the answer…at least for bloggers with a great collection of travel photos. The site, which is a social travel platform that is a mix between ‘Tripadvisor’ and ‘Instagram’, hopes that travelers will come to the site, be inspired by the large collection of travel photos and will continue on to book flights, hotels and holidays. The site will even tell you how long it takes to get from country A to country B, how much the taxi, flight, train etc will cost and where are the best places to stay once there. All the hard work is done for you, you just have to sit back and enjoy the view!

Sound’s pretty good, right? RIGHT! But how can I, the blogger, make money from this lovely concept? Well right now the site is looking to partner with bloggers from all over the world. Before they launch the website to the public and the media in 2 months, they need as many travel bloggers and photographers as possible to sign up, create a profile, and upload all their incredible travel snaps.

Once the site is officially launched, people can browse through the photographs, search for hashtags that interest them, create ‘bucket-lists’ of the places they hope to go and can even book their holiday through the site. That’s where the $$$ comes in. If a user decides to book something after being inspired by your photograph, you will get a small cut. Every time a user decides to book something after looking at your travel pics, more money will come into your account.

CHA-CHING!!

If you are a travel blogger like me and want to be a partner, sign up HERE.

If you’re just an armchair traveler and want to check out the site, you can do so HERE.